ELLICE QUENTIN

AND OTHER STORIES

BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE

AUTHOR OF 'GARTH' ETC.

A NEW EDITION

London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

PREFACE.

Conciseness, as distinguished from mere brevity, is a literary virtue; and the novelist who can and will pack his stories into the smallest space compatible with the adequate development of his idea, deserves especially well of his readers. For he has a twofold temptation to do otherwise. In the first place, diffuseness is easy to the writer; it relieves him from the strain of too closely fixing his attention upon the matter in hand; he may approach it gradually and tentatively, and, as it were, teach himself what he wants to say by talking about it. In the second place, the existing conditions of publication and remuneration render it inadvisable, from a business point of view, to aim at compactness; on the contrary, immediate profit is best consulted by inflexibly diluting whatever idea may present itself, into the largest bulk consistent with its remaining a recognisable idea at all—or even, at a pinch, a little beyond this limit. Nor are these the only objections that might be urged against short stories. That novelist must be empty-headed indeed, who, in the course of a thousand pages, does not occasionally generate something poignant and effective; whereas, if he confine himself to fifty or a hundred, he may conceivably escape the utterance of a single word worth listening to. Again, the ordinary novel-reader, accustomed, in view of the shortness of human life, to glance only at the heads and tails of paragraphs, and to take the rest as read, may chance inadvertently to observe the same practice with the short story; the consequence of which would be that the most conscientiously condensed tale would appear the most vacuous and insignificant.

Nevertheless, short story writing is a branch of the literary art worth cultivating, if only to confirm the fact that many stories which now appear long, would, if honestly written, turn out as short as the shortest. It is not too much to say that nine-tenths of the three-volume novels now published, if stripped of matter purely superfluous and impertinent, would shrink into less than one-tenth their present dimensions. The best hope for modern fictitious literature, especially that written in the English language, lies in the incontinent and unsparing application of the pruning-knife; not only to relieve the increasing mental dyspepsia of readers, but to discover to writers what their work is worth, when extricated from its voluminous conventional wrappings.

The five stories comprised in the following pages were written, some long ago, some recently, as the lack of homogeneity in their style and conception sufficiently indicates. No writer who values his art will permit himself to produce work which (at the time at least) he would desire to see forgotten. As his mind grows, however, and his experience widens, he constantly detects imperfections in that which he had before deemed passable, and the impulse arises in him to blot out or ignore everything anterior to what he now regards as his best period. My critics would doubtless spare me the trouble of saying that little harm would have resulted, in the present instance, had that impulse been yielded to. But an author may, in some measure, justify his soft-heartedness towards his offspring by pleading, first, that he is not always the person best qualified to pronounce judgment on the comparative merits of this or that child of his brain; and secondly, that there is a faculty of youth as well as a faculty of maturity, and that the former may occasionally evolve something which, though crude in form, shall in substance be sounder than the products of later years. It may furthermore be remarked that stories contributed (as all of the present collection have been) to magazines, are liable, except in special cases, to pass out of the author's control; whence it can happen that material which he himself might feel inclined to reject, may nevertheless make its appearance upon the responsibility of other judges. It only remains for him in that case to hope that the public will not see with his eyes.

London: August, 1880.

CONTENTS.

ELLICE QUENTIN.

THE COUNTESS'S RUBY.

A LOVER IN SPITE OF HIMSELF.

KILDHURM'S OAK.

THE NEW ENDYMION.

ELLICE QUENTIN.

I.

A man about thirty-four years of age was sitting a few years ago in his bachelor rooms in one of the inns of court. It was a spring afternoon, warm for the season; the window was open, and above the high-shouldered brick buildings a glimpse of eastern sky appeared, with a pinkish flush upon it, reflected from the sunset clouds in the opposite quarter of the heavens. Through the window were also visible the boughs of a tree upon which the bright green buds were beginning to unfold; and a couple of sparrows were chirping to one another as they fluttered from twig to twig. A muffled hush was in the air, peculiar to these London enclosures, into which horses and vehicles seldom enter; the roar of the great thoroughfare, though only a few rods distant, being almost inaudible to the occupant of this quiet chamber; while the light ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece, and the twittering of the birds, were both perceptible to him.

He sat heavily and motionlessly in his chair—a tall, powerfully-built man with gloomy brow and a thick dark beard. In his right hand he held an envelope, which had been torn open; but, after reading the enclosure, he had mechanically put it back. The envelope bore the name of Geoffrey Herne, in a woman's handwriting, and the London postmark. About half an hour had gone by since Herne read the letter, during which time he had been sitting as he was now, plunged in thought. His meditations had not, however, been occupied all that time with the subject of the letter; but certain passages in his past life had been passing in review before his mind: passages in which Ellice Quentin was the central figure. She was a slender girl when he first knew her, looking taller than she was, with strange grey-green eyes, and a clear but bright colour in her cheeks. Her face was very attractive to some people, though it had no pretensions to regular beauty; the features were delicately but oddly formed, indicating a refined and talented but wayward and unaccountable nature. In her ordinary home life, and also when she was in the company of those she did not like, she was silent, repellent, and cold; but she not seldom in favouring circumstances kindled into brilliance of talk and action; and there was a vein of passion in her which was itself the secret of her frequent coldness. Her lips, red as blood, were gracefully moulded and were perfectly under her control; by subtle modulations she could render them expressive of any emotion. Her figure was slight at this time, and scarcely as fully developed as that of most girls of her age; but she never made an ungainly movement, or fell into an awkward position; and she had such a genius for costume that whatever she put on straightway seemed to become an organic part of her. Her wrists were slender and long, and her fingers tapered almost to a point: Geoffrey Herne had felt their touch upon his face as soft as the thrill of delight that at the same moment swept his heart. But that was not until many months after their first meeting, which was unromantic enough; Mr. Quentin having invited him to dinner to discuss some professional business (Herne was a barrister). Ellice had treated him on this occasion with undisguised superciliousness, somewhat to Herne's amusement at first; for Mr. Quentin—an obese and ineffective elderly gentleman—though he boasted of blue blood somewhere in his veins, was far from being in a prosperous or dignified worldly condition; was very poor, in fact, and thought of nothing but obtaining possession of some property to which he had a very questionable claim. Meanwhile tradesmen used to present their bills with annotations at the bottom, intimating a desire more or less urgent to have them settled at once. Hereupon poor Mr. Quentin would wince and splutter; but Ellice, leaning back in her chair, with her hands folded on her lap, would meet his eye coldly and narrowly, with a sarcastic smile curling one side of her lips. Mr. Quentin would rather face a score of insolent creditors than that little smile of his daughter's. For Ellice was a natural aristocrat far more than an hereditary one—she was born for a life of luxury and fastidious refinement, and her father could not help recollecting, at these moments, that he had thrown away eighty thousand pounds of money which should have been hers upon the turf; nor had he the consolation of reflecting that Ellice was ignorant of this fact. Ignorant of it! He sometimes shuddered to think how many facts discreditable to him that cold, silent girl probably knew. She was not always silent either; she could utter agonising remarks in a semi-jocose way. But let us do the young lady justice. It was within Mr. Quentin's memory that once, when he had returned home late at night, after a miserably unsuccessful interview with his lawyers, and had let himself into the house noiselessly with his latch-key, dreading to encounter Ellice's unsympathetic look, he had suddenly felt two slender arms drawn tightly about his neck in the darkness, and a hot and wet cheek pressed against his own. At that the unfortunate man had broken into sobs; Ellice had tried to soothe him, and sitting on his knee, with her head against his shoulder, had spoken to him such words as he had not heard since he and his dead wife were young. But after awhile she had fallen silent, and in the midst of an incoherent monologue of his on the subject of his wrongs and misadventures, she had risen abruptly and left him, with only a curt good-night. She was a strange girl.

Geoffrey Herne's first impression of Ellice had not been particularly favourable, and if she had behaved as most young ladies would have done under the circumstances, he might probably have never bestowed a second thought upon her. But her gratuitous arrogance, after amusing him for awhile, began to pique him; and being possessed of an exceedingly keen tongue and wit of his own, he was tempted to enter into conversation with her. The dialogue which followed was probably worthy of a listener more intelligent than Mr. Quentin; the upshot of it being (so far as Herne was concerned) that he found it would require all his wit, and more than all his temper, to hold his own fairly against this oblique-eyed young lady, with her curving scarlet lips. They parted that night on terms of almost open hostility, and Herne, as he went homewards, more than once found his brows drawing together and his lips compressed at the recollection of the things she had said to him. 'She is a lady, though—confound her impudence!' was the sum of his mental comments. Her image was very vivid in his memory—unpleasantly so, indeed; not only that, but the intonation of her voice—her way of lifting back her head with a kind of haughty surprise when he addressed her; the gesture of her hands and shoulders—all were present to him. Moreover he recalled one or two instances in which she had unmistakably had the better of him in the duel of words, and his face grew hot anew with a really disproportionate vexation. He would rather have made a fool of himself before the Lord Chief Justice of England than before that slender girl of twenty. He then resolved that he would avoid seeing her for the future; but he finally modified his determination so far as to tell himself that he would first give her such evidence of his superior qualities as should make her regret ever having had the temerity to provoke him.

As it turned out, this was a much longer and more arduous enterprise than he had anticipated; insomuch that after several months had gone by he did not seem much nearer the consummation than at first. The antagonism between him and Ellice had been—superficially, at least—constant and unrelenting; but meanwhile he had incidentally come to know her well, and he was too clear-sighted a man not to perceive that she was beginning to be indispensable to him. The discovery occasioned him much anxiety and inward struggle. His predilections had for years been against marriage, and he certainly had little encouragement to think that Ellice would ever dream of marrying him. One day, however, after a peculiarly bitter passage-at-arms, he rose and took up his hat to depart. He had something to say first, though, which had been on his mind for a week or two past.

'You are going?' she said indifferently, or, rather, with an air as of relief.

'Yes, I am going; and, as I shall probably not see you again, I will say good-bye.'

'Oh! You have had enough of it at last?'

'I am going to Australia.'

She looked slowly up at him as he stood near her chair, and looked slowly down again, while the colour gradually deepened in her cheeks. 'This is really the most entertaining thing I have heard from you in a long time,' she said lightly after awhile.

'It is the part of wisdom not to outstay one's best witticism,' returned Geoffrey in the same tone; 'so I'll be off at once. Good-bye.' He held out his hand.

'Good-bye,' she answered coldly. But she did not look up, or move her own hand.

'You won't shake hands?'

'What is the use, since we are never to meet again? If you are going, you can go without that.'

'Well, I suppose I can,' said he; and after standing a moment, during which she made no sign except to draw one deep breath, he turned and walked with a heavy tread to the door.

'Mr. Herne!' he heard her say as he laid his hand upon the latch. He looked round without speaking. She beckoned him to her with a movement of the head and hand.

'Excuse me,' she said, 'but I think you—you have left something. Will you come back here a moment?' There was a vibration in her voice that was new to Geoffrey. He came back.

'You were going away without shaking hands,' she said, looking up at him with a curious smile.

'You said that——'

'Oh, well, don't let us quarrel any more; I am tired of it. Here is my hand.'

Geoffrey took it. How soft it was—and how cold! It lay lightly in the embrace of his fingers, but he could perceive a slight tremulousness in it, which seemed also to pervade her whole body.

'You spoke of my having left something——' he began at length.

Her hand suddenly became alive in his, and grasped it tightly. She drew it to her cheek, that was as smooth as the petal of a lily; then slowly turned her face until her lips rested on it. All the blood flew tumultuously through Geoffrey's veins and sang in his ears. He was on his knee beside her, and looking in her eyes, which met his for a moment, and then sank.

'Now go to Australia!' she said in a whisper.

'Ellice—Ellice! Were you the thing I was leaving behind, my dear?' he said, bending forwards till his lips touched hers.... After that there could be no more misunderstandings.

Geoffrey Herne did not go to Australia, either alone, as he had arranged to do, or with Ellice as his wife, as he perhaps might have done; for at this time she would have followed him anywhere in the world—or out of it. But it was decided that they should remain in England, where Geoffrey had good practice as a barrister, in addition to his settled income of six hundred pounds, and be married in May—that is, in about six months. Mr. Quentin put on a portentous aspect when he was first informed of the affair, protruding his under lip and rubbing slowly behind his ear with his middle finger. He sighed and muttered something about having once anticipated a 'more brilliant future—no offence to you, Herne, of course—for his dear Ellice.' But as a matter of fact he was by no means averse to the match, if he had not actually done what he could to promote it. There is apt to be a good deal of humbug inwoven in the characters of elderly men who have seen better days and are not resigned to worse ones. Geoffrey perceived that Mr. Quentin desired to make a merit of doing what really was pleasing to him; and it was not in an expectant son-in-law's heart to object to that. So matters on that side went smoothly.

To make the same remark regarding his relations with Ellice would be a triumph of understatement. These two found heaven in each other. 'I was made to love and to be loved,' she once said to him, as they sat together in the little parlour on Christmas Eve. 'Be sure you make me love you enough!'

'If you had told me to be sure to love you enough——'

She smiled and said, 'Never mind about that: that will be my affair. But I must love so as to forget everything!' He was sitting on a low stool at her feet, his head leaning against her side. She let one arm fall about his neck, and her soft hand caressed his bearded cheek. 'As I love you at this moment,' she continued, in a tender murmur.

He took her hand in his and kissed the soft palm. 'What is it you wish to forget?' he asked presently.

'To tell you would be to remember.'

'But I wish to know.'

'I am not your wife yet: I shall not tell you.... I wish to forget that I have only three dresses, and that you are not the eldest son of an earl.'

Geoffrey leant back his head till he could see her face, and laughed.

'Don't! Worse things have happened,' she said quickly.

'Worse than what?'

'Nothing. Do you think me beautiful?'

'I love you too much to know whether you are beautiful or not. I used to think you were beautiful some time ago, I believe.'

'You do not know what I can be yet. Loving you will make me seem beautiful—even to you!'

'Is that why you want to love me?'

'I don't know. It suits me. I wanted it. I wanted many things, but that most—at least now. Don't you sometimes think it would be wise to die?'

'I haven't thought so since I thought of going to Australia.'

'That isn't what I meant. This is a heavenly happiness; there cannot be another so good; and yet I ... we might try others. Sometimes I feel as if all the world would be too little for me.'

'I shall never want any other kind of happiness; I shall only want more of this kind,' remarked Geoffrey, who did not know that Ellice was opening to him deeper glimpses of her inner self than anyone—than even she herself—had ever before been in the way of getting. He did not know, and therefore, in the security of his well-being, he did not look. But long afterwards he understood.

The weeks and the months went by, and the lives of the lovers grew to be more than ever one delicious life. Ellice's prophecy proved true: she did become more beautiful, in every way. Her moods, her silences, her coldness, were gone; she was even-tempered, blithe and tender; her singular eyes glowed with luxurious light; the curving of her lips was eloquent of refined enticement.

'Did any woman ever love as I do?' she sometimes asked. 'Do I overflow your heart?'

Geoffrey could have but one answer to such questions; and then she would add, 'This is my world, darling; keep me in it!' When they parted in the evening she would whisper to him, 'I do not like to have you leave me; something might happen....' And Geoffrey, as he made his nightly way back to London from the little Putney villa, would image his coming married life in bright colours upon the darkness, and smile to himself at what he took to be Ellice's wayward or superstitious forebodings. 'I am not going to be one of those sentimental dastards who are afraid of their own good luck,' he said comfortably to himself. 'Ellice is in the unsubstantial idealism of love as yet; when we really come together she will forget her premonitions. Earthquakes do not seek people out merely because they are happy; and it would be more reasonable to suppose that those persons attract the lightning into whose souls the iron has already entered. Ha! that is rather a neat figure. I think that would be a good subject for a sonnet.'

This last observation will enable the reader to comprehend how hopelessly in love Geoffrey must have been. But he was not even embarrassed at his condition; he prided himself on it, as if no one had ever thoroughly sounded the depths of the master passion before him. No; neither poetry, romance, nor history were able to furnish him with a parallel to his love; he had practically invented it. 'Not that I take any credit to myself for that,' he would protest modestly to solitude; 'no doubt there have been plenty of fellows who had as much capacity for love as I—or nearly as much. But then I always have the advantage of them in this—that I love Ellice! and that is enough to make a Titan out of a pigmy.' In short, Geoffrey was well content, and convinced that the universe must have been after all created by a personal and benevolent God; though in his former days he had shared the doubts of the late Mr. Mill and others on that subject. He even found latent charms in poor old Mr. Quentin, who was the father of all fascination, and must therefore have it in him somewhere. Mr. Quentin talked about his 'claim' after dinner, with a sort of sapient vapidity of tone and phrase; and pointed out to Geoffrey how probable it was, after all, that his long-baffled hopes would be realised. Geoffrey said that no doubt it was probable enough. He was thinking of Ellice, and arguing that a world which could produce her could surely produce so comparatively contemptible a miracle as the success of Mr. Quentin's suit. It would be little less than a miracle if it occurred. Geoffrey, who, from friendly motives, had at one time investigated the matter almost as thoroughly as a solicitor could have done, knew enough about it to know that. Nevertheless, he now, in the opulence of his felicity, agreed with Mr. Quentin, that all might turn out as he wished. Mr. Quentin, who had great faith in the judgments of those who agreed with him, mentioned what Geoffrey had said to Ellice the next morning. Ellice, who was lifting spoonfuls of coffee from her cup and letting them trickle back again, replaced her spoon quietly in the saucer on hearing this, and became meditative, with chin on hand and downcast eyes.

'What would you do if you got this property, father?' she enquired after a while.

'Take you up to London, and present you to our gracious Sovereign, and let you mingle among those to whose rank in life you were born,' replied he eloquently. 'As for myself,' he continued, lifting up his double chin and settling his stock, 'I shall—should enter Parliament and—and——'

'Give the State the benefit of your experience of unpaid tradesmen's bills,' interposed Ellice sarcastically. It was the old tone, unused by her since her betrothal; but a change seemed all at once to have come over her. Her father's under lip fell, and he stared at her in a piteously crest-fallen way. She pushed back her chair from the table, folded her arms, and gazed intently at the fire. The silence lasted some time. At length she said slowly, still keeping her eyes on the fire, 'I hope, for both our sakes, you will never get it.'

'For both our sakes——?' began Mr. Quentin, with a remonstrative emphasis on 'both'; but his daughter again interrupted him.

'When I say "both," I do not mean myself and you. But what absurdity it all is!' she broke off with a short mocking laugh. 'I might as well hope that the Queen will not come out here this afternoon, and take a cup of tea with us.'

'Well, I must say, Ellice, that I don't understand all this,' exclaimed Mr. Quentin, clearing his throat and pulling down his waistcoat with the air of a man who feels he has been unfairly attacked. 'If you care nothing for ease and dignity yourself, that is no reason why you should grudge your father the means of—hm—comfort and consideration appropriate to advancing years. And hereafter, when I am gone——'

Ellice put up her hand, and a curious smile crossed her lips. 'You are too imaginative, father,' she said, in a quiet, but no longer antagonistic, voice. 'I am very matter-of-fact, and I can see that if what you wish came to pass, it would be the ruin of my happiness. And I daresay you remember that when I am not in a good humour I am not pleasant company. For heaven's sake do not let us mention this foolish subject any more.'

She got up and went out of the room; and Mr. Quentin, after standing for several minutes with his back to the fire, now putting his hands beneath his coat tails, now thrusting them in his pockets, and now inserting his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat in the jerky manner of one whose composure and self-esteem have been exasperated, pulled from his breast-pocket a large leather-covered memorandum-book, opened it, and applied his thick nose diligently to its contents. After a prolonged investigation, he closed it, and ejaculating 'Fifteen thousand a year! and got by a fluke! Why mayn't a fluke transfer it to me?—and then, I fancy, I should see my way to a better match for Ellice than this affair with Herne,'—he buttoned his coat, took a cheroot from the stand on the mantelpiece, lit it, sighed, and walked out.

It is always a question whether, after all our efforts, calculations, and precautions, the issue of events does not remain precisely as much beyond prediction as would have been the case had we forborne to disquiet ourselves. One grey, moist morning, towards the end of May, and about three weeks before the predicted wedding-day, Ellice was walking along one of the suburban roads that lead towards London, in a state of unusual excitement. Her eyes were fixed in preoccupation, her colour was high, and her lips occasionally moved, as if under the influence of vivid thought. Presently the figure of Herne appeared coming along in the opposite direction at his customary long, measured stride. It was his habit when he took a holiday to walk out from London to the Quentins' villa in Putney; and Ellice had expected to meet him. To Geoffrey, however, the encounter was an unlooked-for pleasure; and when he recognised Ellice from afar, he began to make gestures expressive of satisfaction. He did not notice that she made no response to them.

When they met he took her hand and kissed it. The road was only half a country one; several houses were within sight, and he probably thought that a warmer greeting would be open to objection. But Ellice raised her eyes to his with a curiously intent look, in which there was a subtly enlightening expression, readable only to a lover, and which informed Geoffrey that he might follow the dictate of his heart. He was not the man to neglect such a permission, and he stooped and kissed her lips. At the same time he apprehended that some wheel or other must be out of gear: women are seldom heedless of conventionality if their minds are serene.

'Have you come to carry me home with you?' he asked jocosely.

'Let us walk towards London,' answered Ellice, slipping her hand through his arm and causing him to turn. 'I am not going to be at home to-day.'

'Where shall we go, then?'

'Anywhere! I don't care where. To London.'

'By all means. But then there is no necessity for walking. The train will be quicker.'

'No; I prefer to walk—for the present,' said Ellice, speaking quickly and nervously, and pressing her companion's arm between her hands.

'And how long may we be away?'

'I never wish to go back!'

Geoffrey's face suddenly became grave. Her tone and her whole manner now confirmed him in his first suspicion—that something was wrong. He glanced down at Ellice, rapidly passing in mental review all probable or possible causes of the difficulty. At length he said:

'Have you had a row with your father?'

'Yes—no; that is no matter. I want to talk only about ourselves. Do you love me?'

'If we are going to talk about that, it will take some time. One day is not long enough for me to tell you how much I love you.'

'Do you love me enough to do anything for me, or with me?' She moved her free hand down his sleeve to his hand, and repeated, 'Anything?'

'I love you: there is no stronger word or thing that I know of,' replied Geoffrey, feeling, indeed, an immense gush of tenderness in his heart, which his anxiety deepened.

She made no immediate answer, but Geoffrey felt that she was full of restrained excitement, and he insensibly prepared himself for some kind of shock. In this short space he recognised that there might be much in Ellice which he had never known or comprehended.

'But there are so many things in the world!' she broke out suddenly and vehemently. 'Why are they there unless we were meant to have some relation to them? Wealth, and society, and power, and fame; to be able to go where you like and do what you will; to carry out all that is in your mind, without any hindrance from mean and contemptible obstacles that degrade you as well as imprison you! How can one even love with one's whole heart if all those things are wanting? Are you sure you could, Geoffrey?'

'I don't expect to have perfection in everything,' replied he, beginning to feel relieved; 'but the question is, whether all these things you speak of are better worth having than love. Of course, it would be pleasant to have both; but, as a matter of fact, most people seem to get either the one or the other, and not both—except those poor devils who get neither.'

'Oh, I know it—I know it. That is perfectly true, though I don't know why it should be so—I don't think it ought to be so.' She relinquished his arm, and began feverishly to pull off her gloves. 'It is hateful to have to choose,' she added.

'Luckily, we are spared that pain, at all events,' remarked Geoffrey with a smile.

Ellice stopped in her walk, and turning a little towards him, looked at him attentively. She had the air of mentally putting some alternative before herself, and deciding which course she would pursue. She then walked on more slowly, with her eyes downcast.

'One thinks what one would do in such and such a case, even when it does not actually come to pass,' she said. 'A great fortune is a great thing—it is something real. Suppose you had to choose between a great fortune and me?'

'It would be choosing between a great fortune and a greater. Of course I should take the greater,' returned Geoffrey, feeling a certain intellectual satisfaction in his answer. But Ellice pressed her scarlet lips together, as if rejecting any merely complimentary or epigrammatical evasion of her enquiry. She was, in fact, more in earnest than he was, because he had come to the conclusion that she was merely disquieting herself, as women sometimes will, about an imaginary, not to say impossible, contingency. The best way to treat such conduct was to laugh at it.

'But you are a man,' she resumed presently, 'and it would be different with you, because when a man has not got a fortune, he always thinks he can make one. But if you were a woman?'

'In that case I should get the man to decide for me.'

She came close to his side and once more took his arm. 'Yes,' she said, speaking rapidly, 'yes, to feel that a thing is done and cannot be undone. It is so terrible to wait, Geoffrey; something might happen—you might die, or——Geoffrey, I wish it were done.'

'You wish what were done?' demanded he, looking down at her, while his heart gave a bound.

She made no other reply than to meet his eyes intently, the colour gradually overspreading her face.

'That we were married?' he asked at length, in a low tone.

She gave a sudden sigh; then a smile trembled across her lips for a moment, but without affecting the earnestness of her brow.

'Then something has happened?' said Geoffrey, heavily and gravely. 'Tell me.'

'I have told you. What more can I say? I am afraid: I want to be safe!'

'I would have married you six months ago if you would have had me,' said Geoffrey, almost coldly; for he dreaded lest passion should hurry him on to do something which, while for the moment satisfying Ellice, might in the end lead her to reproach him. It was difficult to think clearly at such a juncture, and yet something must be thought and said at once, for no lover can endure to seem in need of stimulus from his mistress. 'Does your father know of this?' he asked.

'No; he would prevent it,' she answered excitedly. 'Geoffrey, do not stop to think whether this is wise or foolish. Do not ask me.... We are together. This is the time.'

'But unless we have a special licence—and that is impossible!'

'Impossible?'

'Ellice—you are not of age.'

She turned very pale, and slowly let go his arm. 'You should not have thought of that—you do not love me.' She turned away, and her hands fell to her sides.

Geoffrey made no reply; for, man of the world and strong though he was, he was trembling all over, and could not trust his voice to speak.

'Good-bye,' said Ellice presently, still keeping her face averted.

'Look at me, my girl!' he exclaimed, taking hold of her wrist: and at his touch she did look up at him for a moment with a singular expression, half wayward and half winning, which he remembered vividly for a long time afterwards. He continued: 'We cannot break the law. If we love each other we can marry in three weeks——'

She raised her other hand quickly, and he stopped. After a pause she said, 'Geoffrey, look at me—look in my eyes, dear. I love you—not in three weeks, but—now.'

The tone in which the words were spoken made Geoffrey feel as if his ordinary life were taken away from him, and a new, perverted, delirious life put in its place. Instinctively, he sought self-defence in incredulity; but it was in vain—there was no mistaking what her eyes said, whatever construction might be forced upon her words. For an instant, a fire sprang up in his own eyes; but then, with a savage effort of the will, he dropped her wrist and said huskily:

'No!'

'Well, it is fate!' returned Ellice with a light sigh. Presently she bit her lip, and gave a little laugh. 'How seriously we have been taking things: anybody would suppose that we—meant something. Good-bye, Geoffrey.'

'What do you mean by good-bye?'

'Nothing; only that I am going home, and that you are not to come with me. Oh, you need not look solemn, or angry. But I must go alone, really.'

'What——'

'And I will write to you to-morrow, and tell you why. Good-bye; we must not do more than shake hands on this street corner, with that chemist's shop opposite, and the waggon coming along. Good-bye until to-morrow.'

'This is strange!' was all that Geoffrey could mutter. She went away from him, walking lightly and swiftly, turning her head towards the right or the left occasionally, but never looking back. Presently he saw something fall from her dress and flutter to the ground without her noticing it; and after she had passed out of sight he walked slowly to it, and picked it up. It was a little black bow. Geoffrey pinned it inside his coat. The next day he received the following letter:

'You were quite right, Geoffrey, and I thank you. But I am going to make you hate me and despise me even more than you did then. We shall not marry in three weeks, or ever. It is better so. I suppose I was destined to experience both—the love of the world as well as your love; to try them both, I mean. I daresay I should never have been contented else. I am a strange girl, as I have told you before. It seems to me I have loved you as much as a woman can ever love a man; and if yesterday—never mind, we will forget that. I have not changed either, only that somehow yesterday seems ages away from me. I do not understand myself, and I don't think I want to. Perhaps marriage would not have come up to my ideal of it; and I could not have borne to be disappointed in it—with you. Perhaps I have had the sweetest that love can give. The other cannot be so sweet, I know; but I must try it, too. It is fate!

'Ellice.

'The person with whom we have been having the lawsuit about the property died last week, and left the property to us, on condition that I married his nephew.'

And at the bottom of the page was added: 'Do not hate me always.'

Geoffrey Herne took this shock with a serenity that surprised himself. Indeed, he got so far as to say, after a few days, that he was glad it had turned out so. Of course he never answered the letter, and he never spoke to anyone of the episode of his engagement to Miss Quentin. It had been known to but few of Herne's acquaintances; and if they learnt the sequel they were all too considerate, or too cautious, to discuss the matter with him, or in his presence. To tell the truth, he was not a very genial companion. He had always had a biting tongue, and now it had become almost venomous. Whenever he saw an opening for saying a cruel witty thing, he said it unhesitatingly, and without compunction, no matter if it were at the expense of his dearest friend. 'I must have my little joke,' he would reply if any remonstrance were attempted. The men in his club began to fight rather shy of him; no one could get the better of him in repartee, and he was noted for never forgetting or forgiving a slight or an ill-turn, even if it were unintentional. 'Herne will have his revenge if he waits a year for it,' used to be said of him in reference to such affairs. It was worth nobody's while to be his enemy, and nobody knew how to be his friend. He saw very little of society; but he worked with vigour at his profession, and every month added to his reputation as a barrister. 'He will be Q.C. before he's forty if he keeps on,' was prophesied of him by a certain learned judge, not given to reckless predictions. It was evident, therefore, that his love-disappointment had done him no harm.

One day, contrary to his usual custom, he accepted an invitation to a garden-party at Lady Feuilleton's suburban villa. It was a gentle June afternoon, a year and a month after his last interview with Ellice Quentin. A broad rectangular lawn, soft and deep to the foot, was surrounded with tall limes and elms, whose voluminous leafiness cast grateful shadows athwart the turf. Beneath the trees a path lay in sunshine-fretted gloom. The house, with its balcony and open windows, stood at one end of the lawn; at the opposite end a marquee had been set up; a large sheet of canvas had moreover been pinned down upon an area of the level turf as a dancing floor. Chairs of designs more or less fantastic were placed in straggling groups along the shady side of the lawn, and these were occupied by men and women in summer attire—it was very warm—and bright-coloured parasols and fans made the scene lively as well as lovely. When the music began the charm was complete.

Geoffrey Herne, however, appeared to feel particularly morose, and spoke in a tone which, though punctiliously courteous, had a covert sneer underneath it. In reality, he was perhaps not morose; on the contrary, he may have felt a piteous forlornness at the heart, of which he was ashamed, and which he desired to conceal. His hostess, a vivacious, Parisian-looking little lady, was paying him special attention, and chatted to him inveterately. At last Herne said he must go home; Lady Feuilleton expostulated volubly, and ended by proposing that he should accompany her into the house, and drink a glass of iced claret-punch with her. Herne thought that would be as good a way as any of preparing his escape, and therefore he complied. They entered the parlour arm-in-arm. The change from sunlight to gloom rendered objects almost undistinguishable, and Geoffrey tripped over something which turned out to be the skirt of a lady's dress, and he made his apologies without discerning the features of the lady to whom he was making them. She had been sitting down—she rose hurriedly, but said nothing in reply.

'Have you come for a freshener, too, Lady Feuilleton?' said a man's voice, which, for some reason, immediately inspired Geoffrey with a feeling of aversion and contempt.

'Who are you, pray?—Why, Mr. Amidon, I declare!' exclaimed the hostess. 'And who is this with you? surely not your wife?'

'Incredible, but true!' replied the other, with a short cackling laugh.

'Dear me! what is society coming to! I'm so delighted—so good of you to come. How do you do, dear? Oh! and let me introduce my friend Mr. Geoffrey Herne—Mrs. Amidon. You ought to get on capitally together; you are both so sarcastic! We came to get some iced punch: have you had any? Well, you must join us. Dear me! Mr. Herne, can you lift that jug? it's so heavy. Just a glass all round, and then I must run back to my guests. What a lovely dress, dear!'

'Capital punch, upon my soul!' said Mr. Amidon, as he set down his emptied glass. He and Lady Feuilleton chatted together for a minute or two, laughing and fencing. He was a youngish-looking man, with a flaxen moustache and pale grey eyes, rather red round the edges. His complexion was not good, and when he laughed his chin retreated towards his throat and he twisted his shoulders. Geoffrey stood looking at him in silence. Mrs. Amidon had again sat down in a chair beside the table and was fanning herself. Presently Mr. Amidon expressed an intention of accompanying Lady Feuilleton back to the garden, and they went out, leaving Mrs. Amidon and Geoffrey to 'become acquainted,' as Lady Feuilleton put it. When they were gone, Mrs. Amidon closed her fan and looked up.

'Will you sit down by me for a moment, Geoffrey?' she said.

'Of course you understand, Mrs. Amidon,' said he, 'that I should not have come here if I had expected to meet you.'

'Then I am glad you did not know. I have wanted to meet you and talk with you. And, after all, that proves me to be charitable; for people generally dislike and avoid those whom they have injured.'

'Without calling your charity into question, Mrs. Amidon,' said Geoffrey, 'I may be permitted to relieve you from the burden of supposing that you have injured me. I should put it upon another ground—that we are apt to shun those who have benefited us. In an indirect way I may have benefited you, by keeping you occupied until Mr. Amidon was ready to come forward.'

She was looking at him while he spoke with her head a little on one side, her scarlet lips occasionally moving slightly. Now her eyelids drooped, and she sighed.

'I have looked forward to this meeting often,' she said, 'and I was prepared to hear you say worse things than that. Perhaps, after all, you have not cared so much as I thought you would. I have no heart to fight with you, Geoffrey, as we used to fight in——'

She paused. Her persistence in calling him Geoffrey produced an effect upon him. The sound penetrated far into him, and set vibrating chords which long neglect had scarcely rendered less sensitive. He was further disturbed by her not attempting to defend herself: not that anything could make her conduct defensible, but the blow that provokes no return loses half its virtue to the striker. And, finally, it must be confessed that her aspect and propinquity were not without their influence. She was more fully developed, more beautiful than when he saw her last; and there were slight modifications in her manner and expression which were on the side of gentleness and sadness, and which moved Geoffrey to unwilling sympathy. Perhaps she had suffered enough to conciliate even his resentment.

'What do you think of Mr. Amidon?' she enquired presently.

'I have not had much opportunity of judging; but I should think,' said Geoffrey, with diminishing bitterness, 'that he would be a very suitable husband for you.' It struck him as peculiar that Ellice, in spite of her culpability towards himself, did not shrink from meeting his eyes, or from introducing topics of conversation which might have been supposed at least as unwelcome to her as to him. But hers had always been a strange and unaccountable character.

She opened and closed her fan, glanced out of the window towards the sunlit lawn, then back at him, and said: 'Do you want to—leave me?'

A minute before Geoffrey had fancied that he did wish to leave her; now, for some reason, he changed his mind, and dropped into a chair opposite her.

'What do you want of me?' he asked.

'Do I look the same to you as when you saw me last?'

'You look better than you did then—handsomer—and you are more expensively dressed. And, of course, the fact that you are one of the leaders and ornaments of society has its effect upon me.'

'Geoffrey, it may not be often that we come across each other again; why should we hold masks before our faces? We have been intimate. You have not forgiven me for leaving you. You have said to yourself, "If she had loved me she would have given up the world for me"; and so you concluded that I was a hypocrite from the beginning. But if I had been a hypocrite, I would have married you; or I would never have let you know that I loved you.'

'Probably I don't understand you—and never did.'

'No man ever was your rival, Geoffrey; the world was your rival; but yet you should not be jealous; because, though it drew me irresistibly, it never drew that best part of me that was yours. I could not have lived without the world—without longing for it; and I could not live with the world without longing for——Forgive me!'

'Take care what you say now, Ellice! You touch fire!' exclaimed Geoffrey in a suppressed growl, with a glow kindling under his gloomy brows.

She rose quickly from her chair, moved close to him, and laid her hand upon his.

'Burn me, then!' she answered, with a strange, tragic smile. And while they confronted each other, she continued: 'My sin was that I preferred living falsely with the world, to living falsely with you.'

'You made the world a bad place for me,' returned Geoffrey; but his tone was no longer stern, and his hand now held hers. 'I had but one love, unfortunately, and that was yours. But you have a husband.'

'I have a name,' she answered carelessly, 'which I wear as I wear this hat, because it is the fashion. Only the one is called a husband and the other a hat.'

'That is not the whole of it. You can change your hat to-morrow; but there is only one way for a woman to get rid of a husband.'

'What difference about him, Geoffrey, if you will be my friend?'

'Your friend?' he repeated sharply, dropping her hand.

'Oh, do not be angry again!... no, no, not that! do not ask me to do that!... I am not so selfish, nor so wicked, Geoffrey, as to wish you to—to give up your life to what has not, after all, been wholly yours. I am not worth that. I only ask that you should be my friend. Help me to live so as to respect myself. What can I say? I know that what is past cannot be recalled; you can never feel towards me as you might have done if—if I had been less weak. But I am so lonely; I hoped you could——'

'No: that won't do! nothing like that,' interrupted Geoffrey in a heavy voice. 'I am not a monster of virtue and self-restraint, Ellice: and I'm not a cur either. Do you suppose your husband would fall in with this arrangement. And do you suppose that I would condescend to sneak about his premises, having a secret understanding with his wife—secret from him? It is true enough that there can no longer be a fresh and pure love between you and me; but there can be no friendship—because, for good or evil, I love you still! I can commit a crime, but I will tell no lie, nor live one. Everything must be open and above board between us and the world, or there must be nothing at all.'

'Oh, Geoffrey, this is terrible!' murmured Ellice, letting her folded hands hang before her. In fact, she had not anticipated his attitude; she was a woman who wanted much, but who was not, perhaps, willing to go all lengths in order to get it. At the same time she could not help admiring what he had said and liking him all the better for it; and she certainly did not admire Mr. Amidon, or passionately like the fashionable life which they led, and of which she had seen enough clearly to comprehend its limitations. Nevertheless, a woman who has achieved a position before the world will hesitate profoundly before abandoning outward conventionality for avowed outlawry. Compromises are more convenient. But how if a stubborn man persists in refusing to stoop to compromise? The compromise was in itself reasonable in the highest degree, if not also in the highest degree moral; but that evidently made no impression on Geoffrey.

There was a sound of voices and laughter approaching the open window; Lady Feuilleton and Mr. Amidon were coming back from the lawn. Ellice took up her fan nervously, and passed a hand over her hair. She had been able to entertain such reflections as the above, while the man with whose soul she had played fast and loose was standing, as it were, with the sword at his heart. He now spoke again; and the words in which he began made her start, for it brought back to her memory another scene of a year and a month before. Only this time he did not grasp her wrist.

'Look at me, my girl! I will wait in the drawing-room of the Lansdowne Hotel this evening from nine o'clock until eleven. If I see you there, there will be no trouble in getting free from your husband. If not, never try to see me again. You will have done worse than murder.'

The others came in, full of badinage and liveliness. Lady Feuilleton protested that she believed Mr. Herne and Mrs. Amidon had been flirting.

'Quite the contrary,' returned Mrs. Amidon, smiling composedly. 'Only we have been discovering that we knew each other long ago, and that I have lost the wager we made as to which of us would be married first. I will pay it now,' she added, taking a white rosebud from the vase on the table. She went up to Geoffrey and slipped it into the button-hole of his coat. As she did so, she murmured below her breath, with a glance into his eyes:

'Before this fades——!'

And then Geoffrey, with a very brief adieu, went out.

There can be little doubt that, when Ellice did that, and said those words, she was resolved to meet Geoffrey in the Lansdowne drawing-room, between nine and eleven o'clock; and at all events she could not endure to be left in an awkward or unpicturesque situation. But unfortunately it was then only six in the afternoon; three hours in which to wait, to reconsider, to doubt. It would be doing her injustice to say that there was not a struggle. The struggle was even carried to such a pitch that, at half-past nine, a hansom cab drove up to the corner of the street below the Lansdowne Hotel, and a lady got out of it, veiled, with a satchel in her hand. She paid the cabman, and then walked along towards the hotel. The broad bay window of the drawing-room abutted upon the sidewalk; a street lamp stood on the opposite side of the road. As the lady passed the window she glanced up, and saw a man seated there with a newspaper, which he was not reading, in his hand. Her knees trembled, but she said to herself: 'If he looks out and recognises me, I will go to him.' Even then he turned, slowly, and looked out; she stood still, unable to move. He must have seen her; but he did not recognise her; after a moment he turned away. Then she faced about, and ran back along the sidewalk, with what feelings in her heart who can tell? The hansom had not yet gone from the place where she left it; and she was driven back to her house in Mayfair, where she was to receive some distinguished guests.

II.

Geoffrey Herne's reflections were upon these matters, as he sat in his chair on the spring day with which this story began. An interval of two years had elapsed since he waited for Mrs. Amidon in the drawing-room of the Lansdowne Hotel. During that period his professional success had been rather on the wane. He was as clever and sarcastic as ever—perhaps more so; but he neglected his work. He was morose and indolent; the stimulus to achieve great things was lacking. He conceived himself to have fathomed life and to have proved it worthless. 'What is the odds what a man does? The devil is at the bottom of it all!' he sometimes would remark. His more philosophical and healthy-minded friends detected something petulant or childish in this attitude of his; and the futility of their attempts to induce him to 'throw it off' served to confirm them in their opinion. It should be understood that nothing definite was known about what had occurred further than that Herne had had a row with some woman. But other men have had rows with women, and got over it.

The letter which Herne had just received and read was not long, though it was sufficiently suggestive; and it may as well be given here:

'Dear Geoffrey,—I shall never see Mr. Amidon again. I wish to see you at once. I know you must have had hard thoughts of me, but if I had had you always with me, I should have always done what you wish. It is when you leave me that I lose my strength. That is the secret of all our trouble. When we are together I always have known that I love you, and that I can never love anything but you; but when we are parted, other thoughts come; sometimes I imagine that love is all imagination. Geoffrey, I have never told you what I did not know to be true. If you had only made me yours at first! Even as I write to you at this moment, and think of my life since I saw you last, I half doubt whether anything is real of what I have felt for you; and yet they were the deepest feelings of all. I seem fated not to be happy; and yet I have tried ways of happiness more than most women. What is with me is real; what is away from me—you—are like a dream. But you are a dream that I believe in more than in reality; and I come to you in my trouble. Come and see me this evening without fail. I remember what you said to me at parting two years ago. At last I have done my part; I do not ask you to do yours; but at least come to me.—Yours,

'Ellice.'

Two years is a long time. Geoffrey had not forgotten Ellice, and her evil influence upon his life had not ceased to be operative; but he had ceased to feel the need of her personal presence. He had grown so accustomed to the wrong of her desertion, that this had become more necessary to him than she herself was. After a while we make friends with our grievances, and would be at a loss were they suddenly removed. An hour ago there was nothing that Geoffrey would have desired less than to hear again from his lost Ellice.

Nor was this all. Within the last three weeks a new element had come into Geoffrey's gloomy life. He had admitted it in a mood of self-contemptuous indolence; but since then it had worked upon him gently but powerfully, and was now on the way to make itself an unlooked-for resource and consolation. It had aroused a sentiment of gratitude in Geoffrey's heart, which, by-and-by, perhaps, would develop into something warmer and more tender. It had invested his future with a subdued but brightening light, so that he had doubtfully told himself that his latter days might be happier than those which were passed. Now, above all things, he wished for no change, no disturbance. Nevertheless, it was at this moment that the change and disturbance had come. He could feel, stealing subtly through his veins, a lawless and reckless heat which he remembered but too well, though it had long been a stranger to him. These written pages came from her, had been touched by her hand, and caressed by her breath. From them seemed to proceed an insidious mist, blinding his eyes to honour, and leading astray his judgment. How great and unaccountable was her power over him! It had not always been for evil—not so at first. No; at first it had been the purest and loftiest emotion of his heart. But now that it was become evil, it was not less strong: it was stronger.

Still, it might be resisted; it should, it must be resisted! Geoffrey pulled himself out of his reverie, and stood upright. After glancing confusedly first this way and then that, he went to the tall secretaire between the windows, and unlocked one of its inner drawers. Out of the drawer he took the black silk bow and the dried rosebud, which, at different times, had come to him from Ellice. Of late he had often thought of destroying these relics, but he had put off doing so, adducing many arguments to justify himself in his procrastination. Now, however, the thing must be done, if it were to be done at all. Geoffrey brought them and laid them upon the letter which he had placed upon the mantelpiece, after once more taking it from its envelope. After a pause, he folded the letter about them, and grasped the little bundle in his hand. The next moment he quickly replaced it on the mantelpiece and faced towards the door. Had not some one knocked?

The knock was repeated. He strode heavily and wrathfully to the door, and opened it There stood a woman, dressed in black, with a red rose in her bosom. She immediately threw back her gauze veil, but before she did so he had recognised her. Moreover, in spite of the utter surprise of her appearance at this place and hour, it seemed to him that he had been all along secretly expecting her. With a sort of dogged sullenness he made way for her, and she came in without hesitation, and with perfect grace.

'We are together again, Geoffrey,' she said, when he had closed the door, facing him as he advanced towards her. She took a hand of his in both hers, and added, 'Yes, you are real! You see, I would not wait. It was not worth while to risk anything more.'

'You are too late, by some weeks,' answered he, looking over her head at the wall.

'Why? Ah, you mean that—you don't care for me any more!' She let go his hand, and looked at him askance. Geoffrey, though he was thinking of far different things, noticed that she was paler than he had remembered her, except that her lips were scarlet as ever, and to the beauty of her face was superadded a depth of expression, distinct from its natural feminine mysteriousness. He suddenly fetched a deep sigh, like one who is oppressed, and then he walked to the mantelpiece, and rested his elbow on it, and his head on his hand.

'It is not necessary,' said Ellice, after a pause. 'I did not even expect it. I have done you too much harm—a great deal too much. But it is partly for that reason that I came. Whatever there is left of me belongs to you, if it can be of any use to you. I would like to die in some way that would make you forgive me.'

'Forgiveness is a word which children use,' replied he; 'it is never anything more than a word. The only thing I could not forgive you is, that you have come in my way again.'

A light sparkled in Ellice's eyes, and she smiled a very little. For, although the superficial significance of the words was repellent enough, she could discern the essential, reluctant flattery underlying them. It was not because she was odious to Geoffrey that he wished her away; but because she was too much the contrary. She was safe, therefore.

'Let us talk together this once,' she said, 'and afterwards, if you like, you need never see me again. May I sit down here with you beside me? How happy we might have been!'

'Do you wish me to remember that you are a married woman?' he demanded sullenly. 'You seem to think that everything is a game and a plaything. Can you alter or take back what you have been doing these last three years? What have you done with your husband?'

'Do you remember a thing you said two years ago, Geoffrey, when I asked you to be my friend? Well, there need be no secret now. I mean never to see Mr. Amidon again. I don't care what society says or thinks. He has made it impossible for me to live with him. I don't blame him, for he never could have had much satisfaction out of me, poor creature. He knew from the beginning that I cared nothing for him; it was merely an arrangement on account of property, and I—I consented more for my father's sake than——'

'You need not take the trouble to say that to me!' interrupted Geoffrey with a harsh laugh.

'No; I will tell you the whole truth,' she said, leaning back in her chair and surveying him attentively. 'I have always told you that, so far as I knew it; but now, for the first time, I think I know it all. I thought I needed something more than your love, but it was a mistake. I had not had enough of it to know what it could be—that is all. Mr. Amidon has at least taught me that; he has taught me by showing me all that it is not. I used to think there were so many pleasant things in the world, that no one pleasure—not even the pleasure of your love—could make up for the loss of the others. But I have found that no pleasure can be really enjoyed except through love; one might as well save money for dresses by going without food. What is the use of fine clothes if you are dead?'

'Do you intend to divorce your husband?'

Ellice looked down for a moment at her hands, then glanced up with a smile and nodded.

'Does he know of it?'

'No. He does not know where I am at this moment. I left him suddenly yesterday in Paris. But he cannot help himself; he has no defence.'

'Well, and after you have got your divorce—what then?'

Ellice was looking straight at Geoffrey when he asked this question, and for all answer she gave him another of her strange, unexpected smiles.

Geoffrey stood up; this scarcely disguised avowal that she believed her power over him to be undiminished so far defeated itself as to give him strength for at least temporary resistance. He took her letter with its enfolded contents off the mantelpiece.

'Two years have made more difference with me than they seem to have made with you,' he said. 'I don't pretend to be as fresh-hearted and as ready to begin life over again now as I was then, and perhaps I can give you the friendly counsel to-day which you expected of me that afternoon at Lady Feuilleton's. You will make a great mistake, in my opinion, in leaving your husband. He can be of more use to you than anybody else can. The longer you live the more of that sort of help you will need. You will find it more inconvenient to give up the world than it was to give up me. My advice is that you take the next train back to Paris.'

'I will go if you send me,' replied Ellice, rising with an unhurried movement, and standing in slender gracefulness before him. 'If that advice comes from your heart, Geoffrey, I will do even that for you, if it will make you happier. But—will you be happier? Am I grown ugly and hateful to you? Look at me, Geoffrey! You used to think my lips were beautiful.'

'Look at this!' returned he, breaking out into fierceness. He unfolded the letter, and showed her the black bow and the dried rosebud. 'These came from you. I have kept them till now, but at the moment you came in I was going to burn them, and let that part of my life be annihilated with them; for I had begun a new life, which they dishonoured. Why do you come now? You promised to come before that flower faded. Did you think it was immortal?'

'You have kept it all this time,' said Ellice softly, drawing a deep breath. 'Then, perhaps, it may not be too late to make it bloom again. Shall we try, Geoffrey?'

His eyes and face glowed; he felt himself drawn towards her as by the strong current of a river; their hands met, when, as if by some sudden impulse independent of his own will, he uttered the words:

'We cannot; I am going to be married.'

At first it seemed as if this announcement had produced no effect whatever upon Ellice. She continued to clasp Geoffrey's hands, and her gaze was untroubled. But presently she began slowly to grow pale, until her whole face was quite white, while her eyes darkened until they appeared black. Her lips fell apart a little, and it was with difficulty that she moved them to say: 'You—I did not hear. What was it?'

Geoffrey did not speak again. It was with a conscious effort that he held himself upright, and looked at her. He wished this were over. Ellice now slipped her hands from his and drew them back against her shoulders, as if they had touched something unwholesome; but all the while she kept questioning him with a gaze half incredulous, half wistful. At last, however, and all at once, the full significance of what he had told her seemed to leap into her mind, charging her features with a vivid and sinister expression, the like of which Geoffrey had never seen in her before. It ended in her laughing somewhat shrilly, and sitting down again in her chair. She felt nervously for her handkerchief, and having got it, pressed it several times to her mouth.

'You took me quite by surprise,' she began, in a thin voice. 'You are really going to be married! How dramatically you brought it out! Who—may I ask to whom?'

'No name that you have ever heard,' said Geoffrey stolidly.

'And you have been engaged to her long? You love her passionately, of course?'

'We have been engaged about three weeks. She deserves the best love——'

'Yes—I didn't mean to pry into your tender affairs! Geoffrey, have you kissed her—often, I mean?'

'Yes, a hundred times,' he answered, between his teeth.

Ellice gave an involuntary shudder, and made a gesture as if to shut out what he had said from her ears. The emotion brought the blood surging and tingling back to her face. She turned her head aside and remained for some time with her gaze fixed upon the wall. Geoffrey ventured to make no sign, for he had tried his resolution to the uttermost, and knew too well where another struggle would leave him. Yet, at heart, perhaps, he grudged himself a victory so much less sweet than defeat would have been. At that moment Ellice was for him the only woman in the world. He was ready to fall at her feet. He felt as if all the outrage had been on his side and all the suffering on hers.

At last she got up, outwardly quiet, save for the deep flush in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes, which travelled over Geoffrey occasionally as she spoke, but never rested steadily upon him. 'You have made me feel ashamed of myself,' she said. 'I think you should have told me this news at first. No—I take that back. I broke in upon you uninvited and—but it was because I thought—I did not think——You must believe that I am not so unwomanly as to have done it if I had known.' She paused, buttoning and unbuttoning her glove mechanically, her lips moving silently. Finally she looked up and said in a fresher tone: 'May I ask you one favour?'

Geoffrey moved his head in silent assent.

'I shall go away—I shall go back to-morrow evening,' she went on. 'You see I am wise enough to take your advice now. But I want very much to see—this lady before I go. You need not be afraid; I should say nothing that could pain her; but you can understand why I should like to see her. I suppose I may tell you—for you must know it already—that she is the only woman in the world whom I can feel an interest in seeing. When I picture you to myself hereafter, I want to be able to picture her too. Will you bring her to see me to-morrow, before I go? Tell her that I am an old—acquaintance of yours; a married woman, who feels an interest in what concerns your happiness. Will you come with her?'

'Oh, Ellice,' said he, in a broken voice, 'I will come with her—or, if you say so, I will come without her!'

She seemed to hesitate for an instant, drawing in her breath, and sending him one swift and penetrating glance. But the next instant she answered quite composedly, and as if she had not understood the significance of his avowal. 'Oh, no, come with her; I should like to see her! Thank you; now I will go; good-bye till to-morrow!' And before he could take her hand in farewell, or find words to speak, she had retreated to the door, opened it, and passed out.

It was dark when she departed. Geoffrey lit no lamp; but after locking his door, he sat for many hours with his head on his hands; and everywhere, standing forth against the gloom, he saw her slender supple figure, her fascinating wayward face: the changes of her voice murmured in his ears; and the desire of her ruled his heart and mind.

It was not with the feelings of a triumphant lover, proud to exhibit his mistress to envious eyes, that Geoffrey Herne presented himself, with the girl he was to marry, at Ellice's apartments the next day. Not that Gertrude Hamilton was in any respect a bride to be ashamed of. She was handsome, wholesome, and serene; full of kindliness and common sense; pure in thought and upright in deed. She had given her whole honest love to Geoffrey, moreover; and having done so, she had as little thought of changing as the moon has of ceasing to be the earth's satellite. So short a time ago as yesterday forenoon, Geoffrey had seen his way to a life of sober happiness with her; but now he could only think, 'She is not Ellice'; and he shunned to meet her quiet, confident look, and could not respond frankly to her conversational advances. He felt himself a cheat; and inwardly kept repeating to himself the ominous question: 'How will it end? How will it end?'

Mrs. Amidon received her guests with a charm of cordiality that at once produced a favourable impression upon Gertrude. She was dressed in a flowing tea-gown of some oriental stuff which became her especially well; there was colour in her cheeks, and her manner varied between languor and what seemed restrained excitement; but a certain rare feminine sweetness pervaded all. On the table by her side was a silver salver, holding a decanter of wine and three glasses. These glasses, which had already been filled to the brim with wine, were of Venetian design, each one of a pattern different from the others. The room was in half light and furnished sumptuously.

Ellice addressed almost all her questions and remarks to Gertrude; never meeting the latter's eyes, but occasionally glancing at her with great keenness. To Geoffrey she scarcely spoke; and when he addressed her, she would reply to him, as it were, through Gertrude. Geoffrey had noticed that she had avoided shaking hands with either of them at meeting; and, as he sat observing her, the fantasy now and then seized him that she was not a tangible human being of flesh and blood, but a beautiful wraith. There was a refinement and a sensitiveness in her gesture and aspect as of one who could scarcely have part in the vain, self-seeking world: and yet what an odd commentary upon this appearance her actual life (as far as one could know it) had been!

After a while she said, rising, and speaking with more vivacity than she had shown before: 'Now I am going to ask you both to take a glass of wine with me.'

Gertrude thanked her, but said she seldom took wine, unless for medicinal purposes.

'Oh, but let me beg of you to make an exception this time,' returned Ellice, with singular earnestness. 'I have set my heart—yes, my heart, upon your drinking with me. Do not refuse me. I shall never have the opportunity of asking another favour of you.' She took up the salver as she spoke, and held it towards Gertrude, with the three glasses upon it. 'Choose one,' she said. 'I am superstitious. I cannot let you off from this. Take whichever you like.'

'Certainly, if it will oblige you,' said Gertrude, smiling. 'I suppose they are all the same wine? I will take this.' And she took the slenderest of the three glasses.

'The wine is the same,' observed Ellice, 'but the glasses sometimes make a difference in the taste. Well, you have chosen; now, Geoffrey, it lies between you and me.'

Her hands trembled a little as she presented the salver to him, so that the glasses jingled, and some of the wine was spilt. 'Quick!' she said in a whisper; and he took the glass with the curved brim and the snaky stem. As she set down the salver her hand was steady again, and when she raised the remaining glass between her fingers not a drop was spilt.

'You remember the last time we drank together, Geoffrey?' she said, looking directly at him now for the first time. 'I shall never drink wine in my life after this. I am glad you and Gertrude have chosen as you have done. It is better—much better. You had your free choice, and left this for me. I drink to your health, my friends.'

She drank her glass out, and set it down. The others followed her example.

'It is very good wine, I'm sure,' remarked Gertrude.

'You will get no harm from it,' replied Ellice, tremulously and smiling; 'nor will you, Geoffrey. And it will be good for me, too. You will——' she began to tremble so violently that she could not stand, and sank down in a chair. 'You will think—kindly of me?' she went on in a scarcely audible voice. A strange alteration was rapidly creeping over her features. Her lips quivered, her eyes dilated, and there was a choking in her throat. Geoffrey, who, for the last few moments, had kept his eyes fixed upon her searchingly, suddenly flung himself down on his knees beside her with a hollow cry of anguish.

'Ellice! you have poisoned yourself,' he cried with thick utterance. 'Could you not have forgiven me enough to let me go too?'

'You—had your—chance; it was death—to one or other of us three,' she answered with difficulty. 'Fate chose me. Oh! do not trouble me now; I am content. Of what use have I ever been in the world? She is better for you.'

'What is the matter? Can I be of any help?' enquired Gertrude, in concern and perplexity.

For a minute Geoffrey made no reply. Then he rose stiffly, kissed the dead woman's lips, and turning away from her, but not towards Gertrude, answered heavily, 'None!'

THE COUNTESS'S RUBY.

I.

One hot August forenoon, some years ago, two men met at a certain point of the coast of Normandy, and shook hands with mutual good-will.

The elder of these men had lived in the world about five-and-thirty years; he had had losses, and successes as well; but the latter, happening to have arrived a year or so after he had got tired of waiting for them, found him grown a trifle soured and cynical, and apt to carp at the sunshine which had withheld its warmth from his bones until they had contracted an ineradicable chill. His bitterness was perhaps more of the head than of the heart, but was none the less observable on that account. He was an Englishman by birth, and a born painter also—at least in his own opinion. He had begun his career with the firm persuasion that his genius entitled him not only to hang on the line at the Academy, but to be one of the hangmen. The Royal Academicians did not immediately fall in with his views on either point; and when, after many years, they relented, and gave his picture the place of honour, and intimated their purpose of filling with his name the first vacancy on their august roll, this lofty and unforgiving gentleman made a bow and begged to be excused. He had made his name known without the Academy's help; he had won pecuniary independence in a land where the word of the Academy was not law; and he would now, therefore, with all due respect to the members of that body, see every mother's son of them at the deuce before he would have anything to do with them. Such an ultimatum necessarily finished the episode; the Academy preserved a dignified silence, and the lofty and unforgiving gentleman continued to spend the best part of his time in Paris, exhibiting every year in the Salon, and telling the story of his quarrel with the English potentates to whomsoever cared to hear an amusing anecdote caustically related. He was a lengthy, meagre, harsh-featured personage, this same cynical artist, but he prided himself on the Parisian polish of his manners and his French accent, and he was, in fact, a good deal of a favourite in society.

The man who shook hands with the person above described was in most respects as unlike him as could be imagined. To begin with, he was an American; and, sentimental twaddle to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no nationality so irreconcilable with the English, and so incapable of sympathy with them, as that which styles itself American. But this man, in addition to his Americanism, was full ten years the junior of the other, and nearly the same number of inches shorter. His face was smooth and almost boyish, handsome even to an unusual degree, yet open to one criticism—that of being perfectly in harmony with the figure of its owner. The world has seen many great men under six feet high; but in them the countenance possessed the power or the nobility that more than compensates for defective stature; and, in looking upon it, the beholder quite forgot to be critical as to the greater or less degree of its elevation above the earth's surface. In a word, the face of this young American was the face of a short American—a recommendation, doubtless, from the purely æsthetic standpoint, but otherwise unfortunate. The lively blue eyes lacked depth and sternness; the fine straight nose might well have been a thought longer or higher; the mouth was too little and too academic in its curves; the forehead, though capacious, lacked the fine and expressive modelling which announces a master intellect. For the rest, this young American had a clear, deep colour in his cheeks, such as any woman might have envied, and the only fault of which was that no emotion had power either to diminish or to heighten its intensity; soft dark hair, a small silky moustache, and broad white teeth. The best feature in his face was probably the chin, which betokened a vigorous and persistent will. In figure he was square-shouldered, and rather plump than lean: his hands and feet were small and well shaped. If the enumeration of these merely physical details seems out of proportion with what was specified on that score in the portrait of the Englishman, it should be remembered that the younger man had as yet achieved little in the world beyond this attractive personal appearance. His moral and social history were yet to make. He was the son of a Boston millionaire; he had been educated at Harvard College; he was courted and caressed in Beacon Street drawing-rooms; and he had written quite a number of poems, odes, lyrics, and sonnets, philosophical, commemorational, imaginative, and erotic, which, reversing the natural sequence of states, first led a brilliant butterfly life in newspapers and magazines, and afterwards shut themselves up in the chrysalid of a gilt-edged, cloth-embossed volume, whence they afterwards showed no symptom of emerging.

These two men, such as they are here shadowed forth, found themselves face to face by the water's edge on that sultry August morning, and greeted each other with hearty enough cordiality.

As if to compensate for their physical dissimilarity, they were dressed almost precisely alike. Both had on shoes made of a flat sole of plaited hemp, with stout linen uppers curiously embroidered with red and blue braid, and laced round the ankle after the manner of the ancient sandal. Both wore a kind of straw bonnet, high-crowned and wide brimmed, clewed down on either side the face by a broad ribbon tied under the chin. Neither possessed any other essential article of clothing except a close-fitting tunic or set of tights, with the legs and arms cut off close to the body. Over this was lightly thrown a long mantle of Turkish-towel stuff. The tights were striped horizontally, alternate white and blue for the Englishman, and red and white for the American; and herein lay the sole distinction between their respective costumes. It is true that the American's fitted much the more closely and smoothly of the two; but that is neither here nor there.

In front of these simply-attired friends, and breaking in baby ripples at their feet, stretched in slumbrous calm a pale and turquoise ocean, destitute of any visible horizon. A tender haze which brooded in that region so intermingled sea and air that distant ships seemed to sail in the clouds, and clouds to voyage upon the water.

Behind them rose a mounded beach of purple shingle, uncomfortable to tread upon, but invaluable as a bulwark against the incursion of high tides into the low-lying village beyond. This village snuggled in the valley formed between the two hills which abutted at either extremity of the beach in precipitous cliffs, reflecting their pallid faces in the molten surface of the summer sea.

Between the village and the beach, and surmounting the latter like a fort, extended the casino parade, an embankment of masonry lying parallel with the shore, and backed by the casino itself, long, low, and flat-roofed, all windows and awnings. It contained a card room, billiard room, restaurant and theatre, the last transmutable into a ball room by the simple process of removing the pit seats.

The persons of whom I write were not alone by the water's edge; on the contrary, they had scarcely more than elbow room. On either side of them stood, chattered, and gesticulated a hundred human beings of both sexes and all ages, arrayed more or less on the same general principle already detailed. A hundred others paddled, plunged, and bobbed in the pellucid element in front. Twice as many lounged, fluttered, and ogled in serried groups in the rear—these last resplendent in the latest Parisian fashions for the month of August. Down upon this gay scene of colour, sparkle, and sound glowered the hot, lazy sun, longing for the still nine-hours-distant time when he might cool his own sweltering sides in the luxury of a sea bath.

Beyond the average range of the swimmers sped hither and thither a score of light skiffs or canoes, whose occupants prudently wore their bathing dresses and sat heedfully amidships as they plied their long paddles. Finally, I may mention the diving-board, an infernal machine of a thirty foot plank supported at a third of its length on the axle of a tall pair of wheels, and so rolled into the water, to be rushed up and jumped off of by dashing divers. That diving-board was a daily thorn in the side of the English artist, who was not a dashing diver and who would have greatly preferred to take to the water like a duck—that is quietly and smoothly—but whom a false pride constrained to mount that penitential plank morning after morning, and upset himself off the end of it with an agonised effort—seldom or never successful—to strike the water vertically. What fools sensible people will make of themselves for the sake of being like the fools who are ready-made!

It may as well be mentioned here, since the truth is sure to crop out sooner or later, that the name of the cynical and Frenchified English artist was Mr. Claude Campbell, and that he was, consequently, no less a personage than myself, who write concerning him. Let this confession put the reader on his guard against whatever exaggerative or prejudicial statements he may fancy he detects in what I have told or have yet to tell. I do not pretend to be an absolutely impartial historian of events in which myself have been an actor. I promise only to set down things as they appeared to me at the time, and leave the reader to draw his own conclusions. Did I make the world, or even organise human society? No; nor am I responsible for the logic of events, which, on the other hand, has often struck me as being a shocking bad system of logic.

As for the red-cheeked American, he was Jefferson Montgomery, Esquire, of Boston, as aforesaid, and he shall speak for himself.

II.

'Hullo, Jeff! Just a year since we parted on Beacon Hill.'

'My dear Campbell,' said Jeff, giving my hand a strong pressure, while his blue eyes beamed and his white teeth flashed, 'this is really very nice. Have you been here long?'

'Maybe a week.'

'A week? Really! how very strange!'

As I do not intend to underline all Mr. Jeff's speeches, I will explain here that he was one of those persons who choose their words with care, and then bestow upon them a certain emphasis—an emphasis of breath—a soft cough, so to say, intended merely to call your attention to the word in question as an unexceptionable word. At first you wondered at the speaker's earnestness; afterwards you begot a nervous oppression of the breathing apparatus, referable to the obscure phenomena of sympathetic affections. For my own part, the kind of conscientious self-complacency of which I considered this idiosyncrasy of my friend to be a symptom tended to arouse in me all my caustic and combative instincts; and, inasmuch as the young poet was fertile in 'notions' and resolute in upholding the same, our conversations were apt to become discussions, and our discussions disputes. Our disputes had never deepened into quarrels—we were too dissimilar for that—though a listener might sometimes have found it difficult to make the distinction. But to resume.

'Why strange?' was my enquiry.

'Why, that we shouldn't have encountered previously.'

'On the contrary, the strangeness is in our meeting at all. I came here to make studies, and you, I suppose, to make conquests. How many so far?'

'Oh, you old cynic! I don't know a soul in the place. It was an accident my being here at all, and I've been doing nothing but admire these lovely cliffs and the poetic scenery.'

'Poetic? That reminds me. Pardon my thoughtlessness, Jeff. You have been wooing the muse, of course?'

'Well, I confess I have been attempting something; it's unfinished as yet, but I hope it is fresh and strong; and I believe it to be original in treatment as well as in idea. It will be my most ambitious effort so far. A pagan maid falls in love with the Spirit of the Ocean, and a poet is in love with her, and between these two loves——'

'She comes to the ground, or into the water. Which is it?'

'You are always so ready to mock, Campbell. But of course it doesn't come from the heart; it's only your badinage. And really, don't you think the conception fine? I should like to read you my description of the pagan maid.'

'Portrait of anybody in particular?'

'Well, between you and me, Campbell, there is a young lady here—I don't know who she is, but she really does seem to be almost the type I need—for my poem, I mean. A noble creature—the true grand pagan style. You would like her; she would charm the artist equally with the poet.'

'So you have been trotting up hill and down dale after a pagan, and call it writing a poem on metaphysical abstractions! Do you never mean to give up this sort of thing, my dear boy?'

'Really, what do you mean?'

'Dangling after women the way you do.'

'What an expression! Every cultivated man feels it his duty to love woman and to frequent her society.'

'But why not choose out a representative woman and frequent the whole sex in her person?'

'Do you advocate marriage, then?' asked the poet, his blue eyes pensively interrogating the horizon.

'I say that, if you must make an ass of yourself at all, you should confine yourself within the narrowest possible limits.'

'Have you ever contemplated matrimony, Campbell?'

'It is the last thing I should contemplate for myself.'

'You have never yearned for a counter-soul?'

'I don't know what you mean, but I venture to say I never have,' I replied. 'But what would be folly in me would be philanthropy in you.'

Jeff heaved a long sigh. 'Let me whisper you a secret. You know my papa made a fortune in the Crimean war. We had a contract to furnish the Russians with briar-wood pipes. Well, Russia is now on the eve of another conflict, and papa has sent me over to arrange the terms of another contract.'

'But what has this to do with your getting married?'

'Why, the person who manages the business on the Russian side is our old friend—the same who concluded the arrangements with papa twenty-five years ago. Our relations have always remained intimate and cordial. And immediately subsequent to the Russian war this commissioner married, and—had—oh!'

The poet's voice died away; his eyes were fixed upon something a little farther along the beach.

'There! there!' he murmured. 'Oh! is she not—divine?'

'Ha! that is your pagan, is it?'

'Going out in a canoe,' continued Jeff.

This young and strikingly handsome girl, of proportions almost statuesque, was not seen by me now for the first time. I had, in fact, noticed her shortly after my arrival in town, and had taken that pleasure in observing her which an artist feels for whatever is thoroughly picturesque. Who she was I knew no more than Jeff, and it was not to be expected that another man's admiration of her should be disagreeable to me; but some men are not any man, and I must admit that the revelation of her identity with the subject of Jeff's rhapsodies affected me unpleasantly. The girl's beauty, patent to me, was not of a type to reveal itself to every careless and uneducated eye. But I will not attempt to defend my feeling. I simply state it.

The young lady took her seat in the canoe and grasped the paddle, and an elderly moustachioed gentleman pushed her off from shore. She was dressed in a rather remarkable bathing suit of black, slashed with scarlet; her round, firm arms were bare from the shoulder, and her legs from the knee; her hair was gathered up in the customary oilskin cap. With two or three vigorous strokes she sent her skiff well out beyond the crowd of bathers.

When I turned again towards Jeff I found he was no longer at my side; he was walking up the diving board, on the end of which he balanced himself a moment and then launched himself head foremost into the water, which closed over him with scarce a ripple. Presently his head appeared some distance beyond the spot at which he had entered, and he began swimming seaward with vigorous strokes. He was directly in the wake of the fair pagan, who, unaware of his pursuit, was paddling leisurely towards the thickening haze on the horizon, herself and her canoe mirrored distinctly on the glassy surface.

'Does he propose to overtake her and make her hear his poetry tête-à-tête in twelve fathoms of water?' I asked myself. 'At any rate, he resembles Byron in his swimming powers. And how neatly the fellow took the water! Let me see if I can't acquit myself as well as a Boston republican.'

With a sudden access of valour I snatched off my peignoir and cast it behind me, and, without stopping to see where it fell, I mounted the fatal plank with deliberate steps, saw the treacherous element smile for a moment beneath me, shut my eyes, and let myself go.

III.

I foresaw, in that instant of time which intervened between my last foot leaving the plank and my head reaching the water, that I was going to make a failure more than usually ignominious. A sounding thwack, taking effect along the entire length of my frame, and a painfully tingling sensation, only partly the result of shame, immediately apprised me that my prophetic instinct had not been at fault. I sank, however, and I was glad to sink; for though I dislike having my head under water, my wounded self-esteem made me dread putting it out again. Much as I have seen and suffered, and callous though I have become to most of the attacks of destiny, upon some points I am still sensitive. In a decent suit of clothes and a dignified attitude I can sustain almost any misfortune; but if my personal appearance be laughable, or my position a false one, my soul has much ado to maintain her constancy.

Need was, however, that I should emerge at last, and up I bobbed accordingly. I swam about moodily and unsociably during my customary fifteen minutes; and such was the dejection of my spirits that the water seemed colder than usual, and as I waded my way up a steep incline of the shingle on my way out, there was a tendency to convulsive shudderings in the muscles of my lower jaw. Chilled, humiliated, and conscious that I cut a ridiculous figure before a fashionable and merciless world, I only wished to seize my peignoir, wrap it round me, and vanish from the view and memory of mankind. Some men are cowed by one thing, some by another; and, once cowed, a man is no better than a whipped schoolboy, and feels far less respectable.

I hastened, then, to hide my discomfiture in my peignoir; but at that moment the certainty flashed upon me that I knew not where my peignoir was. I had omitted to note the place where I had laid it down: all places on a shingle beach are alike, especially when that beach is crowded to the water's edge.

I was standing face to face with the crowd, dressed in the curtailment of costume already described, which, hanging in dripping folds about my meagre form, rendered grotesque that which by nature was ungainly merely. For the first time in my life I regretted my six feet of stature; at five feet I should have felt less defenceless as well as appeared less conspicuous. There I stood before the world, shivering, lost, and helpless.

What was I to do? It was a pressing question, for every moment rendered the situation not only physically but morally more intolerable.

Should I return to the water, whence I came?

Too late! Not only would I catch my death—a minor evil—but the world by this time knew that I had started to come out, and by detecting the cowardice of my retreat would render it cowardice thrown away.

Should I steal the first peignoir that came to hand and fly? Hundreds were scattered about. It was but reaching forth my hand.

No, I could not steal: not because I was too honest—far from it; a cowed man is beyond the reach of scruples—but because I lacked the courage to be a thief. I feared detection, and knew I lacked the effrontery to brazen out the robbery.

Should I pretend I never had a peignoir, and stalk insouciantly through the crowd and up to the beach as I was?

Impossible. I had not the spirits for such a tour de force in the first place, and in the second I had not the figure for it. Moreover, the mairie had issued edicts against bathers promenading without peignoirs, and the thought of being arrested by a squad of gendarmes and marched in my present condition to a lock up was not to be contemplated.

I must, therefore, either stand where I was until my peignoir came to me or institute a deliberate search after my peignoir. To search, perhaps for hours, amidst a wilderness of spotless hostile skirts and immaculate shrinking pantaloons for a peignoir scarcely distinguishable from any other peignoir, and which, too, might have already been appropriated by some person more heedless (or more self-possessed) than myself! Decidedly there are times in a man's life when he is forced to avow that Providence has omitted to endow human beings with the only boon really worth their having—the power, namely, of instant and unobtrusive self-annihilation.

My search began. I went to a peignoir and examined it; it was not mine. With shaking limbs I blundered towards another a few yards off; it was not mine. At this juncture I heard, and affected not to hear, a titter of laughter. With my heart full of murder and suicide I pounced upon a peignoir quite near at hand. It was the same I had examined first. My brain began to reel.

'Monsieur!' said a gentle voice near me. 'Pardon, Monsieur!'

Could such words be addressed to me? As I tottered on the shifting pebbles, throwing dazed glances here and there, I became aware that a lady, middle-aged and of noble demeanour, was standing beside me with a folded peignoir in her hands.

'Pardon, but did Monsieur chance to be searching for anything?' she asked in French.

'My peignoir——'

'I have perceived that Monsieur dropped this upon entering the water: it shall be his perhaps?' and with a smile too truly polite even to seem compassionate this angel of mature years placed my own identical peignoir in my arms.

I clutched it as Macbeth clutched the phantom dagger; only more fortunate than the thane, I felt it in my grasp. Some part of my senses returned to me.

'Madame,' I stuttered as well as my chattering teeth would let me, 'you come from doing me the greatest favour woman can confer upon man. I shall never forget it. I thank you, madame, from the depths of my soul, and I salute you with the most distinguished gratitude and respect.'

The doer of this noble action bowed and smiled graciously, and I, with my peignoir about me, stalked boldly through the crowd to my toilet cabin. The distance was not great, but such was the glow of gratitude in my heart that by the time I arrived there I was not only warm but almost dry. Nor did the effect of this kindness stop at my skin; my immortal part, as Jeff might have called it, was sweetened and exalted; never, that I could remember, had I been succoured so opportunely or in such poignant need. Be that lady who she might she was worthy of all homage, and if it would have done her any good I believe that, confirmed bachelor though I was, I would have offered her my hand and heart as soon as I had finished my toilet.

But I trusted to my good genius to find me some better way of requiting her favour. It is sad to reflect how few ways there are of obliging our fellow-creatures. People would do more for one another but for the difficulty of finding something at once practical and practicable to do.

The first thing that attracted my notice, when I issued from my cabin and returned to the beach, was that the haze, which all the morning had lain along the horizon, had now thickened greatly and advanced upon the shore. Nothing was visible at twenty paces, and the fog, shone through by the sun, drifted softly over the bustling crowd, which was already beginning to stream homewards.

It was a pretty spectacle, but one likely to be regarded with different feelings by an Englishman safe on dry land and an American lost in twelve fathoms of water. Jeff had not come back to shore, and being out of sight of land, it necessarily followed that he was lost. The danger was graver than might at first sight have appeared, for the swimmer had had time to get fully a mile out to sea, and at that distance there were strong currents which might sweep him away altogether. I scanned the white blank before me with anxious eyes, but it revealed nothing. Poor Jeff!

I began to experience that uncomfortable sensation occasioned by knowing a friend to be in peril, and feeling the necessity of doing something to rescue him. More grievous but more convenient is it when the inevitable occurs at once, and saves us the annoyance of suspense. I could have sorrowed heartily and sincerely over the poor poet's drowned body laid out upon the shingle, but there was no satisfaction in taking measures to ascertain whether or not the corpse were an accomplished fact—to postpone, in other words, the luxury of grief for the anguish of action.

A group of sailors were collected round a boat at the water's edge, which they seemed to be on the point of launching. A lady was haranguing them earnestly. As I approached I recognised her as the heroine of my late adventure with the peignoir. She was saying—

'It was in that direction that I last saw her. She is already, perhaps, a kilomètre distant. There is no time to lose, mind you. Behold me distracted.'

Here was my opportunity; I could kill both my birds with one stone. I stepped forward with raised hat, and placed myself at the disposal of feminine distress. Having respectfully recalled myself to her recollection, I begged to be honoured with the distinction of being permitted to promote the alleviation of the anxiety under which she appeared to be labouring.

She thanked me with ardour, but to inconvenience me would desolate her.

Having received at her hands a favour beyond estimation, I should expire of chagrin in the case of being refused the privilege of testifying in some degree the depth and liveliness of my recognition.

Madame hereupon vouchsafed to inform me that Mademoiselle her daughter had paddled away with herself into the fog, and there was fear that she be lost in unknown oceans.

I had divined as much as this, but I was careful not to say so; nor did I open my mouth on the subject of Jeff. It was sufficient for me to perceive that Jeff and the young lady in the case were probably not far apart, and that to find one would be to find both. Meanwhile I would not deprive Madame of the gratification of believing that I was acting in her interests only. So, entreating her to be tranquil and to expect my return with her daughter in less than a quarter of an hour, I clambered into the boat with all possible dignity and despatch and bade my men shove off. Madame observed my departure with eyes that were genuinely moist.

It was a tolerably mild piece of heroism. Had I been ten years younger I might have wished that the waves had been running mountains high, but at thirty-five—the age of sense and of feeling combined—I was better pleased with the conditions as they were. I was not in love with anybody, and wished only to combine courtesy and good breeding with the fulfilment of a private duty. It had gratified me to observe, in my brief conversation with Madame, her appreciation of the altered aspect of one whom she had first known as an idiot and a scarecrow: not to mention his fluency in speaking the language of the most polished people in the world. I admired, too, the kindly ingenuity with which Fate had brought me acquainted with the mamma of the beautiful pagan, and under circumstances so promising.

But it is unsafe to call Fate good-humoured: it spoils her temper. Our boat was barely afloat when an event occurred which rendered our proposed voyage unnecessary. Somehow or other, without noise and without premonition, the fog rolled swiftly back to the horizon whence it came; and there was Mademoiselle not more than a hundred yards from shore. She was paddling in with admirable coolness and indifference; and close behind her I was happy to see the black head and rosy visage of the poet, who was swimming on his back with every appearance of ease and comfort.

IV.

I hastened to get on shore again and offer to Madame my congratulations. She replied that her obligations to Monsieur were none the less. His courtesy, his chivalry, had been such as one never sees paralleled.

Monsieur, covered with confusion at consideration so undeserved, changes the subject by calling the attention of Madame to the charming picture made by Mademoiselle in approaching the beach. Had he had his sketch-book with him, he would have been tempted to make a little drawing of Mademoiselle.

Ah! Monsieur was, then, an artist? Madame, and Mademoiselle likewise, were all given to artists. They had made purchase of several pictures during their residence in Paris.

Monsieur will venture to call himself an artist, and will, furthermore, have the assurance to make Madame acquainted with his name—M. Claude Campbell, at the service of Madame.

But truly! and did Monsieur Campbell happen to know this Campbell,—he, the great Campbell, he who painted this picture divine which exhibited itself at the last Salon, and was entitled the 'Ruined Rampart'?

Monsieur, even in blushing and being overwhelmed, assures Madame that he is that same fortunate Campbell whose unworthy effort Madame comes from qualifying with such generosity.

Great God! Monsieur is he, then, indeed that sublime, that adored man of genius? What happy chance! What charming rencontre! But in this case Madame hopes that the name of the Countess Semaroff will be to Monsieur not altogether unfamiliar?

Oh! Heaven! Is it possible that Monsieur is so happy as to kiss the hand of the noble lady who deigned to constitute herself the purchaser of the above-mentioned 'Ruined Rampart'? Monsieur is of a verity transported.

The Countess Semaroff observes that Mademoiselle—the Countess Almara in effect—will partake of her mamma's enchantment in meeting Monsieur Campbell, of whose genius she is an ardent admirer.

Our rude and artless talk was suspended at this point by the disembarkation of the Countess Almara. Apprehending that the simplicity of her costume might render my immediate presentation undesirable, I exchanged a cordial au revoir with the Countess Semaroff and discreetly withdrew. The beautiful pagan, after exchanging a few sentences with her mother, the latter speaking earnestly and the former laughingly, proceeded to take her turn upon the diving-board, and acquitted herself in a manner truly admirable. She dove like a plummet, and her white feet flashed beneath the surface as succinctly as a mermaid's tail. Up she came again, fresh and dripping, within a few yards of my returned prodigal, the Boston poet; but no signal of recognition that I could detect passed between them. To suppose that the ardent and romantic Jefferson had failed to improve the occasion of being isolated from the world under such peculiar circumstances with the subject of his late rhapsodies seemed to me, however, highly improbable. But the young Countess had doubtless played discretion under the watchful maternal eye; and Jeff, perhaps, intended to conceal his escapade from my friendly inquisition. I was resolved nevertheless to penetrate his reticence, and promised myself the pleasure of listening to an entertaining story over our déjeuner. As to my own accidental introduction to the Countess mother, and the unexpected tie between us, I judged it advisable to forbear mentioning it just at present.

The poet reached his depth and waded ashore. I stepped forward to meet him, raising my cap.

'Captain Webb, I presume?'

'Oh—but, Campbell!' exclaimed he with an ineffable look, 'was she not heavenly?'

'Postpone your ecstasies; you'll be a rheumatic cripple for life as it is. Do you know you've been in an hour?'

'It doesn't seem ten minutes—and yet I have lived a lifetime too!'

'You have water on the brain. Do you know where your peignoir is?'

Somewhat to my mortification, he did know, and, as he threw it over his shoulders, remarked placidly, 'But really I'm not in the least cold. Men of my age have hearts, Campbell, and a heart on fire keeps the blood warm under all circumstances.'

'It takes a Bostonian to have a heart warranted to burn under water for an hour.'

'And then,' he continued without heeding me, 'did not a goddess keep the flame alive with her ambrosial breath?'

'Decidedly he must have had an adventure,' thought I. 'But despatch your toilet, young man, and then you shall déjeuner with me, and we'll have chablis and cigarettes.'

'I shall be most happy, indeed. I won't be a moment dressing,' said the poet beamingly; and he dodged into his cabin.

'Pathetic little youth!' thought I as I paced the parade to and fro. 'Good fellow at bottom, but so soft!—the sort of creature that men trample on and women make game of. He has that most offensive of qualities—inoffensiveness. But, luckily for his peace of mind, he idolises himself, and is too slow-witted to comprehend the contempt of other people. After all, his self-conceit has as much justification as anybody's. He sees a pretty face when he looks in the glass, writes pretty verses with conscientious rhymes, utters pretty sentiments, and uses pretty phrases. How is he to know that the world reads all this prettiness without the r? But Providence, in emptying his skull, has mercifully filled his pockets. With ten thousand pounds a year he can buy something. What he can't buy is the ability to win for a wife such a woman as this young countess. Is he in love with her? He thinks so, no doubt, and means to make himself poetically miserable about her. His type of men are for ever losing their hearts miles above the reach of their heads. He has been getting off some inane namby-pambyism to her this morning, disgusting or amusing her as the case may be, and has come off serene in the conviction of having made a delightful impression. And now—confound him!—he will be for prosecuting the acquaintance and expecting me to back him up. What shall I do? It would be friendly to dissuade him from having anything more to say to them; but he's obstinate and won't be dissuaded. Well, the spectacle of such a wooing can't fail to be entertaining, and, since I can't prevent it, why shouldn't I enjoy it? To augment excitement I might give Mademoiselle Almara a quiet hint to tip him an occasional dose of encouragement. Poor Jeff! Ah! here he comes! Now let us watch him expand under the influence of chablis.'

The unsuspecting poet took my arm, and we set out for my lodgings.

'How charming the Old World is,' he remarked presently.

'You are an American, and everything here delights you by contrast.'

'But I'm patriotic—very. I'm a descendant of the Puritans, and my forefathers fought on Bunker Hill.'

'Yes, you Yankees are always bringing up the men of '76, whom, were you to meet them on Beacon Street to-day, you would cut dead. Since you have really contrived to civilise yourselves a little in the last century, why do you insist upon falling back on the reputations of a parcel of tagrag farmers who were shot ages before you were born? If I were a Yankee I'd keep mum about them.'

'Ah, you may talk, but at least you know America is the greatest country on earth,' rejoined my friend with unruffled good-humour. 'I'm sure you were delighted with your visit last year.'

'I confess to some scenery; beyond that one sees in the States only things which he thanks Heaven he hasn't got at home. America makes Europeans grateful and contented.'

'I defy you to put your finger on one feature of civilisation here that does not exist in a superior form in the States. There now!'

'To begin with, then, why did you take the trouble to come over here to get a wife, if there are more desirable wives to be had in Boston?'

'How did you know that?'

'How? Have I heard anything from you this morning except about pagan goddesses?'

'Oh, you mean her? Yes; oh, yes!'

'Good heavens! does the man mean to insinuate that he has any other woman in this hemisphere in his eye?'

'Why, to tell you the truth, my father sent me over here just for that very purpose—that and the pipes.'

'What and the pipes?'

'To meet the young lady I am going to marry.'

'And is your beautiful pagan the young lady you are to marry, pray?'

'Ah! I just wish she was!' said Jeff very ruefully.

'This is becoming interesting, my young friend. But here's my house: we'll have our breakfast, and then a consultation over our wine. Come in.'

V.

I repressed my curiosity during the meal, but when we had settled down to our second bottle and the cigarettes I fixed my eyes on my companion and said—

'Well?'

'Did you see that dive?' asked he.

'Hers?'

'Hers of course. Everything I say or do means her, now and for ever, one and inseparable!' cried Jeff, upon whom the wine was evidently beginning to work.

'But what about the other young lady——?'

'Sink the other young lady, sir! I never have seen her, and I never want to.'

'Well, then, about the pagan. Did the fog reveal your souls to one another?'

'Now, Campbell, I wish you would please not chaff,' said Jeff seriously. 'I don't like a man to be always cynical. Is there really nothing sacred to you anywhere? We Bostonians are not brought up so; and this is a sacred subject to me.'

'Not more so than to me, my dear fellow. You shan't have cause to complain of me again.'

'I accept your apology,' said Jeff with dignity. 'Your health.'

We emptied our glasses.

'Who was that handsome middle-aged lady you were talking with?' Jeff asked.

The question rather took me aback. 'You are more the traditional Yankee than I had imagined; you pretend to tell a story and only ask a question. As for that lady, I never saw her before in my life. I should fancy her a Pole or an Austrian. But do get on with your story.'

'There is no real story with a beginning, middle, and end. Real life doesn't arrange itself in that way.'

'There is always a middle, at any rate.'

'I will plunge in medias res, then. Did you observe her paddling out?'

'To be sure I did.'

'And did you divine her object?'

'Well, as to that——'

'My dear Campbell, don't you see that it was a case of fugit inter salices? She paddled out in order that I might pursue her.'

'Oh! How did you find out that?'

'By intuition,' cried the poet enthusiastically. 'We are in such complete sympathy, she and I, that I feel what she feels. A motion of the shoulder, a turn of the neck, a flirt of the paddle, all bear a secret meaning to my eye. Why, for a quarter of an hour after starting out this morning, I could see nothing but her back; and you know there isn't ordinarily much—conversation in a person's back.'

'I believe you are right, Jeff.'

'But in this case,' he continued warmly, 'I saw through her back all that was going on in her mind.'

'Poetic insight. I have heard of it before, but never knew it to act so powerfully as it does with you.'

'Yes; and, in proof that I'm not mistaken, she did just what I knew she would do beforehand.'

'And what was that?'

'How good this chablis is! The first thing she did was to paddle straight out to sea. She did that to try my faith.'

'Did she succeed?'

'A poet's faith can move mountains,' said Jeff, a little inconsequently. 'Had I been as others—had I been less terribly in earnest—I should have got discouraged or offended and given up the chase. But that is not the Puritan style. I kept right on, and at last I forced her to alter her tactics.'

'And all this through the back of her head? Wonderful!'

'Well, so she altered her tactics, and—what do you think?'

'I haven't a glimmering.'

'She stopped—short,' said Jeff, leaning across the table with his blue eyes wide open and speaking in an impressive undertone; 'and there she sat perfectly still, with her back still turned towards me.'

'So that you might continue to read her thoughts?'

'Campbell, I trust you are not scoffing?'

'My dear fellow——'

'You are my friend, but there are some things——'

'Nothing injures friendship so much as unjust suspicions, Jeff,' I said, with a solemnity almost equalling his own. He softened at once.

'Forgive me, old fellow; I was hasty. The blood of Bunker Hill, you know. Well, and so I gained upon her—and here's her health, Campbell.'

'Bumpers!' said I; and again we set down our glasses empty. I began to feel a little warmed up myself.

'At last I was within ten yards of her. Just then I ran into one of those horrid blue jelly-fish, and it startled me so that I made a splash, and she——'

'Turned round?' I suggested, for he had paused agitatedly.

'Any other woman would have turned round: she did not. She started perceptibly, dipped her paddle on the right side of the canoe, and shot diagonally towards the left. For a moment I saw her in profile.'

'Well, didn't she tip you a wink? I beg your pardon, Jeff, upon my word. I mean, did she not, at the moment of the profile, bend upon you a smile or a glance of encouragement?'

'What encouragement did I need? Besides, the time for encouragement had not yet come; I was still at the period of probation.'

'Her tacking, then, was a fresh trial of your constancy?'

'Not of my constancy—that was already confirmed—but of another quality, my self-respect. Respect, Campbell, is ever the basis of true love. This was a most critical juncture in our acquaintance. Had I slavishly followed her tack I should have lost more ground morally than I gained materially. No, I did not tack; I kept straight on, and, as she had paused again, I was soon beyond her. It was at that supreme moment that we found ourselves enveloped in the fog—alone together, between sea and heaven!'

'Jeff, this is becoming exciting.'

'I kept on. By-and-by, however, I stopped. I could now barely detect the outlines of her canoe through the pallid film of mist; but anon the outlines grew distincter—she was approaching!

Right on she came with graceful strength,

And paused within a paddle's length,

A moment eye to eye they stayed,

The poet and the pagan maid.'

'Jeff, this is poetry.'

'A verse I composed at the time. Do you like it?'

'Can you ask? But this suspense is wearing me out. Do, pray, come to the point.'

'What point, dear Campbell?'

'Hang it! the point of contact.'

'Sir, I fail to understand you,' said the majestic Jeff.

'Gammon! Who understands better than a poet the dramatic necessity of a point of contact? Here are your characters lost—I mean, here are your poet and your pagan maid lost in your fog, and staying eye to eye. Beyond reach of outside help, you are all in all to each other. "Bonjour, Countess." "Bonjour, Monsieur." "We appear to be lost." "I fear you are fatigued," she says. "The delight of conversing with the Countess Almara would suffice to restore me, were that the case." "Perhaps, if you were to rest your hand on the gunwale," she continues. "You overwhelm me," murmur you. "Nay, I would keep you from being overwhelmed," she smiles. "You are my guiding star!" you exclaim. "If I only knew whither to guide you. And mamma will be so anxious," she sighs. "Knows the Countess Semaroff that we are together?" you enquire. Just at this instant another of those horrid blue jelly-fish comes along, causing you to give another splash and sink. She screams, stretches out her hand to save you; you catch it, press it impulsively to your lips.... Well, there's your point of contact. Now go ahead.'

The close and serious attention which Jeff had given to this sally of mine had stimulated me to make it as absurd as possible, and may be that last glass of chablis had something to do with my sprightliness. But in proportion as I warmed Jeff seemed to cool; he leaned his cheek upon his hand, and directed a profound gaze into the bottom of his empty wine-glass. At length he muttered these singular words—

'How curiously things come out!'

'But what happened after you kissed her hand?'

'I didn't kiss it,' sighed the poet.

'Not after accepting the support of her canoe?'

'I didn't accept it; she didn't offer it.'

'Nor speak about it at all?'

'She said nothing; I said nothing; neither of us said anything.'

'Then why, in the name of stupefaction, did you take the trouble to get lost in the fog with her? Better have stayed on shore.'

'Had I known the Countess Semaroff was there, perhaps I should,' said Jeff, looking up.

I coloured in spite of myself. I, a man of five-and-thirty, had been carried away to reveal to this boy the secret of my acquaintance with these ladies. I should now have no excuse to offer for not introducing him. Verily that chablis cut both ways. I hastened to revert to our original topic.

'So there was no point of contact after all?'

'Not what you would call such, O you English materialist,' said the poet eloquently. 'But our points of view are so incompatible. Is not the soul more than the body? and, if so, is not a look of the eyes more than a touch of the hand? Our spirits met, Campbell, though our earthly frames held aloof.'

'But would your spirits have met any less had your earthly frames behaved in a more materialistic and intelligible way?'

Jeff shook his head dreamily.

'You are of those who know not how to enjoy the rose upon its stalk. You must needs cull it and insert it in your boutonnière. You are not sensitive enough to apprehend the rarest delight of the grande passion—that of regarding the beloved object in her intact state ere the pure sphere of her personality has been invaded by materialistic approach.'

'Well, Jeff, it's evident you know more about women than I do. But, admitting what you say, I still maintain (provided your intentions with the Countess are really serious) that you are not taking the nearest way to a matrimonial issue. The flesh is sluggish, but it has its compensations.'

The inspired Bostonian took his cigarette between two fingers and waved it in an illustrative manner as he said—

'Suppose, dear Campbell, you were starting on a journey through a delicious tract of country—a winding valley, say—and suppose, before setting out, you climbed a hill commanding this valley, and took a bird's-eye view of your proposed route. Would you enjoy that journey more or less for having anticipated it spiritually by that glance?'

'Ha! methinks I conceive you. Your psychological business is merely a sort of barmecide feast, designed to whet the palate for solid viands to follow. Having brought the transcendental part of your love-making to a happy issue, you now propose to pursue the game upon a practical basis?'

Jeff blew a serene cloud and regarded me with a complacent smile.

'Yes, I mean to marry her now,' said he.

'And leave the other without even a bird's-eye view?'

'By-the-by, I must tell you about that. You know I was saying this morning that the Russian commissioner, our friend, had married. Well, he had a daughter, and this daughter and I were by our respective papas destined for each other.'

'I see—a union of policy, like those of the royal families of Europe.'

'To me the idea of utilising the sacred covenant of marriage in the interest of mere business always seemed horrible and revolting. I told my father so.'

'And he, I'll venture to say, told you you were a sentimental young idiot.'

'If that had been all——' said Jeff, wagging his head significantly.

'Well, what was there more?'

'Only this. After I had protested one day, with all the eloquence I could muster, against the cold-blooded inhumanity of binding down two fresh young souls, who had never seen each other, to such a contract, he replied (you remember his dogmatic, high-handed way), "Either you marry her or you live on three hundred pounds per annum."'

'In that case,' said I, not without a secret feeling of relief, 'you certainly won't marry the pagan maid?'

'Why not?'

'Because, to go no further, you won't get her to take you at three hundred pounds per annum. You don't know what living on such an income means. I do; and I can tell you that, even without a wife and children, it's no joke.'

'But, dear Campbell, you seem to forget that I love her.'

'Take the advice of a man who has seen more of the world than you have, and forget it yourself. I am talking seriously now, Jeff, and for your good. You do not love this Countess Almara, and, to be frank with you, it is not possible that she ever should care for you. You have a strong will; use it on the side of common sense and—filial piety. Where were you to meet your intended?'

'Paris was the rendezvous appointed, but——'

'Pack up your traps and be off to Paris this very afternoon.'

'But it wasn't for a week yet that——'

'Never mind. Get away from here; that's the main point. Don't remain within reach of temptation.'

'Campbell, this is not temptation; it's a foregone conclusion. I am going to marry the Countess Almara. Our meeting here was fated. I shall not go to Paris.'

'But I tell you the Countess Almara won't have you.'

Jeff was silent awhile. Presently he looked up and said—

'How do you know she won't?'

'Well—never mind,' I thought it prudent to reply.

There was another silence. Suddenly Jeff said, 'Campbell, if I went to Paris would you go with me?'

This turn embarrassed me again. It would not exactly suit my convenience to go to Paris that afternoon. There were some things I wanted to—attend to. I wondered whether my young friend was becoming suspicious.

'Could I be of any service to you there?' I enquired.

'After all I don't know that you could,' said he after a moment's reflection. 'Besides, thanking you all the same for your advice, dear Campbell, I've made up my mind to stay here. I can never love, much less marry, any other woman than the Countess Almara.'

There was a certain element of nobility in the placid obstinacy of the young fellow, who was committing the amazing folly of resigning ten thousand a year for the sake of a girl to whom he had never spoken, and until the last two or three days never seen, that touched me a little and made me resolve not to let him ruin himself without another effort to save him.

'Jeff, you are an ass,' I said bluntly. 'Your brain has been addled with the pursuit of what you are pleased to imagine poetry, until you have grown to believe that a man can live on love and lyrics instead of on beefsteak and bullion. You say you can never love any but the Countess Almara; I say it is, at all events, your duty to try. Go to Paris, and at least make the acquaintance of the young lady your father has selected for you. If you find her unlovable, at all events that will be some satisfaction.'

'Thank you very much, Campbell, but I can't, really.'

'You persist in running your head against a wall?'

Jeff smiled mildly and said nothing.

'All right; liberavi animam meam. I wash my hands of you. One thing: I can't take the responsibility of giving you an introduction.'

'You know them both, then?'

'Well, I have not been presented to the young lady yet, but——'

'I shall be happy to present you when I know her myself,' said Jeff forgivingly; 'and when we are married I trust you and I will be better friends than ever.'

'Oh! fathomless self-conceit and fatuity of Bostonian youth!' I muttered to myself as I lit a final cigarette and preceded the poet to the door. 'Poor Jeff! upon my soul I am sorry for him!'

And when we parted outside I shook his hand with a feeling not far removed from respect mingling with my impatience, and I watched him walk away with the kindly hope that the Providence which presides over children and fools might keep a beneficent eye upon the poor little poet.

VI.

I was in rather an ill-humour that afternoon. After a short turn about the town I returned to my atelier and tried to paint; but colour had lost its harmony for me, and composition its meaning. I took up Balzac's Deux Frères, and plunged into the details of the miseries of Agatha, the villainy of Philip, and the genius of Joseph; but the appalling truth of the picture depressed and irritated me. I stretched myself on the lounge and gave way to moody reverie. I pictured to myself a man five-and-thirty years of age, who had had his romance and got cured of it a dozen summers ago, who piqued himself on his sceptical and unimpassive temperament, who had fallen into confirmed bachelorhood, who was prolific of cynical and pro-Malthusian doctrines to erotic young fellows under thirty, and whose eminence in the world of art was due to the unalloyed devotion of both heart and brain which he had hitherto lavished upon it. I asked myself what was the fitting punishment for such a man's apostasy from his principles.

'Such a man,' I answered myself, 'is not fit to be trusted abroad. I condemn him to pack up his traps and go home, and I give him two hours to complete his preparations for starting.'

The clock—the tall Norman clock with its round face of embossed brass and its huge slow-swinging pendulum—struck half-past three. I got up and rung the bell. Presently a withered old lady appeared, in a black gown, white cap and apron, neat blue stockings, and low shoes.

'Madame Enault,' I said, 'I shall leave you this afternoon. That a porter be here at five o'clock to take my baggage to the diligence; and, if you please, that we make up our little accounts.'

Madame Enault was crushed. She was sent to grass! Monsieur going to leave that very day even?

'Perfectly.'

Monsieur had perhaps encountered something to miscontent him? Madame Enault would do anything in her power to render things more satisfactory to Monsieur.

'Madame misconstrues me. It is that affairs demand my departure.'

'Monsieur will he pardon Madame Enault?'

'But without doubt.'

'Monsieur will, then, recollect that, in coming here, he was so good as to engage the rooms for six weeks, whereas only one week has elapsed....'

'You are completely in reason, Madame, and you will be paid for the whole six weeks precisely as if I had remained.'

Madame drops a curtsey and will instantly apprise a porter of Monsieur's intentions.

I now proceeded to pack my trunks and painting gear, and then, it being a little after four, I sallied forth for a farewell stroll on the parade.

It was a magnificent afternoon. A fresh cool breeze had replaced the lazy calm of the morning. The horizon line and the profile of the cliffs were defined sharp and clear. Great white castellated clouds sailed across the blue, and rhythmic waves came tumbling in frothy profusion along the beach. The whole scene was like a shout of joy, and it had never spoken so feelingly to me as now that I was saying good-bye to it.

As I turned away after a long look seaward, I met the Countess Semaroff and her daughter face to face.

I bowed. Madame smiled and gave me her hand, and before withdrawing it she looked at her daughter and said—

'My very dear, this is Monsieur Campbell. Ah, Monsieur, it has been a dream of my daughter to meet you.'

'I trust Mademoiselle will not find in me an illustration of the proverb, "Songe mensonge,"' I said, clumsily enough.

Mademoiselle smiled slightly, as courtesy required, but all the while her eyes rested upon me searchingly and doubtfully, as though to satisfy herself whether I were to be believed in or distrusted, whether she might expect to find in the artist the complement and justification of his works. No kind of look, perhaps, is so difficult to sustain with composure as this. The most redoubtable artist is conscious that the inspiration of his best efforts comes from a source superior to himself, in comparison with which the average level of his thoughts and motives makes but a sorry show. The merciless and undisguised inquisition of an ardent and unsophisticated young woman is thus apt to become not a little trying, especially when the inquisitrix is furnished with such a pair of eyes as nature had endowed the Countess Almara withal.

Indeed, strange and striking in other respects as was the beauty of the young Countess, it was her eyes that individualised her and rendered her a paragon among women. Large and perfectly black they were—so black that it was a wonder to see them so full of light. The iris was of breadth so unusual that, like a black sun between two clouds, its upper and lower rims were infringed upon by the imperial eyelids. The human eye, as every portrait painter knows, has in itself but a narrow range of expression: it is the setting that imports. Now, the Countess Almara's upper eyelid was falconlike—straight above the pupil, and falling away thence towards the cheek in a long sweeping curve—a bold, lavish eyelid, indicative of keen intelligence and a noble temper. In singular contrast with this was the lower lid, most sensitively and changefully fashioned, responsive to every shifting emotion, sad, mirthful, wistful, pleasurable, tender; this it was that betrayed the woman, as the other announced the countess. Like the shimmer of light upon water, the delicate nerves in this region were never at rest; here, as upon a photographic plate, was legible the impress of each word or unuttered thought. Thus it might be affirmed of the Countess Almara that she had two eyes where other women have but one; and certainly she was able to do four times more execution with her pair than most daughters of Eve can accomplish.

There was a fine unconventionality in the cast of her features which was in itself an element of life. The low and broad forehead terminated in far-reaching and strongly defined eyebrows. The nose, long and finely chiselled, especially about the nostrils, descended from between the eyes in a line which, towards the end, had just enough of an upward tendency to redeem it from classic tameness. Tameness, in fact, is the word most expressive of everything that the young Countess was not. Her mouth was generous; the upper lip, short and slender, lay like a coral snake upon the full and voluptuously moulded lip below; thence curved forth the chin, clean cut and mettlesome, which she habitually carried high, and to which she communicated movements of fascinating wilfulness. Her profile, as a whole, was therefore of the concave rather than the convex order, and possessed a charmingly wild, barbaric quality, by no means inconsistent with a thorough refinement.

Of her grand figure I have already spoken. Her bearing was elastic and vigorous, yet pervaded always by the subtle and inevitable dignity of a high-bred lady. A kind of scarlet barret-cap surmounted the heavy black coil of her hair; and she wore a close-fitting dress of black serge, with a scarlet bow fluttering at the throat and a scarlet belt around the waist. It was a costume simple to severity, but in which she looked diabolically handsome. Her only ornaments on this occasion were two broad hoops of gold in her ears, and, on her left hand, an antique ring with an enormous ruby in it. Such a ruby not one lady in a thousand would dare to put on; it must have come to her, I thought, from the tomb of some early royal ancestress. It harmonised well with what I took to be the essential character of the Countess Almara.

Here, however, has been more than enough of personal description, which is never so futile as when it attempts to catch the secret of a lovely woman's charm. As an artist I have dwelt upon details which to the ordinary eye would have combined for the production of a single effect more or less acutely pleasurable. I looked at her with the instinctive longing which an artist feels to interpret beauty upon canvas; and the critical admiration of my glance met and partly disconcerted the critical inquiry of her own.

'I have much happiness in speaking to Monsieur Campbell,' she said after a moment in a deep fresh voice. 'To me it is not as if I were speaking to a stranger.'

We walked on slowly, the young Countess between her mother and me. I felt a childish desire to utter something brilliant and profound; and, knowing by experience that such a wish is always fatal to the deed, I took refuge in the intensity of commonplace.

'Mademoiselle finds this place enjoyable?'

'After the city, truly, yes.'

'Paris is indeed hot in this month.'

'It is from St. Petersburg that we come here.'

'Mademoiselle the Countess is, then, a Russian?'

Here the elder lady interposed with a smile, 'Not altogether Russian, monsieur. For my part, I am a Circassian. My father was attached to the Court of the Czar after the conquest of our poor country. I was married among our conquerors—what will you? For Almara, she may be called the Reconciliation, is it not?'

'If all quarrels could find such reconciliation——' I began.

The Countess Semaroff laughed good-naturedly. 'There, you are spirituel; one sees you have lived much in Paris,' she was kind enough to say.

'But it is not in the salons of Paris that you have found the power to conceive your pictures. I refer not to the execution—the technique—all that which labour and experience may acquire; but it is the thought, look you, the life that is in your work; and this can be found not in any city, not in any society, but only in the man himself who feels, who sees.'

It was the young Countess who spoke thus, and with an energy of tone and expression that caused those nerves of self-approbation which are situated somewhere in the back part of a man's throat to thrill pleasantly. I had not expected to find in so young a woman an appreciation at once so earnest and intelligent.

'You have studied art yourself?' I said to her.

'Behold, my very dear, you will permit that I sit on the bench and read my letter while you and Monsieur Campbell have your little debate. When you are fatigued you shall rejoin me. Go, then.' And with this the good Countess established herself upon a seat sheltered from the breeze, but which we would pass and repass at every turn of our promenade. Our conversation continued.

'I do not name myself student; I am a lover,' said the Countess Almara. 'My life has not been a school; it has been a passion. I cannot talk learnedly, as do many; I know not the names of things; but I know what reaches my heart: that I understand and never forget.'

'It is, then, that your heart has taught you more than the heads of many students teach them.'

'I should like to believe that,' she exclaimed with animation. 'I like not to be told, "You must believe this; you must say that." I would believe and say because I cannot help it. Figure to yourself that my life has not been altogether after the convenances. A child, I lived in a grand château beside a lake; beyond the lake was a mountain, and on all sides a forest. I had a gun, I hunted, and I swam and rowed upon the lake, and I had my horses and my dogs. To sew, to play with dolls, look you, I cared not for it. I am not as the French, not even as the Russians; like my mother, I am Circassian; yes, I am more Circassian than she instead of less.'

'I believe it well. But later you left this château—you travelled?'

'I have been to many places and seen much society, and I have learned to behave comme il faut and to speak the French. But it is only a little comedy that I act; I feel that within me remains always the little girl of the lake and forest, but dressed differently, and with a face that does not tell the truth, as then. I can look happy when I am sad, and grave when I wish to laugh.'

'But you are happier than you were before?'

'Oh, for example, behold a question of difficulty,' said the Countess, shrugging her shoulders. 'One is never happy as in childhood; but, in fine, one finds a way to be happy. To love what is beautiful is happiness, but then it is a happiness full of all that is most sad.'

'It is not often that one has discovered that truth at your age, mademoiselle.'

'But it is true, is it not? For beauty dies; or if not beauty, then the eye, the soul, that has enjoyed it. Why was it ever shown to us? It only makes us long for what never comes, for what can never be.'

This gloomy philosophy, uttered by one who should have seen as yet only the sunshine of life, roused me to attempt what, for me, was the anomaly of vindicating the more hopeful view. Some platitude I brought forth about the soul finding in another world the fulfilment of unsatisfied aspirations, and I asked her whether she doubted immortality.

We were leaning on the broad wooden railing of the promenade, looking seaward. The Countess was turning her ring absently on her forefinger.

'There ought to be immortality,' said she, 'to recompense us, not for what we have suffered in the world, but for what we have enjoyed!'

'Yes, you could not have hit upon a stronger argument,' returned I after a moment's thought.

'Is it strong enough?'

'Strong enough certainly to justify hope.'

'Ah, my God, one hopes without any justification at all. You conceive, monsieur, I am not of those who believe all we are told of the holy Greek Church. To believe, and after all to be deceived! I could not bear it. I have not found anyone so wise as to make all doubts seem foolish. But I have found many things that tell me, "Destiny mocks you." Yes,' she added, turning towards me with a kind of fierceness in her look, 'yes, destiny mocks me.'

'This girl has sustained some terrible injustice in her life,' I thought to myself. 'It glows in her words like the fire in her ruby.'

After a pause she spoke again.

'Figure to yourself, monsieur, a life that feels itself strong and capable of all enjoyments and aspirations; and this life, in the midst of its joy and freedom, one day meets its destiny, which says, "You are a slave: your aspirations are ashes; your joy shall make you weep; you shall become all that you despise. If you struggle to be free, you shall but dig your dungeon deeper. So it shall be to the end; but I do not forbid you to hope." Well, is not that mockery?'

'Destiny has not that power over us. I who speak to you have suffered, mademoiselle, but I have not found that suffering degrades. It chills, perhaps.'

'Ah, you speak of men. I am a woman; it is another thing that! But behold me who discourse thus to you, who see me for the first time—who think me mad.'

'Oh, Countess!...'

'Do you know why I say to you these things, which I have said before to no one—to no one, Monsieur Campbell? It is because they grew in my mind as I looked at your picture—your picture, that is now mine as well. Many hours have I looked at it, and I said, "The man who has conceived that he has known what are the secrets of life. If I meet him I will tell him these secrets of mine; he is worthy to hear them. He can interpret mysteries." But your interpretation is profound, monsieur; not everyone can read it.'

'If I could always paint for such as you, Countess, I might some day realise my ideal.'

She stood meditatively, her hands hanging folded and her eyes dreaming.

'When I saw that picture,' she said at length, 'I felt that it was the picture of my soul. There she sits within her rampart, which was once whole and sound. But now there is a breach, and that breach will never be built up again—never, never. Once the enemy has entered; and though for years and years she may watch and guard, yet at some hour, some moment even, her eyes will droop and her hand waver.... Then he springs and clutches her, and it is ended. See him where he lurks there outside among the bushes. He waits; he is sure. And she—regard that terror in her eyes. Monsieur, it is a sublime thing to be a great painter.'

She held out her hand to me impulsively; there were tears in her eyes, but she smiled them away with a wilful defiance. Our hands just touched; then she withdrew hers. 'You see I have not had your picture for nothing; I have looked at it,' she said.

I was deeply touched. 'You have seen through it into the heart that conceived it.'

'Let us talk of other things,' she exclaimed abruptly in a lighter tone. 'Come, let us walk, else madame my mother will think again that I am lost.'

We resumed our promenade accordingly, but for awhile in silence.

'You look at my ruby. Do you find it handsome?' She had been turning and twisting the ring upon her finger, and my eyes had more than once been drawn to it. Almost as soon as she had spoken she slipped the ring off and laid it in my hand.

'It is a real antique,' I said, concealing the surprise this sudden act inspired in me. 'It is an heirloom in your family, perhaps?'

'It is a magic ring; there is a spell connected with it,' said the Countess, laughing.

'Let me not be the breaker of the spell,' I rejoined, holding it towards her. But instead of taking it from me, she extended her long taper finger, and I put the ring on it.

'There, you have put it on, and now it will never come off,' she said with a strange smile. 'It is the ring of my destiny.'

'Yours should be a rich destiny, then.'

'Yes, I shall be rich; I shall make a figure in the world,' she replied still smiling. 'Nevertheless the spell is a curse; for so long as I wear the ring I must be miserable, and if I lose it I shall be wicked.'

'Is there no third alternative?'

'There was, but now the moment is passed. That is your fault, monsieur.'

'My fault?'

'If, when I gave you the ring just now, and it was in your power, you had flung it far, far away into the sea, then the curse would have left me, and I should have been free always.'

'If that be all I'll soon set you at liberty. Give me the ring.'

She shook her head. 'It is now too late. Such a chance can come only once. Have I not told you destiny mocks always? Behold my mother who beckons us.'

We approached Madame, who took her daughter's hand affectionately in hers. 'My very dear, we dine to-day at half-past four; we must make our toilette early. But, my God! how your hand is cold, my child. You have been chilled by that fog this morning.'

The Countess Almara laughed. 'It was not I; it was that poor young man with the black hair and the blue eyes who was swimming so far out; that he should have been chilled I could believe it. In effect it was droll,' she continued, turning to me. 'Figure yourself this little man—he was very little—little like that,' and she held her palm about four feet from the ground. 'Well, he swims out a fine distance, even as far as I go in the canoe. When the fog comes I hear a splash; I look round; I perceive this unfortunate infant. I think he shall be drowned, and I go towards him to preserve him. Then I see that this infant it is a man; and this man he seems to fear me more than to be drowned, for he swims away when I approach. So I return towards the shore, but slowly, so that he may see me and follow me; and, in fine, when we are nearly arrived the fog dissolves itself, and behold us.'

'Do you by hazard know this gentleman?' inquired the Countess Semaroff of me. 'He has the air of an Englishman.'

'No; he is an American,' I answered with a touch of prevarication.

'Ah, these Americans, how I hate them!' murmured the Countess Almara.

Madame rose with a shrug of her shoulders. 'We shall have the pleasure of seeing Monsieur Campbell at the dance this evening?'

'Without doubt—that is—no. I am to depart by the diligence even at the present hour.'

'Depart to-day? Impossible! After having met Monsieur to lose him so soon!'

'Madame, I am desolated, but—affairs.'

'You will not go to-day,' said the Countess Almara, in a voice so low it could have been audible only to myself.

'Perhaps, indeed, I could manage to postpone for a few days——' I resumed, still addressing myself to Madame.

'Good. We remain here but a few days longer ourselves; and when we go you shall accompany us. That will be charming. Is it agreed?'

'Madame, a thousand acknowledgments.'

'Till this evening, then.'

I bowed low. The Countess Almara laid her hand in mine, our eyes met, her lips seemed to form the word 'Merci,' but she did not utter it aloud; then she turned brusquely and followed her mother, and they were soon out of sight.

VII.

I drew a long breath, stroked my beard thoughtfully, looked at my watch, and set out at a brisk pace for my lodgings. Before I had gone far I heard my name called, and turning, saw Mr. Jefferson Montgomery, who signalled to me with one gloved hand while with the other he lifted his hat in adieu to an elderly gentleman with a tremendous sweep of moustachios. My friend now hastened towards me, his white teeth flashing, his blue eyes beaming, and with a general air of prosperity and benevolence.

'I am so glad to see you, dear Campbell. But they told me you were going to leave us. Surely you're not?'

'What an idea! I shall be here at least a week.'

Jeff took my arm with perfect cordiality and good faith. I did not want him, but there was nothing for it but to let the poor little man come. Arrived at my house, I sent him upstairs while I stopped to have a word with my landlady.

'Madame Enault, I shall be able to remain another week.'

Madame Enault was delighted, but would Monsieur pardon her?

'Freely and completely. What then?'

Only that, since Monsieur's notice to leave another monsieur had engaged the rooms, and Madame Enault had agreed with him for a month.

'Then let him know that you misunderstood me and that he must go elsewhere.'

To a marvel; only, alas! this gentleman had deposited the hire of the rooms in advance.

'You will return his deposit to him.'

Perfectly, but that, having had a heavy bill to meet, Madame Enault had been constrained to pay the money away.

'Ah! and Madame requires me to supply her with the cash in question?'

Monsieur had exactly divined the necessity that unfortunately existed.

Providence had treated me too well for me to be severe with so thrifty and unimpeachable a landlady; accordingly a financial transaction took place, the porter was remanded, and I went upstairs.

'And so you have been introduced,' said Jeff. He was reclining Adonis-like upon the lounge, exquisitely dressed.

'To whom do you refer?'

'Now don't be English and reticent. Whom should I mean but my countess? I do so want to hear your opinion of her.'

I could not help laughing a little, for to be seriously angry with the bard of Beacon Street was not easy.

'Unless you wish to write yourself down irrevocably an ass, my dear boy, you will not again apply the possessive pronoun to the Countess Almara. It sounds much as if a horse-fly should speak of his proprietorship of a four-in-hand.'

'My dear Campbell, you are really impolite.'

'I know it, and I hold you responsible for forcing me to address you with such brutality. I'm not accustomed to it.'

'How you do go on!' sighed Jeff, wiping his eyebrows with his cambric handkerchief. 'One never knows when you're in earnest. But really don't you think we shall make a first-rate match?'

'Gracious Powers! Do you know that there are probably not two men living for whom the Countess Almara would not be more than a match?'

'Exactly. In fact, there is only one who could mate with her on equal terms, and—well, I happen to be he.' Jeff uttered this with perfect modesty and conviction.

'My young friend, your chances with that young lady are not hopeless; they are ridiculous. She actually cannot maintain gravity at the thought of you. Must I reveal that she speaks of the "pauvre enfant," that she is convinced you are only four feet high, and that she declares she frightened you terribly in the fog this morning? Eloquent looks and sympathy of souls indeed!' and I laughed rudely.

'I don't believe a word you say,' replied Jeff, laughing also. 'But there is one thing that I do begin to believe.'

'What is that?'

'That I've got a rival, eh? ha, ha, ha!'

'You have an entirely too lively imagination,' was my cold reply.

'Ah, Campbell, you are very deep—very. If I were less sure of my countess than I am I declare I should feel uneasy.'

'Merely for curiosity's sake, where do you find encouragement?'

'You were in earnest, then, when you said this morning that you knew less than I about women? Your difficulty is, probably, that you regard woman as a species of man, when in fact no woman who amounts to anything has a particle of masculinity about her. They may pretend to it sometimes, just to bamboozle fellows who are inexperienced; but they drop it in the presence of a man who sees through them.'

'Through their backs. I understand.'

'Exactly. Well, then, my countess, when I have my eye upon her, is her simple womanly self, because she knows my insight is unerring; but with you I'll wager she talks literature, and art, and morals, and things of that kind, eh?'

'I will not deny it, Jeff.'

'Of course she did, and why? Because she knew she could make you believe she really cared for such things; and, womanlike, she couldn't resist humbugging you.'

'And her laughing at you, her contemptuous allusions to your stature and so forth were also impositions upon my naïve ignorance of the sex?'

'Indeed, my dear Campbell, they were.'

'It is me, then, and not you that she considers ridiculous?'

'At all events you can see that it's not me,' said Jeff leniently. 'Why, just consider the points in me which she professed to consider laughable. My height! Now the last thing a woman bothers herself about in a man is his height. When there is a question of physical attractions, she looks first at his shoulders, then at his eyes, then at his feet and hands, then at his chin. If these please her his height may take care of itself; and if you won't mind my saying it, the less it has to take care of the better. Look at Napoleon Bonaparte, Martin Luther, Frederick the Great, Benjamin Franklin, Plato, General Grant. Why, pretty nearly everybody who has stood a head and shoulders above his generation has been under five feet eight.'

'Bravo, Jeff! You are both eloquent and sagacious. Beacon Street should be proud of you.'

'Knowledge of this kind is a matter of temperament and intuition. Experience can but confirm what the soul has already divined; and if the previous divination do not exist, age and experience are just so much to the bad, if you won't mind my saying so. And so she ridiculed the fog incident?'

'She alluded to it with an apparent spice of humour,' I said diffidently.

'Dear girl,' murmured the poet tenderly. 'That seeming ridicule was almost as direct an avowal of affection as a modest woman could have made. That mutual voiceless self-revelation of ours, which my dear Campbell professes to discredit, has evidently stirred my Countess to her depths. It has aroused the potent germs of the master passion of her life. She trembles to confess herself to herself; how, then, could she do otherwise than veil herself from a stranger? and what better veil than a simulated mirth and mockery? But really now you don't need me to tell you this; it's the A, B, C of the feminine nature.'

'Jeff, you puzzle me; you are either more or less than human. At all events you are an incarnate solution of the old problem how to make the best of it. Well, what are your proximate intentions?'

'To dance the "Boston" with her this evening.'

'You will be at the ball, then?'

'Indeed, yes. Shall not you?'

'I shall; for since you are definitely resolved upon playing the donkey, I want to be in a position to hear your opening bray.'

'At ten o'clock, then; but it will be a variation upon A Midsummer Night's Dream,' answered the poet with imperturbable geniality; and so we parted.

VIII.

The ball—or rather the soirée dansante—was announced for nine o'clock, and at thirty minutes after that hour I passed through the doorway.

An oblong hall, the floor space framed in on three sides by an embankment of benches, with the orchestra on the fourth. This orchestra comprised a piano, two violins, and a trombone, all in evening dress. The assembly to whom this unexceptionable quartette discoursed was by no means so rigorously attired. There were coats and trousers of all hues, and skirts and waists of all fashions and degrees of lowness. The scene was a motley one, but all incongruities were harmonised by the universal element of uncompromising enjoyment, pervading black and grey, high and low alike, and animating the heels and heads of the spectators upon the benches as well as the actual performers upon the floor. The orchestra sawed and thrummed with hearty good-will, and the lamps on their brackets and the windows in their frames jarred and rattled to the rhythmic fall of feet. In the pauses of the dance and clatter the roar of the surf came in through the open door upon the wings of the cool salt breeze.

The most polished people in the world dance, if not ideally, at least really. There is no languishing, no shilly-shallying, but downright roundabout, vigorous hard work. A Frenchman who has danced over night must needs feel the effects of it on getting up in the morning; and as for his partner, who has danced for herself and for him on two separate counts, it is a wonder she ever gets up at all. Their scheme of a waltz is simple and telling, being based upon the primitive principle of planetary motion—revolution round their own axis and revolution round their orbit. This double motion is kept up with mechanical regularity until nature—or more frequently the orchestra—gives way. The orbit of one couple being the orbit of all, the general effect of a lively waltz is of a voluntary human whirlpool composed of self-centred tête-à-tête eddies. By centrifugal law the centre of the whirlpool remains empty.

A moment's inspection of this whirlpool satisfied me that it did not contain the Countess Almara. As I was proceeding to a scrutiny of the benches the frou-frou of a crisp skirt along the aisle caused me to turn and find my face within eighteen inches of the clear firm cheek of the beautiful pagan. She and her mother passed without appearing to see me; and they were followed by a military-looking personage of some fifty years of age, bald-headed, broad-shouldered, and bulky, whom I fancied I had noticed once or twice before. After seeing the ladies into their seats he returned past me up the aisle and went out.

Presently I came down, exchanged greetings with my friends, and sat in a vacant seat near the Countess Almara. Her manner was distraught and preoccupied; her smile only came from her lips, and though she looked me in the face occasionally with a certain intentness, she seemed scarcely to see me or to comprehend my words.

Her personal appearance was more diabolically handsome than ever. As usual, her colours were black and red, but, being in silk, they were exceptionally effective. There was a glimpse of warm white neck and smooth rounded arms; her hair, coiled on the top of her head, revealed the graceful bend of the nape. Her bracelet and necklace matched the earrings of the morning, and beneath the delicate film of her glove was discernible the form of the great ruby.

'Might I have the honour of this dance?'

'Not yet, not yet. In this moment I feel myself unable. Let us rather talk. I am not myself; you see it. Listen to the sea. My God! how it roars! I wish I were out on it in my canoe with the great waves.'

I laughed to disguise the concern which her manifest agitation caused me.

'In that case, mademoiselle, you would be without the advantage of my society; and I doubt whether my little friend Montgomery even would venture to swim after you on such a night as this.'

'Oh, he is your friend, then, this Monsieur Mont—Mont-go-merie? And I have spoken of him to you slightingly. I did not know, and I am foolish; I speak without forethought. You will forget it? Yes.'

'If anyone should apologise it is I, for not having warned you beforehand of our tender relations. But be reassured; Monsieur Montgomery is a poet, and intends making you the heroine of an epic. If you are gracious to him this evening he will forgive you anything.'

'It is not of him that I shall demand pardon,' said the Countess with the slightest imaginable intonation of scorn. 'But he is your friend, and you shall see how I will be polite.' She breathed and moved nervously, her thoughts being evidently absorbed in some subject foreign enough to anything I could guess. Her eyes were restless, and she fanned her flushed cheeks in vain.

'What day is this?' she demanded suddenly.

'The fifteenth of August.'

'I shall remember it always—always.'

The hand that held the fan drooped, and, seemingly by accident, touched my own. The momentary glance that swept my face showed an inward trouble and appeal, and, if I read it aright, a something deeper and more passionate beyond. With the unexpectedness that was one of her characteristics she rose to her feet.

'Come, I feel better at present: let us dance; come.'

In her preoccupation she had not perceived that the music had ceased some minutes, and the dancers all left the floor.

'What hast thou, then, dear one?' inquired the Countess Semaroff, looking up indolently through her eye-glasses.

Almara perceived her blunder, and I could mark a pulsation of anger pass through her body while she muttered behind her teeth, 'That I am imbecile!'

'Don't you find it very warm here? Suppose we take a turn to the door,' I suggested. She thanked me with a look, exchanged a glance and a word with her mother, and taking my arm, we began to move down the aisle.

Presentiments, though commonly deceptive, do nevertheless exist. Just at this time I had a presentiment that some crisis was impending. If I could secure a few minutes' privacy with the young Countess, I was resolved to tell her a secret which already burned within me, though I myself had not known it until this very evening. But I felt conviction, I felt confidence, and I felt that there was no time like the present.

Events the most insignificant upset purposes the most momentous. There were two doors to the hall, and in order to reach the one at which we were aiming it was necessary to cross the floor. As we stepped on the floor at one side a couple of gentlemen appeared on the other; we met in the very centre of the hall, but it was not until I felt the Countess press my arm that I thought to notice who either of the gentlemen was. To my ineffable annoyance I then recognised the infatuated Jeff leaning on the arm of the bulky gentleman with the moustachios, who was positively in the act of introducing him to my partner.

The Countess seemed as much taken by surprise as myself. She returned Jeff's elaborate obeisance with a grand curtsey, and then stood erect and silent, her hand still resting within my arm. The music struck up another waltz.

'May I have the honour of this dance?' inquired Jeff with his sweetest emphasis.

I waited to hear the Countess say she was engaged and to pass on with her; but after an instant's pause she slowly relinquished my arm, and uttering the conventional words, 'Je veux bien,' she resigned herself to the triumphant Bostonian.

Then, when it was too late, I realised that our engagement had been for the previous dance, and not for this one, if indeed there had been any definite engagement at all, and that, as I had heard Jeff's request in silence, the Countess had been forced to suppose that I desired we should part. It was one of those absurd misapprehensions which occur in ball-rooms as well as in other places, but which I had never found so vexatious as in the present instance.

Meantime Jeff and she had eddied away from me; another couple, revolving up from behind, came into collision with me. I felt myself in a false position, and beat a retreat to the Countess Semaroff, beside whom I seated myself with the gloomy grin of a baffled man.

But the Countess made herself particularly gracious and entertaining, and I was perforce obliged to give her a good deal of attention, though my real interest was monopolised by the proceedings of Jeff and his partner. Jeff was undoubtedly the best dancer in the room, and the 'Boston' step which he danced was not only more graceful and easy than the ordinary whirligig, but, by the device of 'reversing,' enabled him to perform his evolutions undisturbed in that vacant centre of the merry-go-round which has been already described. This proficiency of his contributed to the sum of my misfortunes for that evening. I am not myself a good dancer, and I therefore shrank from affording the Countess Almara an opportunity of comparing Jeff's performance with my own. I resolved not to dance at all, and to trust to luck for an opportunity of getting a few minutes' private conversation with her.

But the stars in their courses fought against me on this night of August 15. Madame introduced me to the military gentleman, who turned out to be her husband, and he and I presently fell into an animated political discussion. When Jeff and his partner returned they took seats on the further side of the Countess, and it was almost impossible for me to appropriate so much as a glance from those eyes which now held so large a portion of my world's light. I could mark her forced attention to the poet's vapourings; I could divine her secret disgust, and I understood that she endured this petty martyrdom from a mistaken idea of making me reparation for her slight upon him. But I was practically incapacitated for either explanation or consolation. The intangible trammels of society and etiquette are as strong as the thread that bound Fenrir, and I finally made up my mind that I might as well go home.

'Before you go, dear Monsieur Campbell,' said the Countess Semaroff with a glance at the Count, 'we will venture to entreat of you a great favour.'

'I despair of expressing to you the extent of the obligation which your condescension would impose upon us,' added the Count with his bland, impassive politeness.

'Am I really, then, so fortunate as to be able to contribute in any way to the pleasure of the Count and Countess? What happiness!'

'Behold how it becomes ravishing!' exclaimed the Countess. 'Almara, my very dear, Monsieur Campbell will perhaps consent.'

The young Countess had been sitting with her hands folded listlessly in her lap, absorbed apparently in her own thoughts, which were who knows how far removed from the confiding chit-chat which poor Jeff was babbling at her ear. She now raised her head and turned her eyes upon me. The deep sentiment contained in that look would have drawn from me, had she required it, the sacrifice even of that happiness which was to be the substance of my life. She said not a word.

'Thou must ask Monsieur; do thou ask him, Almara,' continued the Countess, smiling, 'since it concerns thee.'

'Is it that you would paint a portrait of me?' said Almara simply.

'Merely a sketch, dear monsieur,' put in the mother persuasively. 'The opportunity may not again occur for us. It is not often one has the fortune to meet Monsieur Campbell.'

'And there can be but one Monsieur Campbell in the world,' added the Count with a bow.

'Something at all events—a likeness merely—a work of three days,' subjoined Madame earnestly.

I had had time to suppress the first impulse of delight, and to command my face to an expression of polite affability. In this so-called favour I recognised the agency of the Countess Almara. To the father and mother it meant securing a likeness of their daughter from the hand of the first portrait-painter of the day; but to that painter and to that daughter it meant hours spent in comparatively undisturbed enjoyment of one another's society—hours of silent sympathies, of low-spoken words that sounded little but meant much; hours that would count for years in the progress of a mutual understanding where each sought to reveal all and withhold nothing.

'It will give me great pleasure to sketch Mademoiselle,' said I. 'Four or five sittings will suffice. To-morrow, after the bath, we will speak further on the subject. At present I must retire. Madame the Countess, monsieur, mademoiselle, au revoir.'

'Good-night, Campbell,' spoke up Jeff as I moved away. 'Thank you ever so much; but you must expect to find me a severe critic. Au revoir.'

IX.

But our drama was not to reach its conclusion without a modicum of the tragic element, and this modicum was to be introduced by no less heroic a character than the little poet of Beacon Hill.

It is yet early to point the moral of my tale; but I may remark that we are not seldom helped along the path of life, and even have our true direction pointed out to us, by ineffective obstacles. The person or circumstance obstructing us first arouses us to appreciate the advantages of a course which we might else never have thought of, or, having thought of, might have lacked energy to pursue.

In this sense it may be said that I owed my introduction to the Countess Almara, and still more the colour which that acquaintance immediately assumed, to the unintentional influence of my Boston friend. His vague rhapsodies first drew my attention to a woman whom I had till then admired without appreciating her. His transcendental love-making had shown me how truly she was lovable, and his infatuated pursuit of her had stimulated me to a decision whose gravity might else have given me pause. Left to myself, I should doubtless have fallen in love, but I should have been a great deal longer about it. At the age of five-and-thirty the passions are more enduring than in youth, but do not ordinarily kindle so readily. Jeff was the match that set me afire, and he the goad that drove me at a pace which surprised myself. But I do not care to dwell upon this phase of my romance. To have been the rival of one you contemn is unpleasant, and the superior nature cannot avoid remorse in looking back upon such a contest.

However, the sittings began and fulfilled all our anticipations—Almara's and mine. The further I penetrated into her mind and heart the richer did these appear. Our speech and bearing still observed a chivalrous sort of ceremony towards one another; we did not as yet permit ourselves to be frankly lovers. But our reserve was only an instinctive device for gaining a deeper realisation of our happiness. Strong natures often illustrate this paradox: they are repelled for a time by the intensity of their attraction to each other.

Moreover, we were never left entirely to ourselves; the customs of Continental etiquette are immovable, and so was the Countess Semaroff from my atelier or from the little antechamber opening out of it. But the restraint was purely formal, and even added to the zest of our enjoyment by giving it the air of being something to intrigue for. It may not be creditable to human nature, but it is a fact that the most precious gifts of love are the smuggled ones.

But why did I not declare the state of affairs at once to the Count and Countess, and thus settle a question of such vital moment to me? In the first place, I could plead the lover's excuse—the desire to keep the secret of his heart for a time veiled, even from her he loved. But, besides this, I felt uncertain how the avowal would be received, not by Almara herself—I was sure of her—but by her parents. A marriage between even an eminent artist and a woman of noble birth is not an everyday occurrence; and I felt the prudence of sounding the views of the Count and Countess on this subject before putting my fate to the touch. In case of refusal, indeed, I should not hesitate to take Almara in spite of them, feeling as I did that our love would be compensation for all losses; and it may be that I contemplated the possibility of a hostile turn of the die with something like a pleasurable thrill. A man likes to prove his power in the teeth of obstacles; and, as I looked at Almara's proud and passionate beauty, I thought how grand would be the response to the summons of her heart. It would be almost a pity to forego that spectacle.

Another source of my hesitation had to do with the mystery which still continued to invest my beautiful sitter—that mystery which seemed concentrated in her ruby. What it might be I knew not; Almara quietly but resolutely foiled all my attempts to lead the conversation up to the subject. Of course I was not able, situated as we were, to make any serious attack upon her reserve; but it was evident that her secret would probably remain a secret until all concealments were finally at an end between us. All that troubled me in the matter was a fear lest it should turn out to be a hindrance to our union; but, as time went on, this apprehension faded from my mind. Almara was gradually losing those traces of depression and anxiety which she had betrayed in our first interviews. The sunnier side of her character came out; she chatted with gaiety and abandon; the shadow of pain and revolt was passing away. She still turned and twisted the heavy ring upon her finger, but now rather caressingly than impatiently. And once, I remember, as she and I and the rest, including Jeff, were sitting after sundown round a table outside the casino, laughing, gossiping, admiring the afterglow along the western horizon, and sipping iced coffee out of tall glasses, on this evening of the last day but one of the sittings I saw her lift her hand to her lips with one of those unexpected movements of hers and bestow a quick kiss upon the ruby. No one seemed to notice this strange gesture, which indeed was so managed as to have escaped any eye less keen than a lover's. What was the meaning of it? Almara's glance met mine; for a moment she seemed disconcerted, but the next moment laughed and said saucily—

'Monsieur Campbell, do you know a cure for burnt fingers?'

The next day at noon the last sitting was over. I sat alone in the atelier, adding the finishing touches to the portrait. At four o'clock the whole party, not forgetting Jeff, were to be present for the 'private view.'

No one, not even Almara, had thus far been permitted to see the picture; and as for my Boston friend, I had not suffered him even to be present at any of the sittings. Besides that the little man had a disturbing effect upon me I wished these hours to be as far as possible sacred to my sitter and myself—oases of serene communion uninvaded by Bostonian ineptitudes. On the other hand, I must plead guilty to having used Jeff (or allowed Almara to use him) outside the studio in a manner perhaps inconsistent with the strict loyalty of friendship.

No definite words had passed between her and me on the subject, but, by a tacit agreement, the unsuspecting poet was made to do duty as a blind. Almara, in short, made show of a particular and sentimental interest in him, thus closing people's eyes to the state of feeling between ourselves. She acted her part so well, and the delighted Jeff so purred and beamed under her condescension, that I sometimes felt remorse. He deserved it, no doubt; it would teach him a lesson; and yet I disliked seeing even Jeff make such a fool of himself. The fact that he would have scouted my representations, had I sought to enlighten him, did not remove my responsibility. Almara did not seem to share my scruples; women never look at these things as men do. She fascinated Jeff without mercy; they canoed, dived, and danced together. A stronger brain than his might have failed to detect any insincerity in her manner. Perhaps, indeed, she was not for the time being any less sincere with him than she was with me. The histrionic side of a woman's nature is generally strong, and is sometimes developed to such a pitch that what they enact seems as real to them as what they are in sober earnest about.

About half an hour before the time appointed for receiving my visitors there was a knock at my door, and Jeff came in. He was as neat, complacent, and pretty as a miniature on ivory. I had just put the last touch to the canvas, and was standing back in thoughtful contemplation of the work.

'Well, how do you like it?' I asked him after the first words.

'Campbell, I am almost satisfied; and that, from me, is the highest eulogy that can be bestowed upon you.'

'You never told me that you were the final umpire in art criticism.'

'Oh, I only pretend to be the final umpire on the subject of Almara.'

'Come, Jeff, let this farce have an end,' said I, laying my hand kindly on his shoulder. 'From this hour you must give up your pretensions in that quarter. To use the homely phrase, the Countess Almara is meat for—Well, let us say for your elders.'

'Oh, my dear fellow, not at all; we suit each other perfectly. But I knew we should; you remember my telling you so? I should think you would have noticed it this week past yourself.'

'What I have noticed, my poor Jeff, has caused me more than one twinge of conscience. You must try and forgive me. The fact is, the Countess Almara and I——'

The poet interrupted me with an arch laugh.

'Twinge of conscience, did you say? Twinge of jealousy you mean. My dear old Campbell, if I have anything to forgive, I forgive it with all my heart. But my object in coming here so early was to ask you to forgive me.'

'Ah, I fancy I understand you, and I admit having thought you rather reprehensible on that score. Considering that your father made that provisional arrangement regarding your income in case you thwarted his wishes——'

'Yes, but that was only in case I——'

'In case you married anyone but the lady he had selected for you. Exactly. And you decided that you preferred the Countess to the income.'

'Really you are mistaken, Campbell. I have no idea of risking my income. I know the value of money.'

'All I was going to say was that you have not been acting quite ingenuously towards the Count and Countess Semaroff, not to speak of their daughter. They look upon you as a young gentleman able to dispose of ten thousand pounds a year. Now, if you had proposed to them for her hand without letting them know——'

'Propose to them for it? But, my dear Campbell, that was all settled from the beginning.'

'Do you mean to say they have admitted you as a suitor?'

'Why, what else could I mean?'

'And you omitted to tell them that in case you married her, you would have but three hundred pounds income?'

'Indeed, I told them nothing of the sort. Why should I?'

'Because an honest man in your place would have told them!' I replied coldly. 'You are sailing under false colours. You are giving yourself out to be a millionaire when you have only the salary of a clerk.'

'But isn't a clerk with ten thousand a year a pretty decent millionaire?'

'But you will have ten thousand a year only as long as you are unmarried.'

'That is so far the case that, after I'm married, I shall have twenty thousand a year—my wife's income added to my own.'

'Well, Montgomery, I don't care to beat about the bush with you. If you can reconcile your conduct with your own code of honesty it's no concern of mine. But as regards the Countess Almara—I am going to marry her myself.'

'You? Oh, you are joking.'

'I have loved her from the first; she loves me——'

'Oh! I say! ha, ha, ha! Has she told you so?'

'We have not openly declared ourselves in so many words—you are welcome to whatever consolation that may afford you—but there are other means of coming to an understanding than by words.'

'Well, that is true, at any rate: it is for that I came to ask your pardon, Campbell. But really was it not in great measure your own fault?'

'Upon my word, Montgomery, I fail to catch your drift.'

'Well—the long and short of it is she's been flirting with you.'

'With me? You surprise me.'

'You see she didn't want you to suspect our engagement. You remember that first conversation you had with her, when she made those allusions to my height, and said she hated Americans, and so on?'

I made a sign of assent.

'When she said those absurd things, though only in fun, she did not know that I was her intended; and when, a few hours later, we found each other out, she naturally felt annoyed at having spoken of me to a stranger in such terms. You understand?'

'Pray go on,' I said, taking up my palette and brushes and standing before the canvas, so that my face was turned from the speaker.

'So she begged her mother and me not to let you suspect; and the more thoroughly to lull your suspicions (and also because the girl is a born flirt, as all feminine women are) she—just—you know what—made love to you in a mild way, I suppose.'

Jeff paused. 'The man is mad—raving mad!' I muttered, still making pretence of retouching my background. Jeff flowed on.

'Of course a man like you, a man of the world, a great artist, and getting on in the forties—of course I knew you'd only be amused, and would take nothing seriously; and you know you scoffed at the notion of matrimony when I asked you about it. But still she can be so attractive when she chooses that latterly I began to fear you might be the least bit fetched, after all. I told Allie I'd never forgive her if it turned out so.'

'Told—who?'

'Allie—Almara, you know. We always called each other "Allie" and "Jeffie" in our letters.'

'Letters? You corresponded, then?'

'Regularly—for the last five years.'

'I see; and—and so it's been a settled thing—but—is this your first meeting?'

'Yes, and that is what made it so amusing. It had been arranged, you know, that I was to meet them in Paris on the 20th——'

'Meet whom? You must excuse me, but you have such an unsystematic way of imparting your information. I'm a bit confused.'

'To meet the Semaroffs. The Count is the Russian commissioner with whom we are in treaty about the cigarette-holders. We were to be formally betrothed in Paris, Allie and I——'

'Would you mind calling her the Countess Almara in speaking of her to me? I—I have unpleasant associations with the other name. Go on.'

'The point is that, happening to stop here on my way, I was a good deal taken with the "beautiful pagan," without of course knowing who she was; and I might have made myself very unhappy about her if it hadn't been for you.'

'Eh?'

'Yes, a fact. The first I knew of my pagan maid being one and the same with Allie—Countess, I mean—was your mentioning her name to me that first day at breakfast. Don't you remember my remarking how strangely things came out? It was accident our both happening to be here, but it was you who made us known to each other. Wasn't it curious?'

'Very curious, very amusing, the whole thing—ha, ha! And so that story about the three hundred a year was—part of your poem, I suppose?'

'Not at all. But the Countess Almara being my papa's selection, I risked nothing in marrying her. I tried to explain it to you at the time, but you pitched into me so, and insisted upon my leaving her and marrying somebody else, that at last, just for the fun of the thing, I allowed you to believe that I was really as great a fool as you took me for.'

Hereupon ensued a pause of some minutes. Jeff, I believe, lit a cigarette. What I did I have no recollection; but I must have remained standing before the easel. At length I felt that Jeff was standing behind me.

'It couldn't be better, really,' he said. 'They'll like it so much at home.'

'Beg pardon?'

'It's to go to Boston, you know, to give papa and mamma an idea of how their daughter-in-law looks. Ah! you've put in the ring, too. I'm glad of that. Handsome ruby, isn't it?'

'An antique. Such rings are not made nowadays.'

'Except by Tiffany; he manufactures them after the antique models. I got this at his store in New York six months ago, and paid fifteen hundred dollars for it. By the way, my dear Campbell, how much will this sketch be?'

'Hum, let me see. How long have I been over it?'

'Just six days.'

'Well, then, I'll let it go for six thousand pounds. I don't care to make money out of friends.'

The smoke of Jeff's cigarette got into his windpipe; and while he was coughing the door opened, and the two countesses, followed by the Count, came in.

After the portrait had been criticised and the compliments exchanged I drew near to Almara, who was standing apart from the others, near the easel.

'Countess, permit my congratulations.'

There was a slight involuntary quivering of the eyebrows and of the corner of her mouth, and she kept her eyes upon the portrait as she said in a low tone—

'You know it, then?'

'Your future husband has just told me.'

She shifted her position a little, and began to blush slowly.

'I have included a portrait of the ruby, you observe,' I went on. 'Are you satisfied with it?'

'Very well—excellent,' she said mechanically.

'I was not sure whether you might prefer to have it omitted. That evening on the beach—you remember,—you seemed to wish it out of the way. I will conjure it away even now, if you say the word,' and I took up the palette and brushes.

There was a pause: she understood me; the colour gradually left her face, which she still kept averted. At length, with a perceptible effort, she said—

'It had better remain.'

'I think so too,' I said, laying down the palette. The company was now prepared to depart.

'Before you go, Countess, I wish—merely out of curiosity—that you would tell me one thing.'

'Well, monsieur?'

'Are you an angel or a devil?'

Then at last she raised her face, pale as marble, and her black eyes met mine in a quiet, strange look. She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

'I know not—well, I am a woman. Adieu. You will not forget me.' And there, at all events, she spoke no more than truth.

The modest price which I had put upon my portrait appeared to overtax the resources of Beacon Street, and the work remained upon my hands. That night Madame Enault's chimney caught fire—an occurrence unprecedented in the middle of August. I explained that I had burnt up some rubbish, which had proved to be remarkably inflammable, and made the fullest apologies; but the good lady's nerves did not recover their tone until after the exhibition of tincture of argentum—a sound dose. This, so far as I can recollect, was the last noticeable episode of my summer holiday.

A LOVER IN SPITE OF HIMSELF.

I.

At first, I simply laughed the idea to scorn. I refused to regard it, even for a moment, in a serious light. I jested with myself about it, and became positively witty on the subject. I let slip no opportunity to cast ridicule upon it. My chief regret was that I had no acquaintance in town to whom I could expatiate on the complete absurdity of the suggestion. In default of this, I took out of my toilet drawer the nine square inches of cracked mirror before which I was accustomed to do my shaving and cravat-tying, and, gazing curiously at the heavy-browed, rugged-featured visage therein reflected, I sarcastically inquired of it how soon it intended getting its portrait painted on ivory, and hung in a locket round a fair lady's neck? I entreated it, with sardonic humour, to give an example of a winning smile—of an ardent glance—of a beseeching gaze. Then I threw myself in my chair, put my feet upon my table, filled my rankest pipe with my strongest tobacco, and while I smoked and lolled, I bade myself, with a hoarse chuckle of mockery, amend the rudeness and unconventionality of my manners, and abandon all selfish and offensive habits. In short, I did everything to prove the folly and groundlessness of this preposterous notion—except to forget it.

So went matters the first day. The following morning I arose to find myself quite as firm as before, but somewhat less disposed towards jocosity. I abused my imbecility with as much vigour as yesterday, but with fewer quips and humours. I began to see that, for such a fool as I had proved myself, stringent means were best; I ought to be too much ashamed of the affair to laugh at it or treat it lightly. Accordingly, I went about all day with a sour and malignant expression of countenance: whenever old Joanna, the maidservant, happened to venture into my apartments, I growled like a dangerous dog at her: and I gave her my orders that no visitor was to be admitted, and no letters or messages were to be brought up, in a tone of such energy and menace, that you would have thought my privacy was as important and as liable to intrusion as Chancellor Bismarck's: instead of which, the only person I knew in Dresden, after my six months' residence there, was the German-American banker; and it was not likely that he would give himself the trouble to visit me—no, indeed! for my whole yearly revenue (not including the sums received for my pictures, because I had never yet sold any) did not reach fifteen hundred thalers; and though I knew that at least twelve per cent. of this sum went into my German-American friend's pocket under the name of 'commission,' yet even that douceur would not suffice to bring him a mile and a half away into the outskirts of the Neustadt, and up three flights of dark and devious staircases, to pay me a complimentary call. However, had he, in spite of probability, actually made his appearance, I should not have hesitated, in my then state of mind, to kick him downstairs again.

Well, that day passed, and was followed by a restless and weary night; and I awoke in the morning to confront the fact that my attack had now lasted no less than forty-two mortal hours, and, so far from abating, showed every symptom of being on the increase.

I was now seriously alarmed. Here was I grappling with an insidious and potent enemy, who apparently knew all my weak places, and how to take advantage of them, but of the proper methods of defending myself against whom I was fatally and completely ignorant. I had done what I could, only to prove that I could do nothing: and in this case, doing nothing was not a negative but a positive evil. The more I pondered over my helplessness, the more disturbed did I become. What did it all mean? What should I do? What was to be the end of it?

I ate my breakfast of coffee and rolls in silence and humility: old Joanna had no cause whatever to complain of violent manifestations from me. I spoke to her submissively and gently. I even entertained the question whether it might not be prudent to lay the case before her and entreat her advice upon it. But shame prevented me; I could not steel myself to endure her gaze of incredulity deepening into contempt. No—as I had struggled in the solitude of my own heart, so in the same solitude would I suffer and submit. If I was really to become a slave, let me at least conceal my fetters. Joanna could not succour me, for she had never made the resolutions and embraced the principles that I had—only to see them, at this late day, violated and broken. In a word, I determined to hold my peace and to put the best face possible upon my discomfiture.

By the time I had arrived at this decision it was already afternoon, and my customary walking hour was at hand. Should I go out as usual, or not? I had refrained from going yesterday, but no good effects had come of my forbearance. On the other hand, if I found reason to remain at home to-day, the same reason would be in as good force to-morrow, and the day after; and the logical result must be that I should never go out at all. Now this was a prospect which I could not bring myself to contemplate. In the first place, I was naturally of an active and energetic temperament, and my health demanded plenty of vigorous exercise in the open air. Secondly, although my pride was fain to put up with the lot of a slave, I was scarcely as yet prepared to regard myself as a prisoner likewise: and finally, if I did go out, the chances were a hundred or perhaps a thousand to one that I did not meet her. Moreover, what if I did? I could not well be worse off than I was now; and there might be a remote possibility that a more deliberate scrutiny of the object of my infatuation would tend to my disenchantment.

Since I have thus betrayed my secret, I may as well pause here and make a thorough confession. Yes—there could be no doubt about it; I—Thomas Wyndham—was in love at last, and that, too, with a woman I did not know and who did not know me. Nothing could have been more inopportune, nothing more undesirable, nothing more impossible—but nothing was more certain! I loved. It had come upon me no less abruptly than overwhelmingly. A chance encounter in the street—a look—an indrawn breath—and I, who up to my five-and-twentieth birthday had laughed at scars, now felt a wound which not all the drowsy syrups of the East could medicine. There was no palliating feature in the case; it was not only love, it was love at first sight; it was not only love at first sight, it was love unrequited. And once more, the lover was Tom Wyndham!

But I perceive that some further explanation will be necessary. Although, then, as has been intimated, I had existed in this great, beautiful, and seductive world during more than a quarter of a century, I had remained all that time heart-whole; and though my immunity had never happened to cost me an effort, it was none the less in accordance with a certain hard-and-fast rule which I had long ago laid down for my guidance throughout life. This rule was, to uphold, at all times and against all comers, the dogma that a bachelor life was, for Tom Wyndham, the only proper, expedient, and dignified one. Marriage, so far as I was concerned, was against both my principles and my interest. I was an artist, to begin with, and in my opinion it was the duty of every true artist to live for his art alone, jealously eschewing whatever might tend to divide or alienate his devotion. His transactions with the sex, if any transactions there must be, should be strictly in the way of business; he might paint them, but never woo them. But beyond this, I was (or so I had fondly imagined) constitutionally and impenetrably proof against female fascinations. Like the famous Duke of Gloster, I was not formed for sportive tricks, nor made to court an amorous looking-glass. In other words, I had always been noted for my awkwardness and infelicity in women's society; and I could not doubt that I was as tiresome and oppressive to them as they were always terrible and often hateful to me. Here, then, were good and sufficient obstacles enough against matrimonial entanglements; and there were others behind. I was as poor as I was unattractive; I was destitute of the faculty of money-making, and I was as incapable of winning a rich wife by my personal merits as I should have been of living upon her bounty afterwards. In short, and not to multiply objections, confirmed bachelorhood was my category by every law, moral, mental, and material; notwithstanding which, I had committed the inconceivable imbecility of losing my heart and head at the same moment, and ... but it is enough that I lost my temper at the time; to lose it over again now would be undignified.

Let me rather record a few particulars of my previous history. My father had been a wealthy Englishman; he married the daughter of a rich American planter. My mother died when I, her only child, was but a few years old. My father returned to England after her death, and I was brought up there in the lap of luxury. I was sent to Rugby, and thence to Cambridge; and it was there I first met my cousin Floyd Wyndham—the son of my father's younger brother. We were as different as white and black, but we were the greatest friends in the world. There never was such a lovable fellow as Floyd, and he was the most popular man in our College, and, indeed, wherever he went. He had all the social graces and instincts that I lacked; it was as inevitable to him to charm people as it was to me to repel them; and the best of it was, his success never cost him the least effort—on the contrary, he rather turned up his nose at it. What he saw to like in me I'm sure I cannot imagine; but all the same he did love me with his whole heart, and would have done anything in the world to oblige me. Dear old Floyd! with your lazy blue eyes, your quiet, audacious manner, your drawl and your fun: what a contrast you were to me, to be sure!

I never knew anything of his family, there being some misunderstanding or other between my father and his; but our rooms at the College were contiguous, and we were together every day. There was a picture on the wall over his mantelpiece—a portrait of our maternal grandmother, and a lovelier face no painter ever drew. Whenever I dropped in to have a chat with Floyd, I used to sit where I could keep that face in view; it was the only woman's face I ever ventured or cared to look twice at. Floyd used to laugh, and say it was like me to be spoony on my own grandmother: adding, that he had a little sister growing up who was going to be exactly like her, and that I had better begin paying my addresses to her immediately. But, jesting aside, I honestly believe that the memory of that portrait had a good deal to do with my bachelorhood. As for Floyd's sister, I never had seen her or had the opportunity of testing her alleged resemblance.

About the middle of our third year at Cambridge, something happened. My father had a stroke of paralysis. I was summoned home, to find him speechless and helpless. I was not yet of age, and the property was under the management of our business agents—as, in fact, it had been during the last ten years. While I was waiting to see whether or not the malady were going to take a dangerous turn, a letter came from America; which I, my father being as he was, opened and read. It told me that my American grandfather was dead, and that his estates, valued at over a million of dollars, were bequeathed (with certain conditions which I need not specify) to myself.

This bequest gave me no pleasure, for I already had far more money than I knew what to do with. As I folded up the letter, the thought entered my mind, 'I wish Floyd had it!' For my cousin, who was intended by nature for another Monte Cristo, possessed barely more than sufficient means to keep up appearances withal. 'And why shouldn't he have it?' was my next inspiration; and with that I sat down in a chair to think it over.

If I were skilled in that sort of thing I dare say I might write a very interesting passage here. But since I am not, I will tell the upshot of my meditations in the fewest words possible. I made over my bequest to Floyd, arranging matters in such a way that he should be under the impression that it came to him direct from the testator, without my intervention. I said nothing about what I had done either to our own business agents, Messrs. Frisby and Faust, or to my father, who was not in a condition to hear anything yet. Everything being settled, and my father appearing to be on the mending hand, I went back to Cambridge, and dropped in quietly at Floyd's rooms.

The dear old boy was in great spirits, though, as his manner was, he showed little of it on the surface; but he told me what had happened, and I congratulated him with an artful assumption of surprise. He was going to start for America in a month, and 'run' his estate himself, leaving his father and sister in England. 'That sort of life wouldn't do for them, you know,' said he, leaning back against the mantelpiece and putting his hands in his pockets. 'But it'll suit me first-rate; I rather guess I'll make just about the everlastingest tip-top planter ever you see! Of course,' he added in his usual tone, 'the governor and Sis will come in for their full share of the plunder all the same: I mean to settle a hundred thousand sterling on her the first thing.'

We talked together till the small hours of the morning, and I must say I had never enjoyed an evening so much in my life. Floyd was just the fellow to be rich, and I had had the good luck to make him so without his being aware of it. At last we shook hands and said good-night, little thinking that we were not to meet again. But next morning came the telegram announcing my father's death. I went home by the next train. After the funeral came the crash. Old Mr. Frisby, the senior partner of the firm of our agents, came to me in a pitiable state of shame and anguish, with the news that Faust had stolen nearly the whole of my fortune, and had absconded none knew whither. If I realised what was left, it would amount to barely eight thousand pounds. In other words instead of being heir to twelve thousand a year, I must content myself with about two hundred and fifty.

I took pains to keep Floyd from any knowledge of my sudden poverty, because, especially should it ever chance to leak out that his estate was a present from me, I knew well enough what his generous heart would prompt him to do. So I let him sail for the New World without seeing me again. He remained on that side of the Atlantic; and after writing me one letter, which, upon reflection, I thought it best not to answer, we became lost to each other, so far as any communication was concerned. Nevertheless, I always thought of him as my dear and only friend, and I never doubted that I was as dear to him as he to me.

I may as well add, lest I should acquire a reputation for generosity which I was far from deserving, that my changed fortunes troubled me very little. In fact, I rather enjoyed the new order of things. I had always fancied I could paint pictures, and cherished a secret ambition to live by my brush. Here, then, was my opportunity. I went on the Continent; became a student of the Quartier Latin in Paris; wandered thence to Italy; and so, after several years of careless Bohemian existence, I found myself at length in Dresden. I hired part of a small third étage on the Bautznerstrasse, set up my easel, and divided my time between that, the Gallery, and the music gardens. For six months all went well; then happened the event whereof I am now to write, and which threatened to upset my plans, my ambition, my self-respect and my peace of mind. And now, my digressions having run themselves out, I can no longer put off recounting the mortifying particulars.

Really, now I am in for it, there seems to be next to nothing to tell. I had left my rooms, as usual, about half-past two in the afternoon, and passing through the Neustadt, I crossed the old bridge, and entered the Altstadt by way of the Georgen Thor. At the window of the Porzellan-Fabrik I stopped to look at a beautiful painted vase which was on exhibition within. While I was standing there, a lady and gentleman passed, and the lady, catching sight of the vase, made her companion pause while she examined it. I knew that this was occurring, though I did not turn my head to look. But as I was about to withdraw, I happened to see the dim reflection of the lady's face in the broad pane of the window. It struck me as being a face with which I was familiar. I turned, startled and by no means pleased, and gazed straight at her. The suddenness of my movement attracted her attention, and she returned my look for a moment. Did I know her! I turned red, pulled off my hat, and made my awkward obeisance. All I got in return for it was a half-puzzled, half-repellent glance of non-recognition. She was right, of course; I did not know her, after all. I must have been of a fine crimson by this time! But stop—could I be mistaken? Did I not know her?... Yes!—No!...

I suffered a misery of embarrassment and shame during these few moments. That is a good phrase of the Easterns—'My heart turned to water within me!' I appreciated it then in its full significance. I shall never know what I said or did, or how I escaped. When I came to myself I was walking rapidly along an allée of the Grosser Garten, muttering to myself with a kind of helpless iteration, 'Fool—fool—fool!'

As for my apparent recognition of her, it was perfectly inexplicable to me, turn it which way I would. I could neither account for having supposed that I did know her, nor for having been mistaken in my supposition. It was easy to say that I had never in my life met, much less been acquainted, with any young lady answering to her description: but it was just as undeniable that every feature in her face was as familiar to me as the Dresden Madonna or the Venus of Milo. Here were two certainties, in irreconcilable conflict with each other, and it was my unlucky lot to have stumbled between them. I began to have serious doubts whether I were not bewitched—whether my head were quite right. Could it be that my solitary habits, my unsociableness, my taciturnity, had begun to affect my reason? I am not exaggerating my feeling in the least. A genuine logical paradox is about the most appalling thing that can confront a man in this world. Leaving all consideration of my embarrassment and awkwardness out of the question, the predicament of being at odds—so to speak—with possibility, was beyond measure distressing.

However, I cooled down at last, and, wisely resolving to give the mystery time to resolve itself, I bent my steps towards the concert-ground and sat down at one of the vacant tables. The band struck up one of Mozart's Sinfonies. I was just beginning to forget my troubles in the music, when a slight stir near me attracted my notice, and looking round, what was my dismay to behold approaching the identical personages of my late adventure! Guided by fate, they sauntered on until they reached the very next table to my own. It happened to be the only disengaged one in the vicinity. They did not seem to see me at all; and after a few moments' deliberation, they sat down.

I have not yet attempted to describe them. The gentleman was a fine-looking old fellow of sixty or thereabouts, with ruddy cheeks, black eyes, and a broad white beard. He appeared to be, and evidently was, a well to-do English squire. The young lady, his daughter, is not so easily to be disposed of; in fact, it is folly to attempt describing her at all. Her father's face, though of a fine type, had nothing in it peculiar or remarkable; hers, on the contrary, was a face which, once seen, could never be forgotten or confounded with any other. Its contour was at once strong and delicate; and the maidenly dignity of the expression was tempered by the scarcely subdued sparkle of frolicsome spirits in the long blue eyes. Of crisp, golden-brown hair she had more than she well knew what to do with; it was packed and twisted all over her lovely head, with little regard to fashionable effect, but with a result of lavish splendour which I was unfashionable enough to prefer. Her complexion was darker than the colour of her eyes warranted; it had a glowing depth and intensity that Titian would have loved to imitate; so that, although you would not have called her cheek high-coloured, it made all other women's cheeks look dull and ineffectual. Her lips were clear red, and unspoken eloquence dwelt in their curves. In figure she was tall, alert, and somewhat slender.

Inadequate as I perceive this attempt at portraiture to be, I scarcely needed a glance at her, as she sat at that neighbouring table, to inform myself of every detail of her appearance. Her image seemed to have been present to my inner consciousness before I met her—to employ a metaphysical periphrasis for what was to me a very certain and definite fact. An hour previous to our encounter before the Porzellan Handlung, I could have taken my pencil and sketched the outline of her features as accurately as now that she was before me. The only difference between her and this strange anticipation of her (or whatever it was) in my mind was, as I now had leisure to observe, that her hair and eyes were a good many shades lighter than those of my forecast. The eyes that I had thought of were dark grey, almost black, and the crisp locks a deep lustreless brown.

The band was playing the second movement of the Sinfonie, and while the music lasted, she sat in quiet and pleased attention, her chin resting on her half-opened hand, and her glance directed musingly towards the little group of statuary that stands at the outer extremity of the concert-ground. The old gentleman, meanwhile, studied the programme and took a pull or two at the schoppen of beer which the kellner had brought him. When at length the intermission came, the two engaged in conversation, and then all the sparkle and mischievous charm of the young lady's face came to the surface; and if she had been beautiful before, her loveliness was now well-nigh intolerable. Presently the old gentleman lit a cigar, and, getting up from the table, walked off to smoke it, leaving his daughter temporarily alone.

It will not be necessary for me to observe at this point, that I was already in love: although I do not think I had yet realised the fact myself. Never having experienced any sensations of the kind before, I perhaps failed to attribute to them their full significance. But an incident which now occurred informed my ignorance. A guttural voice from somewhere behind me made itself heard above the low hum of general conversation round about. 'Ach Herrje!' it exclaimed, in a tone of impertinent admiration, 'was für eine Schönheit!'

I turned about in pure amazement, unable to believe that any human being could have the audacity to launch his impudence against this gracious paragon. But I could not doubt the evidence of my own senses. An overgrown young lieutenant of cavalry was sitting at a table close by, his hands resting on the hilt of his long sabre, and his pale-blue prominent eyes fixed insolently upon my young lady—I say, upon mine! There was in his manner an insufferable swagger and self-complacent conceit which would have been hard enough to put up with at any time, but which under these circumstances made my hands turn cold and my face hot with ire. I knew something of the fellow—he was a certain Von Wurst, reputed to be immensely rich, and he occupied the first étage of the same building whose sky parlour was dedicated to my muse. He had a scandalous reputation in Dresden as a gambler and libertine; and if I had never troubled myself to verify the reports of his ill-fame heretofore, I had not the least hesitation about believing the worst of them now.

But just as I was on the point of obeying the impulse I was under to clutch him by the scruff of the neck and kick him out of the grounds, it came upon me like a blow in the face that I had no business to interfere. Von Wurst had as yet done nothing actively unlawful, and the mere expression of his impertinent admiration was not a warrant for a perfect stranger to both parties, like myself, to pick a quarrel with him. Moreover, the young lady's father was not far off, and could be summoned in case of need; and finally, she herself did not appear to be frightened. She took not the slightest notice of Von Wurst, for, though looking straight towards him, her glance seemed to pass over him or through him without informing her of his existence—in a way which, had there been a grain of manly decency in his composition, would have made him wish the earth to swallow him: and nothing but a slight disdainful quiver of her upper lip betrayed that she had heard his remark at all. I restrained my wrath, therefore, as best I might, and contented myself with turning round in my chair and staring at the lieutenant in as offensive and insulting a manner as I could.

He noticed my behaviour, and doubtless divined the cause of it: and by way of showing, perhaps, how little he cared for my displeasure, he presently summoned the kellner and sent him off for a bouquet of flowers. The man soon returned with a very large and showy one.

'Take it to that Fräulein there,' said Von Wurst, with a leer of defiance at me, 'and present it to her with my compliments.'

The man looked rather frightened at this commission, but obeyed nevertheless, and laid the bouquet before the young lady with a deprecatory air and an inarticulate murmur.

By this time the attention of most of the people round about had been attracted, and everyone watched with interest to see what the young lady would do. As for me, I was pretty nearly at the end of my tether, and only awaited the first symptom of distress on her part to take the lieutenant by the throat. He could probably have settled me with one hand, but at the moment I forgot to think of that.

Amidst a general pause of suspense, the young lady quietly took up the bouquet and examined it critically. The colour in her cheeks deepened a shade, and her eyes sparkled beneath their lashes, but otherwise she betrayed no signs of uneasiness or indignation. At length she laid the flowers down, put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out her pocket-book.

The kellner shifted nervously from one leg to the other, and glanced hurriedly towards Von Wurst, whose insolent smile was losing itself in an expression of something like bewilderment.

The young lady opened the pocket-book, and took out of it a gold piece of the value of six thalers. Handing it to the astonished kellner, she said in German and in a low even tone, which was distinctly audible to all the curious listeners:

'I am not accustomed to buy flowers of pedlars, but I suppose this person must be very much in want of money, since he offers them to me in this way; so I will take them out of charity. Give him this, please, and send him away.'

There was dead silence for a moment; but as the unfortunate kellner turned to perform his new orders, one or two persons snickered, and others joined in, and almost immediately there was a universal explosion of derisive mirth at the gallant lieutenant's expense. 'Sacrament!' stuttered he, jumping to his feet, his clumsy features of a dull crimson hue, while he strove by an enraged stare to awe the laughers into silence. But it was in vain; others, hearing the uproar, hurried to the spot, and soon added their quota to the chorus of contemptuous merriment; and at last even the kellner pricked up the courage of numbers, and as he laid down the gold coin upon the lieutenant's table, he suffered a broad grin to make itself visible on his countenance likewise. At this juncture the white-bearded old gentleman came shouldering through the crowd, in a tempest of apprehension and wrath; on finding his daughter safe, he stood with one arm in hers, glaring round on every side in search of a foe. But the only individual who might have answered to that term had by this time taken his departure, pursued by the taunts and jeers of the whole assembly. And then the young lady, who, while unprotected, had borne herself so firmly, suddenly bent her lovely face against her father's shoulder and burst into tears. As he led her away, a low murmur of sympathy and admiration followed her; for although a Dresden crowd is in general anything but a gallant one, their hearts were thoroughly taken captive for once. For my part, my mind was a medley of emotions; I remained seated at my table with my head in my hands, unable to think coherently. Whether Mozart's Sinfonie was played to the end or not I am unable to say; at all events, I heard nothing of it. But towards evening I found myself at home; and then began the futile struggle against love and fate which I have already described.

I have also stated how, on the third day, resigning myself with the best grace I could to the inevitable, I prepared to make my customary afternoon stroll. I had accordingly put on my well-worn Tyrolese hat, and, grasping my walking-stick, was just about to issue forth—when a loud ringing at the hall entrance, soon followed by a firm step along the passage and a resounding knock at my own door, made me pause.

'Can it be the old gentleman?' flashed across my mind, and the thought fetched the heart into my mouth. 'Idiot!' I exclaimed the next instant, 'of course it can only be a messenger from that scoundrel Von Wurst, with an invitation to a duel. And by Heaven!' I added, flinging the door open savagely, 'there's no man in the world I shall have so much pleasure in shooting!'

II.

'Hold hard there, stranger!' cried a deep laughing voice, penetrated by a preposterous Yankee accent. 'You'd better keep your shirt on, I guess. If carving livers is your game, I'm thar; but——'

'Floyd!'

'Hullo, Tom! Ha, ha, ha! Why, you looked as wicked as a catamount for a moment.—Dear old chap, how goes it?'

We had grasped hands; but the next instant we threw our arms round each other, and hugged each other like a couple of Germans.

Floyd had grown an enormous moustache and was as thin and almost as brown as an Indian; but he was the same old Floyd, lazy, audacious, and full of fun. We sat down and gazed at one another in silence for more than a minute.

'How did you get here?' I asked at length.

'Well, I dropped round from the plantation. Tired of niggers—thought I'd take a rest. Want my portrait painted.'

'I never was so glad to see a fellow in my life!'

'So I thought, from the way you opened that door.'

'Six years since we parted, Floyd!'

'We never parted at all, if I remember right. You sneaked out of it—too proud to say good-bye to a purse-proud aristocrat like me, I suppose. Much obliged to you for the legacy, all the same.'

'What do you mean?'

'Nothing particular. I only found you out about three months ago. However, we'll come to that presently. Been enjoying yourself?'

'Oh, I'm all right—at least, until within the last two or three days,' I added, a little embarrassed.

'Ah! Well, you know you always were an eccentric chap; and it looks as if you hadn't changed much, so far as that goes. When a man with twelve thousand a year in the three-per-cents. takes to living in a German attic on six shillings a day, and painting pictures that won't sell for a living ... eh?'

'The fact is, I lost a good deal of money—after you left, you know: and—well, I see you must have heard something about it.'

'Me? Oh, no, don't imagine such a thing,' returned Floyd, with a lazy sparkle in his long mischievous eyes. 'I never hear anything, and never suspect anything; I just take things as they come, and never stop to ask where they come from. It wouldn't do, you see; I have such extraordinary luck. It isn't every man, I guess, who would have the luck to inherit a fortune of a million or so from a fellow who didn't know of his existence—and who thought all the time he was leaving it to somebody else. But, bless you! I think nothing of a thing like that.'

'What sort of a notion have you got into your head now?'

'A notion that you're a hypocrite, for one thing. But never mind for the present; time enough for me to walk into you to-morrow. I say, Tom, haven't you anything to wet a fellow's whistle with? Where I hail from, strangers liquor up when they meet.'

I laughed and rang for beer, which happened to be the only beverage at that moment subject to my orders. Old Joanna brought in bottles and glasses on a tray, and as she set the tray down, I observed that there was a note upon it, in a rather soiled envelope, though ornamented with a handsome monogram. I took no further notice of it at the time, my mind being occupied with other thoughts. The hints which Floyd had dropped made me uneasy. I could not doubt that he had by some means either found out the whole truth about my transfer of my grandfather's bequest, or at least learned enough of the circumstances to enable him to ask me very pertinent questions. And inasmuch as I possessed nothing of his command of countenance and readiness of wit and self-possession, it was plain that I was destined to let the cat out of the bag whenever he chose to make me do so. Be that as it might, I was resolved to allow of no readjustment of the property; and as I had reason to believe that my tenacity of purpose was fully equal to his, whatever my inferiority otherwise, I consoled myself as well as the case allowed.

Meanwhile Floyd had produced a gigantic cigar-case, which seemed to be the only thing in the way of luggage that he had brought with him, and held it towards me. The cigar which I laid hold of proved to be upwards of six inches in length and thick in proportion, while the aroma which proceeded from it, even before it was lighted, was such as would have made the least enthusiastic smoker devoutly bless his stars.

'They're wretched little things, I know,' murmured Floyd, as he stuck one of these brobdingnags into the corner of his mouth, and scratched a match. 'As a general thing, of course, I only smoke them before breakfast, or between courses at dinner. My regular weeds—the big ones—are in my trunk at the "Saxe." Raised 'em myself. Well, now go ahead, Tom, old man; let's see what sort of an account you can give of your adventures since the old Cambridge days—eh?'

Now my rejoicing at Floyd's unexpected arrival had been twofold: first, I was glad to see him for his own sake; secondly, because of the sympathy and advice which no man was better qualified than he to give me in my present love difficulty. In a word, I regarded him as sent by Providence especially to be made a confidant of. His proposal that I should give an account of myself since our last meeting afforded me a good opening whereby to lead comfortably up to the intended revelation. Such topics, when one is really serious and in earnest, require to be softly approached as well as delicately handled; and it seemed to me, now that I was actually face to face with my confession, that I could not begin too far back or work my way along too circumspectly.

Accordingly, I made my start in the extreme distance, and gossiped away volubly enough; but after a while I perceived that I was making very little headway. I dilated on unimportant matters, and was no nearer the crucial question than when I began. Instead of preparing Floyd's mind for what was to come, I was leading him off on entirely discordant lines of thought—if, indeed, he were attending at all to my narrative, and not rather following out a train of ideas of his own, under cover of the smoke-wreaths he was coiling about him.

Irritated at length both with myself and with him, I broke short off in the current of talk and said abruptly:

'By the way, Floyd, you haven't told me yet how you happened to turn up here in Dresden.'

'Ah—yes—is that all, then? A very interesting story too, my boy,' he grunted, with a yawn; and throwing his arms above his head, he indulged in a hearty stretch. It was too evident that he had not listened to a word. What, then, could be the subject of his extraordinary preoccupation?

'Ah—what was that you asked me? Oh, how I came here. Well, you know I wanted to find you.... But come, Tom, since you've made a clean breast of it, so will I. I'll make you my confidant, old fellow. The fact is, I'm here in a threefold capacity—as a friend, as a brother, and as a——humph!'

'A what?'

Floyd rose to his feet and sauntered to the window. A pot of heliotrope stood upon the sill, and he pulled off the largest cluster of blossoms, and began abstractedly to pick away the flowers. I began to have my suspicions as to what he meant, but I said nothing. After a pause he continued, keeping his face turned towards the window:

'Well, you see it's this way. In the first place, I decided to come over here on your account—the reason why I'll tell you presently. Then, thought I, I shall see Gwendolen (that's my sister, you know), whom I haven't met for I don't know how many years; and instead of letting her know I'm coming, I'll give her a surprise-party; appear before her unexpectedly—she falls into my arms with a shriek—and all that. Now, after my dear old governor's death——'

'Is he dead, Floyd?'

'Eighteen months ago—yes. Well, after that she wrote me that she was going to live at her uncle's—our mother's brother—a good fellow, I believe, though I never saw him. So, as soon as I landed in Liverpool, I went straight there. They weren't at home, and the house was locked up. I made inquiries, and was told that they had started on their travels about three months before, and the fellow in charge of the house said he believed they had intended to take a run on the Continent first and then go to America.'

'To give you a surprise-party, I suppose?'

'Yes. However, I thought I'd try the Continent first, for I knew you must be somewhere thereabouts, and I couldn't go back to America without you in any case. So I crossed over to Paris, and began beating up the ground carefully. By-and-by I came across some obscure intelligence about you; but not a word could I hear about Miss Gwendolen. I'm pretty well convinced, now, that she is this moment on my plantation in Maryland.'

'What a pity! I should like to have seen her, too.'

'Oh, I mean you shall some day, Tom; I'm told she's good-looking, though I can't speak to that on my own knowledge; in fact, if she is, she must be very much changed from the scrawny, freckled little fidget she used to be seven years ago. However, she's out of the question just at present. But....'

'You've accounted for yourself as a friend and a brother; now for the other thing—the "humph"?'

'You know, Tom,' said Floyd after some hesitation, knocking the ash from his cigar with the remains of the heliotrope blossom—'you know I never was like some fellows—susceptible—always falling in love, and all that sort of thing—eh?'

I could not help grinning at this exordium. Floyd, so long as my acquaintance with him had lasted, had been without exception the most fickle and incorrigible flirt I ever saw. He was always in and out of love, and his longest attachment seldom lasted six weeks. The effrontery with which he now recommended himself to my admiration as a model of continence in this respect was too much for even my gravity.

'I've known very few fellows like you, at all events,' was my non-committal reply; 'and from what I do know, I should think it very probable your time might have come, at last.'

'Well—only this is no laughing matter, mind you, Tom,' said Floyd, turning round upon me with a countenance of extreme solemnity—'it's very natural you shouldn't quite understand how a man like myself feels when his heart is really touched for the first time; you've always been out of the way of such things, you know—you never took to women. But my whole soul is in this affair; it's a matter of life and death, I might say——'

At this point I could restrain myself no longer, but laughed openly. Floyd was so categorically reproducing the old Floyd of college days, who was wont to rave precisely thus about each latest mistress of his fancy, that the depths of mirth were stirred within me. He was a good deal annoyed at first; but finally the corners of his moustache began to twitch, and his imperturbable good nature to reassert itself. 'I am in earnest, though, this time,' he persisted, when gravity was restored. 'You know, we're not boys any longer, Tom. You must allow a man to have one serious feeling before he dies.'

'So I do, Floyd; it was only the old associations that tickled me; and also another thing, that will surprise you when you hear it. But first—go on with your yarn. Who and what is she?'

'I haven't an idea!'

'You don't know?'

'All I know is, Tom, that I have seen her, and that I adore her. I have never been able to get speech of her, or even so much as find out her name. If she were like other girls, I'd soon scrape an acquaintance; but she awes me and abashes me, and I'd no more think of being unceremonious with her than with her Majesty Queen Victoria. I must get presented in regular form or not at all. But nobody seems to know her; she seems to be travelling incog. They never stop at hotels, but always go to private lodgings, so there's nothing to be learnt through feeing waiters. I first caught sight of her in Paris, and have been trotting round at her heels ever since, sometimes losing her for a while, but not for long. Yesterday, though, I thought she had given me the slip finally; but by accident I heard it rumoured that some one answering her description had taken the train from Berlin southwards four days ago. I came on here, on speculation; got here early this morning; and sure enough I had a glimpse of her as she drove by in her carriage, not three hours since.'

'By Jove, Floyd!...' said I musingly; and paused.

'That's my yarn, so far as it's gone.'

I rose, and joined him at the window, and we both leaned over the sill and gazed thoughtfully down on the street beneath. The coincidence that the objects of our respective adoration should both happen to be in town at the same time, impressed me. It confirmed me, too, in my design of making Floyd my confidant, as he had made me his. Our destinies were entangled and the fact that his predicament of not knowing so much as the name of his mistress was identical with my own, encouraged me to proceed. Exactly what I expected to gain from my confession, I did not pause to consider. Matrimony must, of course, be as much against my principles now as it had been yesterday; nevertheless, somehow or other, the magnetism of Floyd's presence had the effect of causing me at least to reconsider the matter. It might be worth my while, at all events, to hear his opinion upon it: it would be an opinion founded upon good sense and knowledge of the world. The chances were, I reflected, that he would but confirm my own views as to my unfitness for the married state: had he not already insinuated as much, while ignorant of my infatuation? I would speak out, then, fearlessly: and I would speak at once.

'Floyd——'

The loud rattling of a carriage over the stones beneath interrupted me. We both looked down, and at the sight which met our eyes we both started. Floyd was the first to speak.

'Quick! look there, Tom,' cried he, catching my arm with more of excitement in his manner than I had ever before known him to betray; 'look, man, there she is!'

'She?' I cried; 'why, how did you know her?'

'Know her? Know the woman I adore?'

'You—adore——'

'She's the one I've been telling you about—the one I love! O you beauty!' and he kissed his audacious hand at the retreating carriage.

I left the window without a word, and walked to my chair. The truth was revealed; Floyd's 'she' was mine: we both loved the same woman! The carriage had contained three persons—the white-bearded old gentleman; another old gentleman who, from the hurried glance I had obtained of him, reminded me very much of Mr. Frisby, our former business agent; and last and above all, the lovely heroine of the Concert-garden adventure.

Floyd still remained at the window, gazing down the street after the vanished vehicle: and I took advantage of the opportunity thus afforded me to hastily review my position, and decide what course of action I ought to pursue. It was to be noted, in the first place, that although I had been made aware of the insoluble dead-lock between my friend and myself, he was entirely ignorant of it. The accident of his having been beforehand in exclaiming at sight of the carriage had made all the difference. Had my tongue been an instant quicker, he, and not I, would have been the disconsolate one. It was fate: and I reflected, with perhaps a moment's bitterness, that fate had always been as kind to him as she had been unkind to me.

But this unworthy mood did not last. If it was no fault of mine that I was unlucky, certainly Floyd's good fortune was no fault of his. And as for the present affair, I ought (consistently with myself) to rejoice rather than grieve at the turn it had taken. If I did not wish to marry, my disinclination now bade fair to be respected; destiny was working on my side, after all. I ought to esteem it a happiness, moreover, that it had fallen to my lot not only to endow my best friend with a fortune, but with a wife likewise: and to do him these favours, too, without his suspecting that it was from my hand they were received. All this, I say, was very delightful from the moral point of view; but I will not be so uncandid as to pretend that, at the first blush, I was at all delighted. On the contrary, I felt, for the first time, that I was by no means so averse from marriage as I had supposed: and that my only chance of happiness in that relation was now passing away before my eyes. True, the chance had at the best been but a slight one; few things were less probable than that I, without money, influence, or personal attractions, could ever have won so fair a prize as that which I had dreamed of. Yet I perceived that I would have striven to win it with all my strength. I recognised the folly and insincerity of my apparent reluctance. I had dallied with my great opportunity while it had been mine, and now that it was for ever lost, I saw my mistake. Well—Floyd would have her; be it so. At least, I would not play the dog in the manger with him. I will act as I know he would have acted in my place; and though it might be with a bad grace at first, I must trust to time and reason to reconcile me.

'Wasn't she divine?' sighed Floyd, slowly withdrawing himself from the window and returning to his chair. He took a deep draught from his beer-schoppen, selected another huge cigar from the cigar-case, lit it, and sighed once more.

'You don't know her—do you?' he next inquired, turning a lazy glance upon me.

'What do you mean? I know nobody here.'

'I was only thinking,' rejoined Floyd, without observing my confusion, 'how nice it would have been if you could have introduced us. Though, to be sure, no one could know a girl like that without falling in love with her himself; so maybe it's better for me as it is—eh? ha, ha, ha!'

'Ha, ha! I see—you dread a possible rival in me—ha, ha!'

'Dread isn't exactly the word, Tom, old fellow,' said Floyd, in a changed tone, perhaps fancying (for his perceptions were as acute as his heart was generous) that his jesting allusion had hurt my feelings. 'If you were in love with this girl, I would give up my chance to you in a moment—and do all a man could to promote your success too. You know what I think of you, Tom; but, hang it! we're Anglo-Saxons; we can't be always bursting into tears and swearing that we love one another! But I know what you've done for me; and I mean to do something for you, when my time comes.'

'All right, Floyd,' said I hastily. 'Only don't talk as if you owed me anything,' I added presently; 'because you don't.'

'Oh, I don't mean to go to work strictly on the debit and credit principle,' he answered with a smile. 'But—since we've got to talking in this vein somehow, we may as well have it out and done with it. I found out, quite by accident, the little ruse you played off on me six years ago. I stumbled upon the revelation only three months back. And that led to my discovering your poverty. Altogether, Tom, it took the wind out of me for a moment.'

'Remember one thing,' I interposed; 'it wasn't until after I had done that, that the robbery came to light. I expected to be richer than you——'

'I know—I understand. But now, use your imagination for a moment, and put yourself in my place. If I had enriched you beyond the dreams of avarice, and then turned out a pauper myself, you would not feel exactly comfortable, I take it. And if, in the course of six years, you had proved yourself a good steward of the property, and had increased its value by upwards of one-half, wouldn't you consider it no more than a fair and even thing, conducive to the comfort and respect of both parties, to make that increase over to me, with your best bow, and so live happily ever after? Eh, Tom?'

'Thanks, Floyd; that's all reasonable enough, and the only reason I don't say yes to it is this: I am a great deal better off as I am. Money would not do me a bit of good—quite the contrary. I like to feel that I have none of that kind of responsibility, and I like to imagine that I must work for a living. Of course, it is nothing more than imagination, for my income supplies me with all I need. But it is good for me to have an occupation, and to feel some sort of obligation to pursue it. I'm naturally prone to the blues—and if I had nothing to do but to lie back and enjoy myself, I should have them all the time. We are constituted differently, that's all. But—thanks, all the same.'

Floyd lay calmly back in his chair, and puffed half-a-dozen smoke-wreaths ceiling-wards ere he spoke again.

'If you think,' he then said, 'that I have been doing nothing all these years except sit still and enjoy myself, you are confoundedly mistaken. I have worked like a horse—though I mayn't look like it now. The possession of this fortune has made all the difference between my being an industrious and productive member of the community, and a good-for-nothing, lazy detrimental—as I should have been without it. No, Tom: trust me, riches do not mean idleness: they haven't with me, and they wouldn't with you. And think, old fellow—you have made a man as well as a millionaire of me: you cannot, surely you cannot, mean to leave me under such an infernal weight of obligation. Do be human, Tom. You have been generous all your life; don't begin to be selfish in the worst kind of fashion at this late day—and at my expense!'

'Give me a little time to think, Floyd,' said I, feeling very miserable. 'To-morrow or next day. Remember that I'm an old bachelor, and very much set in my ways.' But the fact was, the new complication about the love-affair, which of course I was unable to explain, made it more than ever difficult for me to entertain Floyd's proposal. I had a wild idea of escaping—hiding myself where no ingenuity could find me out.

'An old bachelor, eh?' exclaimed my friend; 'why, I hope you don't call yourself so very old, for I'm at least a year further gone than you, and I don't consider myself "set" at all. "Ripe" is the fitter word, I take it. But apropos of this, there's something I'd like to say to you, Tom; it's presuming on your friendship, I know, and maybe I ought not to venture. But it's on my mind.'

'Out with it!'

'It's a little idyl—a bit of a romance, you know, that I had imagined. I hoped to take you back to America with me, when I went, and I expected my sister would come too. Well, she's there already. But I thought, don't you see, that you would meet and perhaps see a good deal of each other; and I'm certain she's a girl of fine character, though she may very likely be no great beauty to look at; and of course she has half of all I own, and will probably decide to settle down over there; and I'll defy any woman who knows what you are to help falling in love with you.'

Floyd was actually stammering and getting red in the face. I never felt my heart so go out to a man, before or since. Dear old Floyd! how little he knew what an impossibility he was proposing.

'I'm not a marrying man, Floyd,' was all I was able to reply at the moment; but I knew that he understood, from my tone and look, how deeply his suggestion had touched me.

After this ensued a rather long silence. At last he remarked, carelessly taking up the note which old Joanna had brought in with the beer, and which I had quite forgotten.

'Apparently I'm to take your assertion that you know nobody in town with a reservation. This looks like an invitation from some of the upper ten. The monogram is big enough.'

'An invitation?—that can't be.' On opening the envelope, however, I found that he was right. It was an invitation to a private fancy ball, at the house of no less a person than my banker.

'It's very strange; I never spoke ten words to him in my life, and my balance is none of the largest. It's to-night, too—short notice!'

'He didn't want to give you time to refuse. Of course you'll go. Let me look at it—"Mr. Wyndham and friend"—that means me. We'll go together.'

A good deal to my own surprise, I found that Floyd's proposal was by no means so distasteful as I should have supposed. The truth was, I much needed some distraction. This fancy ball would serve to pass away what otherwise bade fair to be a very uncomfortable evening. After a little discussion, therefore, I consented to accompany him thither; and as evening was already coming on, we sallied forth to procure dominos. A few hours later saw us ensconced in a drosky, and rattling over the uneven pavements to our destination.

'I shouldn't wonder, by the way,' remarked Floyd, as we alighted, 'if that divine creature were to be there.'

Had this suggestion been advanced earlier, it would have made an important modification in my plans; but it was now too late to draw back. I bethought myself, too, that it was highly improbable—considering how short a time she had been in town—that she should have received an invitation; and if the worst came to the worst, I could slip away whenever I chose. We went on up the illuminated staircase, therefore, and having delivered our credentials to the doorkeeper—a warrior of the sixteenth century, armed cap-à-pie in panoply of proof—we advanced to pay our respects to the host and hostess of the occasion, who smiled to us in the guise of Nutcracker and Sugardolly.

'It is the greatest pleasure that I meet you,' said the former, in broken English, but with entire cordiality, holding my hand affectionately as he spoke. 'We have too little seen of you here—you are too much to yourself. It shall be our hope that you now do us the honour very often. You shall find some of your compatriots here to-night, I think, all very anxious to enjoy the favour of your presentation. Dear sir, till our next meet!'

Meanwhile, Madame Sugardolly was saying something equally civil to Floyd. That was natural enough; his wealth and consequent importance were probably well known; but I was at a loss to understand such a sudden access of flattering attention to me. I was nobody, and accustomed to be treated accordingly. Could my worthy banker be labouring under the delusion that I was somebody else?

Leaving this question to solve itself, I took Floyd's arm, and we threaded our way slowly through the brilliantly and grotesquely attired crowd. Many a quaint and graceful figure was there, but none with which either of us was familiar. I saw that Floyd was keeping a keen look out for some one, and had no difficulty in guessing who it might be. But we made the circuit of all the rooms in vain. We drifted at length into the haven of a small side-room, curtained off from the other apartments by a heavy portière hanging across the doorway. Lights were burning in it, and a comfortable sofa stood at one end, but there was no one there. It was a discovery of our own.

'Tell you what we'll do, old chap,' said Floyd. 'It is now eleven o'clock. Let us separate here, and pursue our several fortunes for the space of an hour; after which—that is, at twelve precisely—we will rendezvous in this room and compare notes. What say you?'

I made no objections, and we separated accordingly, he going in one direction and I in the opposite one. For my own part, however, I had no fancy to seek adventures, and happening to come upon a convenient entrance of a window, I took refuge within the shadow of the curtains, and there fell into a brown study. There was one aspect of the affair in which my cousin and I were involved which had latterly begun to disquiet me not a little. It was this:—I could not believe that he was entirely and thoroughly in earnest. I had a misgiving, which I could not rid myself of, and which his every word and act tended to confirm, that he was not seriously in love at all, but was merely amusing himself (as he had done a hundred times before) with the pretence of being so. If I were correct in my suspicion, then the game which was fun to him was death to me. And yet, what could I do? Unless I knew for an absolute certainty that this view of the case were a true one, I could not in honour lift a finger to avert the consequence; and absolute certainty, in a matter of this kind, was unattainable. The upshot of my brown study was therefore a conviction of my own helplessness: and as I arrived at it, I raised my eyes to the clock, and saw it wanted but two or three minutes of the appointed hour.

Edging along through the press as rapidly as I could, I soon came to the curtained doorway, and pushing aside the portière, I went in. The room was still empty—Floyd had not yet returned.

'Is it possible he can have met her?'—thought I.

Even as the thought came, I heard a low, distinct woman's voice, apparently close at hand; and following it, a coarse, guttural one. I knew both, and all the blood in my veins tingled. Looking about, I noticed for the first time that the room I was in opened into another, the door of which was also closed by a portière. The next moment I had thrown it open and stood within.

I saw the young lady crouched away in the farther corner of the room, her face pale, her lips set, her eyes sparkling; and before her, with his back towards me, I saw the overgrown bulk of Von Wurst. He was attempting to get his arm round her waist, at the same time thrusting forward his coarse face to kiss her.

As her glance met mine, a light of relief entered into her face which, even at that crisis, filled me with a grand tremor of unreasoning delight. Von Wurst saw it too, and seemed at once to divine what had happened. He faced about immediately, his hand clutching at the hilt of his sabre.

But before he could draw it from its sheath, I had thrown myself upon him, and seizing him by the collar of his uniform and by one of his epaulettes, I exerted all my strength and flung him violently backwards. He staggered, but did not fall. I perceived that the fellow had been drinking, and was in a mood to commit any violence or outrage. His face was red, and the veins of his forehead were swelled with passion.

With an oath he drew his sabre, and delivered his point full at my throat. The movement was so rapid that I was prepared neither to parry nor to avoid it, and it would have gone hard with me; but before the keen steel could quite reach me, my right arm was caught by two slender nervous hands, and I was dragged forcibly to one side. Von Wurst, overbalanced by the weight of his own thrust, stumbled forward; the sheath of his sabre tripped him up, he whirled round and fell heavily on his back, striking his head as he did so against the sharp corner of the porcelain stove. The blow stunned him, and he lay motionless.

And there stood I, unhurt, saved by her whom I had saved, and who still clung to my arm, panting and tremulous. It was a moment worth more than a lifetime: it was but a moment.

As I turned towards her, she let go my arm, smiled faintly, and sat down upon the nearest chair.

'I'm very much obliged to you, I'm sure,' said she.

'I think the obligation is on my side,' I answered, as awkwardly as possible.

'Oh no—I thank you—I thank you!' Her eyes fell upon the insensible lieutenant, and she shuddered. 'Do you think he's dead? He deserves to be hurt as badly as possible, but not quite killed—I shouldn't want that: I should have to think of him then, you know.'

Several hours later, I bethought myself to smile at this conceit; but at the time I was quite too much embarrassed and excited to think of such a thing. Moreover, I was very badly frightened, and that for a cause sufficiently whimsical, namely, that I was hopelessly entangling myself with the woman to whom Floyd had a prior and superior claim. Unless I escaped at once, I knew I should never get away at all—until I had asked her to love me, and she had refused point-blank. And that would be too late for my self-respect. Oh, Floyd! why could you not love somebody else!

'I think I must go now if you will excuse me,' I stammered. 'I have an engagement.'

'But I can't be left alone with that!' she exclaimed piteously, at the same time indicating the unfortunate lieutenant with her foot. I forgave him from that moment. 'Won't you wait with me in the other room until my uncle comes back?' she continued: 'he should have been here before this.'

Her uncle; not her father then!

She had risen and taken my arm; I gave myself up for lost. As we drew aside the curtain to go into the outer room, the curtain of the door opposite was simultaneously pulled aside, and in came—first, the white-bearded old gentleman; second, Floyd; third, a military gentleman in the uniform of a colonel; and fourth and last, my old friend Mr. Frisby.

'Here she is!' cried the old gentleman. 'Gwendolen, my dear, allow me to make you acquainted with your brother, Mr. Floyd Wyndham. Who is this gentleman? can this be——'

'My cousin, Mr. Thomas Wyndham,' interposed Floyd, with a solemn bow. 'Gwenny, your most devoted!' He took her by both shoulders, and kissed her on the forehead and cheek. At the same time he glanced over her shoulder at me with an expression in his eyes, half comical, half rueful. But I was as yet too much bewildered to understand.

'She's better-looking than I expected,' he remarked to me. 'The image of that old picture of her grandmother that used to hang over my mantelpiece at College—recollect?—only her hair and eyes are lighter.'

Then, in a flash, I comprehended the mystery of the recognition. But I had no time to dwell upon it then. The old uncle was shaking me by the hand, congratulating me on something, I knew not what, and introducing the Colonel and Mr. Frisby. The latter almost embraced me.

'My dear Mr. Thomas, I am so glad—so glad! My warmest congratulations also—what? you haven't heard. Why, we have recovered nearly your whole fortune, my dear sir. Faust, the absconder, has been at last arrested. You are a rich man again. So glad, so glad!'

I was speechless. I could only turn from one to another, with a dazed look, as of one half asleep.

At this juncture the curtain of the inner room was again drawn aside, and lo! the lieutenant with his sword drawn, but with an expression anything but warlike on his pasty and woe-begone features. On seeing his colonel, he trembled visibly, and saluted with a shaking hand.

'Ha, sir, you are here, are you?' exclaimed the Colonel grimly. 'I have been told about you, Herr Faust. Yes, sir, you will dispense with the "von" for the future and spell your name correctly—you are the son of a swindler and a convict. To-morrow you will appear before a court-martial. We shall see, sir, what shall be done to a fellow who disgraces his uniform by insulting ladies and—but go, sir!—Ladies and gentlemen,' added the old officer, turning to us and bowing, 'pardon me that I so much forget myself.'

After the poor lieutenant had slunk away, the conversation had become general, and numberless were the questions asked and the explanations volunteered. But I have only a dim and hazy recollection of what was said. I kept as far away from Miss Gwendolen as possible, and scarcely looked at her; but for all that, she was the only person in the room whose every word and motion I felt and saw. I did not know whether to commiserate Floyd, or to envy him. Perhaps he scarcely knew himself, at first. But since, a few years afterwards, he married the beautiful Miss Maryland, of Baltimore, and has been the happiest of husbands ever since, I have ceased to feel anxious or conscience-smitten on his account.

Shall I go on and tell you how it all turned out? My wife, who is leaning over my shoulder as I write these last words, says, 'No.' And I submit; for once, years ago, when she was a Miss Wyndham, she made me the happiest of mankind by saying, 'Yes.'

KILDHURM'S OAK.

CHAPTER I.

OLD LADY MAINWARING.

I see by the papers that this grand old lady is dead. She had passed her eighty-ninth birthday. Born in a year when Warren Hastings was still on his trial for high crimes and misdemeanours, the only child of Sir Philip Kildhurm of Kildhurm Tower, she was married at seventeen to Captain Frank Mainwaring, of His Britannic Majesty's Navy—a man who enjoyed the distinction of being wounded at Trafalgar. Captain Mainwaring (knighted in 1811 on acceding to his uncle's estates) died in 1840; he left two sons and a daughter. Both the sons died in the cholera epidemic of 1832, unmarried. The daughter was wedded to a gentleman of family and estate, and accompanied him to India, where he held some official position. But his whole family (several children had been born) were murdered in the Sepoy outbreak. Thus it came about that, for the last twenty years, Lady Mainwaring has been the sole survivor of her race; and now she is gone, they are extinct.

She was a grand, serene old lady: with a noble face, whose beauty time could not altogether take away, and a majestic figure that scarcely stooped beneath the weight of fourscore years and nine. Her eyes were remarkable—large, black, and keen, and innocent of spectacles to the very end; but her hair, famous two generations since for its sable luxuriance, became in later times snow-white, although the long arched eyebrows kept their former hue. A wonderful old lady: endowed to the last with singular personal fascination, her manner the perfection of gentle dignity, in looking at her, or listening to the inflections of her low deep voice, you felt that hers was a spirit of no ordinary capacities and powers. But she was the descendant of no ordinary ancestry. Several of her progenitors had been endowed with gifts of the kind that modern science is always no less quick to explain away than slow to explain, but in which the folk of a less sophisticated age did powerfully and potently believe. I am not at this moment concerned to enter upon a discussion of supernatural phenomena, so called, beyond remarking that no physiologist can pretend to any right to be heard at all on the subject: the credulity which can believe witchcraft and sorcery to be the bugbears of a diseased imagination being too gross to command attention. Reasonable people believe that the human body has a soul; that there is a spiritual sight answering to the bodily sight; and that when this spiritual sight is opened, it must inevitably behold the objects of a spiritual world. Concerning the spiritual world two or three facts, at least, are self-evident. Being a world of the mind, only the laws of the mind can hold sway there; it is therefore free from the trammels of space and time. Further, it is a world of real substance, in contradistinction to the apparent substantiality of the world of matter. Thus far logic carries us; and we do not at present need to go farther. For if man, living as to his body in the material world, lives at the same time as to his spirit in the spiritual world, then prophecy, soothsaying, second-sight, or whatever 'miracle' involves the transgression of no spiritual principle, becomes only the corollary of our theorem. The wonder-workers of old are justified. As for the Charlatans, they are not tricksters merely, but profaners, whose doom is spiritual death.

It was not unknown to some of the more intimate of Lady Mainwaring's friends that she possessed abnormal powers; and though she was constitutionally reserved in her communications, she occasionally came out with some noteworthy utterance on the subject. But if she saw and knew things beyond the ordinary scope, these influenced her spiritual rather than her material existence. She was well poised; there was no one-sidedness in her character; the spirit was so soundly and healthily wedded to the body that neither was in excess; they performed their several functions in such harmony that one was seldom engaged apart from the other. But although this was happily the case with Lady Mainwaring, it had been otherwise with some of her ancestors. They could not walk the world with even and measured steps, but ever and anon plunged or soared into abysses which no mortal plummet has sounded. In Lady Mainwaring's later years, a spirit of sweet and dignified garrulity occasionally inspired her, under the influence of which she would relate to discreet and sympathetic ears many strange particulars both of her own and of her forefathers' history. Now that she is gone, I am at liberty to reproduce some of these communications; giving them, so far as is possible, a connected and consecutive form. Her singularly fascinating narrative faculty, however, I cannot pretend to imitate. She was full of unrhymed and unwritten poetry of an elevated and mystic stamp. She had no ambition to be a writer, and after all she could never have done herself justice on paper. Whoever had listened to the subdued melody of her tones, flexible, various, controlled, and reflecting every emotional phase of the tale as it was told; whoever had felt the blood shrink to his heart at crises of the story, marked by a slight movement of her long white hands, a quiver of the black brows, an unexpected hush in the voice—whoever had had experience of this would have known that it was not to be sought on any printed page. Yet there was nothing histrionic in Lady Mainwaring's demeanour. A person sitting a dozen yards away from her could not have distinguished a word she said, and would scarcely have perceived that she was making use of gestures to enforce her meaning. It needed a close eye to catch all the subtle play of that venerable countenance.

The story I have compiled begins at a period now distant; yet the series of events appears compact and coherent. What fact is there more tough and undeniable than an oak in an English park? Yet, firmly rooted though it be among the things of to-day, its beginnings date back a thousand years; it is a creature of the Dark Ages, a contemporary of legendary heroes and heroines, giants and fairies. It is a tangible proof of the mysterious past; but, in bringing vanished ages into the light of the passing moment, it takes from them the very reality whereof they testify.

CHAPTER II.

SIR BRIAN'S TROUBLES.

The Oak of Kildhurm does not date back a thousand years. Its exact age is not known, but it grew to be a sturdy vegetable, great of girth and royal in its spread of limb. It was first recognisable as a tree in the hither outskirts of Queen Elizabeth's time, or in King James's earlier years: about the epoch, say, of the Gunpowder Treason, when the struggles between King and Parliament which culminated in the rebellion of two-score years later were just beginning: when people wore ruffs and tight waists, and cultivated a stiffness of aspect as if they were continually sitting for their portraits; when the names of Bacon, Raleigh, Shakespeare, and Drake had as yet acquired no legendary halo; when gentlemen were haughty and punctilious, wore long swords with basket hilts, and were bloodthirstily polite in using the same; when women were almost as beautiful and virtuous as they are at the present day, but less squeamish upon certain points; when Spain was as much of a scapegoat for English vituperation as Russia is now; when popery was not merely a picturesque opinion, but a matter of blazing faggots and iron virgins; when El Dorado still gleamed along the horizons of the Spanish main. At about this time it was that two men, riding in opposite directions along a lonely road, met beneath a huge oak tree, whose gnarled limbs, thickly clothed with sombre foliage, extended nearly across the way.

The name of only one of these men has been preserved to us by tradition. Sir Brian Kildhurm, a valiant knight of Queen Elizabeth's manufacture, had fought with distinction in the Spanish wars, and afterwards (though himself of Irish descent) had unsheathed his sword for the repression of the Irish difficulties of that day. He owned a fair estate on the coast of Cumberland, a castle with a broad-bottomed tower on its seaward corner, a little black-haired son, and a very beautiful wife. With regard to this same wife, however, there was a difficulty, it would be hard to say exactly what: but, at all events, the personage who chanced to encounter Sir Brian beneath the overhanging branches of the oak tree on the lonely road was, in Sir Brian's opinion, in some way responsible for it.

They reined-in their horses, and exchanged a few words, which were doubtless of a courteous but hardly of a conciliating tendency. Each wore some light armour on head, arms, and breasts, high heavy boots, and the customary sword and dagger. But it is to be noted that, whereas Sir Brian's sword was of the rapier description, that of his opponent was a ponderous double-edged weapon, fitter to be wielded with two hands than with one. Its owner, however, was a man of vast size and strength, broad of beam and massive of limb, and with a great sheaf of rough red beard blowing about his face and chest; and he could flirt the huge sword about as lightly as if it had been a bamboo walking-stick. Sir Brian, on the other hand, like all the men of his race, was tall, lithe, agile, and terribly skilful of fence.

It will be understood that these details would not have been dwelt upon, had the encounter between the two gentlemen been destined to pass off peacefully. But peace was far from the hearts of either of them. They meant deadly mischief to one another; and Sir Brian at least had long looked for an opportunity of doing his share of it. Accordingly, after levelling a proper amount of fantastic and quaint abuse at one another, these two sons of Adam dismounted from their steeds, placed themselves face to face on the greensward beneath the oak tree, and then and there presently set to work to spill each other's life-blood. Meanwhile, their horses peaceably cropped the herbage, and took the little intermission in their labours in very good part.

Sir Brian never appeared to have a chance against his gigantic adversary. What avails a cunning guard, when sheer strength beats it down, and when blow follows blow so rapidly and with such outrageous force, that the wiriest opponent has much ado to hop out of the way of them, leaving all attempt at retaliation out of the question for the present? In spite of Sir Brian's best activity, the giant's weapon several times reached his body, crushing the light plates of iron armour, and once or twice biting through them to the flesh. 'The caitiff must needs wax scant of breath ere long,' thought Sir Brian to himself, as he saw that steel flail flash up and down; but it was dangerous work waiting for that time to arrive. In a moment a blow fell upon his helmet, sheared away the left side of it, and grazed the scalp, so that blood rushed forth and made gory the knight's face and gorget. A little giddy from this shock, Sir Brian staggered, his knees bent, and his neck felt an inch or two shorter than was comfortable. Perceiving this, his enemy resolved to make an end of him forthwith; for there was no question of giving quarter in this fight, but one or both must never fight again. Grasping his sword with both hands, therefore, he poised it for a back-stroke into which he threw the whole force and weight of his body. Sir Brian, glancing dizzily up, saw the keen blade glitter above him; then down it came—but not all the way down! For in mid-descent it came in contact with a low-lying limb of the oak tree—nine inches thick of hard living wood—sheared through it to the last half-inch, and the hilt flew from the striker's grasp. His arms dropped to his sides, tingling to the shoulder. At the same moment Sir Brian had lunged forward with the strength of despair, and his rapier passed clean through the neck of the other, who fell backwards with a groan and a gurgle, breaking the rapier-blade short off in the wound. He never spoke a word, but bled like a bull, and in a few minutes was dead.

Sir Brian Kildhurm leaned upon the fragment of his sword, recovering his breath, and staring at the red-bearded face of his dead enemy.

'So much for my Lady Ursula's sweetheart!' he muttered to himself.

After standing a little longer, he wiped his sword and slapped it home in the sheath; unlaced and flung away the pieces of his helmet; and at length, kneeling on one knee beside the burly corpse, he cut open with his dagger the front of the doublet. A broad gold chain and locket were revealed, the sight whereof caused Sir Brian's lean visage to wrinkle itself painfully. He took up the locket, sticky as it was with blood, and opened it. It contained, not the lock of crisp black hair that he had put in it ten years ago, but a soft brown coil of a woman's braid. He closed the locket and thrust it into his bosom. He took his enemy's dagger, which was richly inlaid and wrought; and finally he broke off from the branch whose interposition had saved his life a twig with a cluster of acorns growing upon it. These also he dabbled with blood; then he mounted and rode slowly away, leaving the corpse and the other horse beneath the oak tree.

This fight took place on a cool and breezy afternoon in the month of October, in a small valley between Dent Hill and Ennerdale Water in Cumberland. The horse remained beside his dead master until nightfall, because the latter's beard, blowing to and fro in the breeze, made him seem to be alive. But at night the horse trotted away, and by sunrise was standing at the gates of a Catholic monastery, fifty miles south-eastward of that fatal spot.

CHAPTER III.

FATHER, MOTHER, AND SON.

Sir Brian rode north and west, crossing a small river, where he stopped to bathe his wounds, and then forward again for six or seven miles, until he came to the sea-coast and to the Kildhurm estates. It was already dusk when he dismounted in the courtyard of his castle. He had been absent for some weeks, and he had not been expected home so soon; nevertheless he was welcomed back most respectfully. He made no allusion to his late encounter at Ennerdale, but put on a gracious demeanour, and seemed altogether in unusually good spirits. When his wife came out to meet him, holding their little son by the hand, he greeted her with more than his customary urbanity; and stooped to kiss the boy, who, however, shrank away from him with an odd cry of aversion, as if he had smelt the death-scent in his breath.

'He should be trained to better manners,' said the knight, with a smile.

'He should see the world, then,' answered the wife.

'Are we so wholly apart from the world,' returned Sir Brian, fixing his eyes upon her, 'that no guests, bidden or unbidden, ever pass our gates?'

'Who should visit us in a spot so remote as this?' exclaimed Lady Kildhurm. 'It is much if now and then we catch sight of some clownish tenant of ours, riding by on the road beyond the park.'

'You love London better—is it not so?'

'I was bred in London, Brian, and would gladly see it again. When we married, thou didst promise me sometimes to return thither. But now for three years I have not been a day's ride from the castle.'

'Indeed, I have been remiss, Ursula; but thou knowest how vexed the country hath been of late, and I ever commanded hither and thither by our gracious monarch. But I had hoped thou wouldst have found some company in thy solitude.'

'Last night we had a visitor,' spoke up the boy, looking up in his mother's face. 'I saw him—the big man with the red beard——'

'Silence, sirrah!' interrupted the knight, with a stern voice and frown. 'What art thou, to contradict thy mother to her face! Look how thy impudence hath made her blush! Off to thy nurse, and let me hear thy babble no more to-day. Would a big red-bearded man have been here, and thy mother not have told me of it?' And hereupon Sir Brian laughed.

After the boy had been taken away, he sat down in his high-backed chair beside the hearth, and motioned with his hand to Lady Kildhurm to seat herself opposite him.

'This is a lonely spot indeed,' he said, 'and withal none too safe for an unarmed man to ride abroad. Even this very afternoon, Ursula, as I was spurring along the road by Ennerdale Water, thinking of the loving and wifely welcome thou wouldst give me on my arrival here, I was set upon by a brawny ruffian, a huge, bearded varlet, with a sword a cloth-yard and a half long. We fought beneath the Great Oak; and he would have cloven me to the chine, save that, as good luck would have it, he caught his blade against a branch, so that he lost his hold upon the hilt. But my peril was great. See, I have brought away a twig of the tree for remembrance of my escape.'

So saying he drew forth from his breast the cluster of acorns, and held it towards his wife.

'There is blood upon it!' cried Lady Kildhurm, snatching back her half-extended hand. 'Brian—what man was this?'

'What man?' he repeated with a short laugh. 'What but a robber, Ursula, who would rob me of what I hold most precious? But methinks his ill deeds are at an end now!'

'What hast thou done to him?' she asked, trembling very much.

'Nay, I did but pass my rapier through his weazand,' replied the knight, keeping his black eyes on her face. 'Indeed, he was not worthy to die by the hand of a true man, but should rather have been hanged on the tree beneath which he fell, as a warning to all such vermin. But in the hurry of the moment I stood not upon ceremony.... Do not turn so pale, Ursula! Comfort thyself, dear wife—I got but a scratch or so, which will be healed long ere the crows have made a meal of his carcase.'

'This afternoon—by the Oak of Ennerdale?' said Lady Kildhurm in a dull voice, her eyes wide open and fixed.

'And, by the bye, I took a trophy from him—a pretty trinket enough—and have brought it to hang about thy neck as a keepsake. See—pure gold it is, and in its shape strangely like the one I gave thee years ago, and which thou hast doubtless kept so religiously ever since. But this has in it, not my hair, but a braid cut from some woman's head—his light-o'-love's, I take it. Throw that away as unworthy thy chaste ownership: but accept the gold from thy loving husband, Ursula!'

When Lady Kildhurm beheld this sure evidence that what she had perhaps foreboded had come to pass, her trembling ceased, and she became strangely composed. She held out her hand for the locket.

'Give it me,' she said. 'Ay, it is pretty, indeed; and I thank thee for it more than for any other gift of thine. Why, this too is smeared with blood; but my lips shall cleanse it—I will kiss it, kiss it, till all is kissed away. And I will wear it in my bosom, Brian, and it shall never come forth thence—never while I live, I promise thee. Thou canst not say I did not prize this gift! The cluster of acorns—give me them also. Hast thou anything else for me?'

'Here is his dagger,' returned the knight with an attempt at a sneer. 'Thou mayest find a use for that, perhaps!'

She took the dagger, and then, standing erect before her husband, she met his glance unflinchingly. 'Farewell, Brian,' said she. 'Thou hast been a hard and unloving husband to me. Often, when I would have clung to thee, thou hast put me aside with cold and sneering words, and hast shut me out from that confidence and fair entertainment which a wife should have. For years thou hast confined me to this solitude! travelling abroad thyself, and leaving me here, your wife only in name, and as yielding meek obedience to your tyrannous will. Thou hast neither loved, honoured nor cherished me, and since these two years I have known that thou hast held me in suspicion. God alone knows, or ever shall know, whether the suspicion was just. This is my revenge—that I will leave thee in doubt! But hadst thou been kinder to me, Brian—hadst thou answered the craving of my overwrought heart—hadst thou been true to thy duty as a husband, thou wouldst not have thought me failing in mine as a wife. But I do not ask forgiveness: be God judge between us, which has most wronged the other!'

'You have much to say about God, madam,' broke in Sir Brian: 'but my fear is, your deeds are less heavenly than your words.'

'Look to thy own deeds! for they shall condemn thee for ever!' exclaimed Lady Kildhurm, raising both her hands, one holding the dagger, and the other the cluster of acorns, and then letting them droop slowly towards him. 'Thou hast slain a good and holy man, whose shoe's latchet thou wast not worthy to unlace. Evil shall be thy portion in this world: and if ever thou turnest thy steps heavenward, may the blood which thou hast this day shed cause thee to slip and stumble in the way!'

Having thus spoken, Lady Kildhurm retired to her chamber. Sir Brian sat alone in his high-backed chair by the fire-place, resting his lean cheek upon his hand, and staring at the embers. When a servant came to bring him supper, he gave the man so black a look as to send him frightened back; and during the rest of the night, no one ventured to approach the room. As the hours passed away, every sound was hushed, except the heavy thundering of the surf against the shore, and the whipping of the wind-driven foam against the windows. Once Sir Brian fancied he heard an outcry and a sobbing, as of a child in distress,—the voice of his little son; but by degrees the sobbing died away.

In the early morning, as Sir Brian stood at the window, he saw the grey sea hurling itself at the bare coast, and the sea-gulls skimming and eddying amidst the bitter foam of the great breakers. The grey walls of Kildhurm Tower, which stood scarce a hundred paces from the shore, were hoary with clinging flakes of froth. Directly opposite the window where Sir Brian was standing, on the verge of the low headland, lay a heap of something that had not been there the evening before. Was it a mass of sea-wrack, cast up by the waves during the night? Sir Brian could not see clearly; the window-pane was dim with salt, and his eyes were heavy. He stealthily left the room, descended the staircase, and, bareheaded as he was, crossed the wind-swept breadth of turf that intervened between the tower and the headland.

There lay the body of his wife, face downwards, with arms outstretched, and hands that clutched the turf. It was a spot to which she had often come to sit, and to gaze for hours westward across the waves towards Mona, where she was born. Sir Brian stood looking down at her, as he had stood by that other dead body the day before. He had been the death of them both. At first, indeed, he did not quite believe that she was dead. He watched for some movement of those fingers which clutched so sharply into the turf, those soft white fingers that yesterday had been so tremulous. But there was no tremor in them now; they were rigid as iron: the wind that fluttered her garments could not stir them. Poor little hands! Perhaps, after all, Sir Brian had not pressed them so lovingly, or so often as he might have done. He remembered how, sometimes when they had touched his hair or his cheek, he had moodily disregarded their touch, or had brushed them impatiently away. What hands would caress him now? 'Hadst thou not failed in thy duty as a husband;' and again: 'Mayst thou slip and stumble in the blood which thou hast this day shed!' Those were words which could never be unspoken. And yet Sir Brian waited beside the body, as if he expected it to arise and speak to him.

But at length, setting his teeth together, he laid hold of the body, and placed it face upwards across his knee. As he did so, the cause of death was revealed. She had planted the dagger point upwards in the earth, and had fallen upon it. Something else she had planted there, though at the time Sir Brian did not know it—the acorns from the fatal oak of Ennerdale; and she had fertilised them with her very heart's blood.

Some of the servants, who had been peeping out from the castle windows, aghast at so grim a spectacle, now made bold to approach and offer their assistance. Sir Brian, however, as if he had not seen them, rose, lifting the corpse in his arms, and stalked in silence up the ascent to the castle gate, neither staggering nor pausing by the way. The servants followed in a group after him.

When he got to the gate, he was met by his little son, who had his father's black hair and eyes, and his mother's tremulous indignant mouth. The child's nurse had in vain striven to keep him out of the way, and from a knowledge of what had happened. He seemed, indeed, to know more about it than anyone else.

'My dear mamma is dead!' quoth the infant heir of Kildhurm, his cheeks flushing scarlet and his childish voice vibrating. 'You have killed her, you wicked father, and I will never, never forgive you.'

Sir Brian stopped short, and his teeth began to chatter.

'Take the brat away!' he cried out.

But at the same moment his strength forsook him, and he would have fallen on his own threshold, had not those behind upheld him, and carried him and the dead woman into the castle. The stark warrior never fully recovered from the effects of this adventure.

CHAPTER IV.

THE OAK BEGINS TO GROW.

This is the legend of the planting of Kildhurm's Oak. It has, indeed, been affirmed that the child's words were literally true, and that Lady Kildhurm died actually and not figuratively by her husband's hand. But there is no trustworthy evidence in support of such a charge, and it may therefore be discredited. The fact remains that father and son were never reconciled; not because the latter held to his childish threat, but because Sir Brian conceived an unconquerable dread of him, and would never willingly have him in his presence. All accounts agree in representing this hitherto fearless man as having become a victim to superstitious terrors, and as having lapsed into an altogether morbid state of mind. In his sleep he was often heard to shriek out unintelligible words in a choking voice, and sometimes, in the midst of company, he would have the air of suddenly being confronted with sights and sounds to which none but he were sensible. He would point to the ground with his finger, it is said, muttering and staring, and occasionally drawing back his feet, as if to avoid treading upon some imaginary horror. This latter peculiarity was first noticed in him on the day of his wife's funeral. All the chief personages in the neighbourhood had been invited to the ceremony, and a large concourse of people had assembled out of curiosity. The darksome procession had entered the churchyard of the Gothic church that stood in the midst of the village about a mile from Kildhurm Tower. The coffin was being carried in beneath the arched portal, when Sir Brian set his foot on the first of the seven stone steps which led up thither. All at once, to the surprise and discomfiture of the beholders, he halted abruptly, and then gave back a pace or two. His eyes, meanwhile, were observed to be rigidly fixed on the clean and smooth-worn steps before him. Sir Brian slowly extended his arm, with finger outstretched, and seemed to trace therewith the course of some sluggishly-moving thing that crept towards him along the flags, and which, assuredly, nobody except himself could perceive.

'Look, look! 'tis running down the steps! Merciful God! where should so much come from?' he whispered between his chattering teeth.

Whispered though the words were, they were caught up by those nearest him, and by them communicated to others. An awkward and irresolute pause followed; the funeral cortège wavered, and forsook its narrow regularity, and a group of curious, startled, and questioning faces grouped themselves around the knight, who still glared downward, shivering and distraught. At length the clergyman of the parish, an elderly, stern-visaged man, made his way through the press, and laid his hand upon the stricken man's shoulder.

'Honoured Sir Knight,' said he, 'let not a grief which is most natural, and worthy of all respect, overcome you at this moment; for all the people stand amazed, and know not what to do. Go forward, I entreat you, into the church, that the last sad rites may be performed, and the assembly dismissed.'

Thus admonished, Sir Brian pressed both his hands across his eyes, and made a hurried and desperate attempt to reach the church door. But on the first step he slipped and fell headlong, shrieking out in a voice that rang over the crowd and penetrated to the coffin-bearers within the aisle—

'I am cursed! Her blood is upon me!'

It was an ugly and an ominous spectacle. No further attempt was made to induce him to enter the church, nor is it likely that any such attempt would have succeeded. From his behaviour, and from sundry obscure sentences that fell from him, it was inferred that the arched doorway, to his apprehension, was sentinelled by some grisly phantom that waved him back. And it is worthy of note that from this time to the very end of his life, he never made his way into the house of God, or even would accept the ministrations of any member of the sacred profession. To strive to bring his mind into a religious frame was tantamount to throwing him into one of his fits of superstitious delirium; so that those last words of his wife, on parting with him for ever—'May the blood which thou hast this day shed cause thee to slip and stumble in thy way heavenward!'—would seem to have found a sufficiently ample fulfilment.

The fact that he never saw his wife buried, by the way, may account for the notion which constantly possessed him that she was still in some shape or other (a very appalling one, seemingly) above ground. In other words, the man was haunted for the remainder of his days by a spectre; possibly by more than one: but that is a point not easy to determine, since he was the only person to whom it or they were visible. He contracted a habit of betaking himself at certain hours to that particular point on the cliff where the body of Lady Kildhurm had been found: being thereto impelled, we may suppose, not because the place was agreeable to him—for it is probable that no place in the world was less so—but by that perverse horror which is known by the name of fascination, and which drives the fluttering sparrow into the open jaws of the snake. Having regard to all these eccentricities of his, it is not surprising that he came to be considered as a man accursed—incapable of being of use to any human creature, and therefore to be avoided of all. It must be recollected that this was the beginning of the seventeenth century; nobody allows himself to fall into delusions nowadays. And it will be easy for the philosophers of our enlightened age to account for Sir Brian's mania, and his notions about phantoms, as a result of that astounding buffet on the head which he received from him of the Red Beard; a buffet rude enough, certainly, to have disorganised brains stronger than those of the Knight of Kildhurm. There remains, it is true, the question why such a cause should be followed by such an effect; but to insist upon this would be, perhaps, but the refinement of idle curiosity.

The violent extinction of these two lives—of Lady Kildhurm's and of him of the Red Beard—was suffered to pass without legal inquiries, or at all events without legal penalties. The north of England, at this period, was not in a particularly peaceful or settled condition; and, what is more to the purpose, the red-bearded man was known to have been ardently attached to the Roman Catholic religion; and he was doubtless suspected by some of having affiliations with the authors of the Gunpowder Treason. No one, of course, who set any value upon the security of his own vertebra, would care to espouse the cause of a person of whom such things could be said, especially after taking into consideration the fact that the person was no longer alive. As for Lady Kildhurm, if it were true that she had carried on an intrigue with a traitor and conspirator, what more probable and easy to be believed than that she should have sympathised with his political and religious views into the bargain? For when women give themselves up to love, it is their happiness to give themselves without reservation of soul, mind, or body. Let Lady Kildhurm and her lover, therefore, if they needed avenging, manage the matter for themselves, and in their own way.

And, surely, no one who was present at the deathbed of Sir Brian Kildhurm would have ventured to affirm that the blood of those two was unavenged. But over that grim scene let a veil be drawn. After all, Lady Kildhurm may have been innocent; and if Sir Brian found this out when it was too late, his fate was in no respect an enviable one.

CHAPTER V.

THE PROPHECY OF THE OAK.

Ralph Kildhurm—that bold-spoken youngster who bearded his father at the castle gate—had a grand career. His life covers the period of the Puritan Revolution. He was a devoted adherent of King Charles; probably not more from personal sympathy with that unhappy monarch, than because he knew that the Stuarts' cause would have been his mother's, had she been alive. He met his death valiantly at Naseby. But he had married two years previously, and two sons came of the union, one of whom was born six months after his decease. This younger son was destined to be his successor.

Our affair being the story of the Oak, and of the family mainly in so far as it was involved therewith, I can give few further details about Sir Ralph. He was the first baronet of his line. Ralph, it is said, had always taken great interest in the growth of the infant oak tree; as was no wonder, considering that it had been planted by his mother under circumstances so darkly impressive. At the time of Sir Brian's death, the tree had grown to about the height of a man: it flourished with strange vigour. The story of its origin was not unknown in the neighbourhood, and many quaint and fantastic sayings and prophecies concerning it were rife among the people of the neighbourhood. Its rapid growth was plausibly ascribed to the blood which had drenched the soil at its planting; and it was affirmed that this blood had been absorbed into the life and substance of the tree, imparting to it a kind of semi-human vitality; so that, although in outward semblance an oak, much like other oaks, it was in reality a species of oak man—an offspring, in fact, of the valiant race of Kildhurm, born of the alleged unhallowed union between Lady Kildhurm and the Red-Bearded one. Therefore its destiny was bound up with that of the Kildhurms; but whether for weal or for woe was a question as to which different people held different opinions. Some said that, since from evil no good could come, and since Lady Kildhurm had died in sin, the tree that sprang from her blood was an accursed growth instinct with a demon of violence and mischief, and sure, sooner or later, to work harm upon its human kindred. Others, on the contrary, maintained that the charge against Ursula was—in its blacker construction, at all events—a calumny; that he of the Red Beard had been a priest or a monk in disguise, and that the intrigue in which the two were concerned had for its object nothing worse than the furtherance of some religious scheme. Consequently, urged these charitably-disposed persons, the blood which fertilised the planted acorns was the blood of innocence wrongfully accused; and might be expected to carry with it a blessing rather than a curse.

But hereupon the first party would reply that, whether Ursula were guilty or innocent of the crime charged against her, there could at all events be little doubt that she had taken her own life, and no doubt at all that the latest words she spoke to her husband were a deliberate curse. Now, it was a fact established upon Scriptural authority that the evil effect of a curse descends from father to son even unto the third and fourth generation—and this, whether the person who pronounced the anathema desired such an amplification of it or not: curses being like demons, which, once evoked, are not easily laid again. Upon the whole, therefore, it seemed probable that the Kildhurms would fare badly with their oak; yet it appears never to have occurred to anybody to try the effect of rooting the oak up, or cutting it down. But very likely nobody would have been found venturesome enough to act upon the idea, even had it been suggested. Such a proceeding, under the circumstances, would have been regarded as little better than murder, if not a good deal worse: for although Dante could scarcely have been familiar to the Kildhurm family, and still less to the peasantry of that epoch, a belief was widely prevalent that if an axe should be laid to the tree, or so much as a twig torn off it, blood would flow from the wound. And to such a pitch was this grotesque notion carried, that during many years the dead leaves and fallen boughs of the oak are said to have been religiously buried, as if they had been veritable human remains. I do not care to vouch for the truth of this legend, but that it should have existed even as a legend is significant of the serious light in which the whole matter was viewed.

It was during Sir Ralph's lifetime that some local Mother Shipton produced the famous prophetic verses which were ever thenceforward quoted when the Oak and its attributes came up for discussion; and as to the true meaning of which a great deal of speculation and dispute were rife. What may have been the merits of the question can be inferred only from the sequel; but meanwhile it is certain that the prophecy itself so far appealed to the pride or interests of the Kildhurm family, that they caused it to be engraved upon a silver disc, and hung round the bole of the tree by a silver chain. There is no evidence of this chain and the disc ever having been removed; and the story goes that they were gradually overgrown by the substance of the tree; until, by the time the prophecies were ripe for fulfilment, the silver record of them had disappeared. The verses, according to the most trustworthy accounts, ran somewhat as follows:—

Here stand I, Kildhurm's Oak,

Ne'er to fall by age or stroke;

E'er Two Hundred Years be run,

Death of three and wealth of one.

At the period to which these verses are assigned, the Kildhurms had no lack of worldly goods, so that the concluding words might have seemed uncalled for. But they did not long continue to lack significance. For, after King Charles had suffered on the block, and the Protector ruled over England, those Englishmen who had favoured the dead King's cause were bound to suffer both in life and lands. Sir Ralph, as we know, had already paid the former penalty; but his surviving relatives were constrained to pay the other. In addition to a fine in money of many thousands of pounds they were deprived of by far the larger part of their landed possessions; nothing, indeed, was left to them but half a dozen acres of barren land, and the Tower of Kildhurm itself. Of course it was a cause for thankfulness that the Tower was not taken too; it was not every Royalist, in those days, who could boast of owning a roof to cover him. Probably, on the other hand, the Kildhurms could have got on better, from a practical point of view, with a little less stone and mortar and a little more gold. All but two or three of the servants had to be dismissed; the domestic expenses had to be cut down to the very lowest figure; and there was the once rich and powerful family, now reduced to half a dozen persons all told, living in one corner of a castle capable of accommodating fifty guests with their retinues. It was a fine place, no doubt, for children to play at hide-and-seek in; but a sad place for the elders who remembered the glories of the past.

The Oak had now completed its first half-century, and was already a noble and stalwart tree. It was an object of almost religious care on the part of the family: they cherished for it the same gloomy and perverse sort of pride that other old families do for the exploits of some godless ancestor, or for some hereditary vice or physical defect in themselves. A low railing had been built round the tree to protect it from careless and irreverent approach, and the little space of turf therein enclosed was kept scrupulously free from rubbish. The tree, however, possessed so much vigour of its own, that it would have flourished under the most adverse circumstances. It bade fair, if opportunity were given it, to become one of the great oaks of England. The trunk was modelled on lines of exceeding strength; the lower main branches, three in number, diverged from one another at equal angles, and extended their level lengths so far that the seaward limb overhung the verge of the cliff. The foliage was thick and dark, and the leaves, in autumn, if seen against the light, showed a deep tinge of crimson. Rain could not penetrate through their manifold living roof: and the shadow they cast upon the ground beneath is said to have been so sombre and so cold, that even in the greatest heat of summer it would strike a subtle chill through the blood. Those persons who had the temerity to take a nap in this shadow, or even to stand in it too long, were visited by appalling dreams, and generally got an ague which lasted them the rest of their lives. It should be noted, however, that these untoward effects did not occur in the case of the members of the Kildhurm family who, on the contrary, were fond of lingering about the tree: seeming to be sensible of a brotherhood with it, and to be agreeably affected by that which others found hurtful: insomuch that the children were brought to lie in their cradles beneath the boughs; and as they grew towards youth, their favourite playground was there.

In winter, when the tree stood forth stripped of its leaves, the peculiarities of its conformation were disclosed. Above the three main boughs already described, the trunk rose nearly erect for a considerable height, and put forth two thick limbs, which, after growing outwards nearly horizontally for half their length, thence ascended perpendicularly with a sudden crook like an elbow; and finally divided and spread abroad in smaller claw-like branches. The effect, therefore, as viewed from a suitable distance, was as if a gigantic but distorted human figure were standing upon the lower trunk as a pedestal, and were uplifting above its head two long and rigid arms. Were those arms raised in defiance of heaven, or in supplication to it? Did they threaten mankind below, or scatter benisons upon them? These may have been disputed questions among the people of that age. Doubtless the popular imagination, stimulated as it must have been by the many wild stories current about the Oak, had much to do with giving the semblance of reality to these human-like attributes; and the Kildhurms themselves, having little except the tree left to put them in mind of their former dignities, would naturally do what they conscientiously could towards heightening the mystery and the interest which surrounded it. Nevertheless, after all proper and due allowances and deductions have been made, much still remains which, to say the least of it, is singular and suggestive, and which in an era unenlightened by electricity and evolution may well have seemed portentous.

CHAPTER VI.

THE UTTERANCE OF THE OAK.

The coast of Cumberland, at the point where the Oak stood, is not more than twenty feet above ordinary high-water mark, and it opposes a face of dull white rock to the waves. But in storms, the Irish Sea drives down upon the shore with tremendous force, and the great rollers sometimes rise to the height of the natural parapet, and the gale bears their crest across it. The growth of an ordinary tree might have been stunted by such oceanic familiarities; but the Oak of Kildhurm, so far from shrinking from them, seemed to find refreshment therein, and never failed to greet the rough play of the storm-inspired waves with outstretched arms of invitation, roaring back an answer to the hoarse clamour of the surf, and tossing its branches gleefully in the shriek of the blast. Occasionally it would send a cluster of leaves whirling out to sea, like a message to the spirit of the tempest: and often in return, wreaths of dark seaweed were found suspended on its limbs—tokens of the ocean's savage amity. And again, when the winds were down and the shining waters came lapping liquidly under the crag, the swarthy Oak was fain to bend its boughs over the verge, and see its darksome image in the mirror of the tide, and, one might fancy, silently communicate some mysterious secret, over which the smiling surface would close for ever, with only a gurgling whisper of acknowledgment, which no human ear could understand. And at night, when the moon was up, the sea would heave and break slowly in long complaining murmurs against the shore, as though calling to some friend that tarried late. And then, to those who looked from the castle windows, their eyes straining through the deceptive dusk, the solid Oak would seem to melt slowly away like a shadow, and so to vanish into the yearning bosom of the deep, leaving naught save its gloomy memory behind it. Yet, in the morning, when the yellow sun stood on the bare edge of the inland hill, the Oak of Kildhurm still towered in its place, staunch and immovable; with nothing about it to tell of its nocturnal ramble, unless it were the long shadow trailing athwart the glistening beach. The sea and the oak knew how to keep each other's secrets.

One October day in the midst of the seventeenth century, Lady Kildhurm, in her widow's weeds, walked slowly out of the castle gate, leading her two little sons each by the hand. The elder, named Maurice, was six years old, his brother Rupert about five; and this was Maurice's birthday. As the heir of Kildhurm, all his birthdays were of course of particular importance; and, although he did not get quite so many testimonials of feudal devotion from the neighbouring peasants and farmers as his grandfather at the same age had been accustomed to expect, nevertheless he had spent a pleasant forenoon receiving the gifts and congratulations of an adoring household. It was now afternoon, the air clear and undisturbed by any wind, and sea and land slept in soft tints beneath the slanting sun-rays. Not a ripple disturbed the pale blue surface; nor was any movement perceptible among the dark leaves of the mysterious tree. The mother and children proceeded to the cliff, and, opening the gate of the little enclosure, they seated themselves beneath the shadow of the Oak. Far away in the offing a vessel lay becalmed, her dim white sails vainly stretched out for a breeze; near at hand a flock of fitfully-screaming gulls swooped and hovered over some floating quarry. A banner, hoisted on the Tower in honour of little Sir Maurice's sixth anniversary, hung in motionless folds about its staff. All nature seemed to be at pause, dreaming of the past, or, it might be, hushing herself in anticipation of some event to come.

Lady Kildhurm sat in a low rustic chair, with her hand beneath her chin, and her eyes fixed thoughtfully on the banner drooping on its staff. The children were playing on the mossy green turf at her feet. By and by Sir Maurice said to his brother, in reference to a small toy sword which had been absorbing their attention:

'Thou mayst take it awhile, brother; but thou must say it is mine and not thine, else I will take it back.'

Rupert received the sword in silence, and then said:

'Buzzer Mau'ice, dis s'ord is mine!'

'Now I shall take it back!'

'No!'

'Yes; and I am the eldest; and the sword and everything belong to me, and nothing to you. You shall not have it!'

'No! I de eldest!'

'Rupert! that was a—not true!'

'Well, I keep de s'oard!' returned the unabashed junior, dwelling upon the noun at exasperating length.

Maurice made a snatch at the disputed weapon; Rupert drew it quickly beyond his reach: then the two little fellows faced each other with defiance in their port; and a battle seemed imminent.

But all of a sudden a low and deep sound began to make itself heard. It was like a whisper, hoarse, yet roughly melodious, issuing out of the very heart of the else omnipresent stillness; and gradually gathering volume, until it roared on the ear like the far-heard music of a cataract. Lady Kildhurm, roused from the reverie into which she had fallen, lifted her head and listened in surprise, and the children postponed their fisticuffs and listened also. What caused the sound? No wind had arisen; there hung the banner, idle as before; yonder stretched the sea in glassy immobility. A dark cloud, however, had crept before the face of the sun; and as the mother raised her glance, she perceived a strange commotion in the Oak. Its huge limbs swayed to and fro, and the thickly clustered leaves hurtled hither and thither, as though under the stress of a mighty breeze. It was from the Oak, then, and only from the Oak, that the multitudinous murmur came. Amidst the autumnal hush of that peaceful afternoon it was uplifting its voice in a many-toned tumult of harmony; and as the sound gained resonance, it seemed to the now pale-cheeked woman as if a voice, indistinct at first, was gradually shaping itself to intelligible utterance, approaching through numberless repetitions nearer and nearer to articulate speech.

Yes, after fifty years, the genius of the tree was full-born and awake, and striving with ten thousand tongues to give expression to his will. As the cry rose higher, he shook his swarthy arms towards the sea; and thereupon a long tidal wave, which had noiselessly been advancing shore-wards across the smooth expanse, burst in mellow thunder along the resounding shore. Slowly the echoes died away, and slowly, likewise, the wild voice of the tree subsided and was still. Everywhere the calm of the October day reigned as before—everywhere save in the mother's frightened heart. The cloud, moreover, still lingered before the sun.

Little Sir Maurice, who had observed this portent attentively throughout, now took hold of his mother's dress and looked up in her face.

'Didst thou hear, mother?' he demanded. 'The Oak said "Maurice! Maurice! Maurice!" over and over again. Why does it call me? Does it want me to go anywhere, or do anything? Tell me, mother!'

'Hush, child, thou talkest foolishly! can trees talk?' returned Lady Kildhurm, trying to hide her uneasiness beneath an assumed asperity. The next moment she bent down and kissed the boy with yearning tenderness on cheek and brow. Then she glanced fearfully at the unmoving masses of sombre foliage.

'Pray God he be not called from me!' she said half aloud. 'But how strange a thing! Pooh! it was my fancy!—nay, for he heard it also!—and then that great wave, like an answer from the sea! But—pshaw! I am more foolish than my children. It was but some sudden wind-gust. I will think of it no more. Maurice, and thou, Rupert, come now into the house. The air is not so warm as an hour since.'

Rupert, it may be remarked, had kept stubborn hold of the sword all through this adventure, in which, for the rest, he had seen nothing at all remarkable. But he was a politic as well as an obstinate baby, and he now executed a diplomatic stroke which would have done credit to an older head.

'See what I dot, buzzer,' he said, as he and Maurice followed their mother towards the castle. He held up a cluster of acorns.

'Oh, how did you get them?'

'Dey fall on ze g'ound; dey very pooty!'

'I wish I had found some. I have always wanted some.'

'I give 'ou dese, if 'ou say I keep de s'oard,' said the diplomatist, hazarding his stroke.

'Oh, have you the sword still? I had forgot it. Well, I cannot give you the sword, because mother gave it to me; but if you will give me the acorns, you shall keep the sword till I want it.'

'Well, I keep de s'oard,' said Rupert, as he handed over the acorns. And it is to be feared that he added a mental rider to the effect that he would himself be the judge of the time when his brother should want it back again.

Lady Kildhurm, turning at the castle gate, saw the acorns in Maurice's grasp.

'Thou shouldst not have brought them, son,' she said nervously. 'Thou knowest we do not use to touch the fruit of the Oak. Run back and put them again where thou didst find them.'

'No, mother,' said Maurice, 'let me keep them. This is my birthday, and the Oak has given me these for a birthday gift.'

'Yes, muzzer, he keep'em,' put in Rupert who perceived that, if his brother was deprived of the acorns, his own possession of the sword might be thereby endangered. And the mother yielded, having no very valid arguments on her side, and being, besides, unwilling to cross the little heir on his birthday.

It was destiny, no doubt—destiny that would have fulfilled itself in some other way, if not in this. No outcry of child or demon disturbed Lady Kildhurm that night, after she had kissed the two boys in their cribs and bidden them farewell. Her sleep was peaceful and dreamless; but Maurice slept more soundly yet, and never woke in this world. It was afterwards discovered that he had taken his acorns to bed with him; and the inference was that he must have eaten one of them, and that it had poisoned him. At all events, the Oak of Kildhurm had claimed and taken its first victim; and Master Rupert was free to keep the sword.

CHAPTER VII.

THE OAK BIDES ITS TIME.

When this strange story, with suitable exaggerations, got abroad, it added greatly to the Oak's reputation. The notion that it was to be a sort of Banshee of the Kildhurms, speaking with miraculous voice before the death of any member of the family—this notion had great vogue for a time; but the Oak itself declined to countenance it. Its soul, if it had one, was of a rank superior to that of Banshees, and would not be classed with them. Several members of the family died in due season, and in an ordinary manner, without any sign from the Oak. The tree, for a great number of years behaved in all respects as another tree might have done. But it never could divest itself of its sinister reputation. Not uneducated people merely, but often those who pretend to some degree of culture, betray a disposition to put faith in a thing precisely because they are unable to explain it. Possibly some leaven of the inexplicable may be indispensable to a healthy mental organisation. It is inexplicable, so far as our knowledge of natural laws extends, that the leaves and branches of the Oak should have swayed and rustled independently of the action of the wind. On the other hand, if we assign a conscious and self-acting spirit to man, what shall prevent us from assigning the like to a tree? Before giving a too credulous ear to those who would persuade us that this or that is incredible because it is a miracle, it were prudent to require them to put their finger on something that is not miraculous.

Let the reader, therefore, form his own conclusions as to the special miraculousness of Kildhurm's Oak: noting, meanwhile, that little Rupert, the stubborn and wily, grew up to be a courtier; and, while still no more than a boy in his teens, was able on one or two occasions to render some important service to the second Charles, who was then awaiting with what patience he might the demise of the terrible Protector. On Charles's accession to power, Rupert was attached to his court, and, if all accounts be true, he approved himself a congenial abettor of the merry monarch's frolics. It was here that he made the acquaintance of John, Earl of Rochester, and the connection benefited him little either in health or reputation. Nor did its ill effects stop there; for having, in the year 1678, invited a party of dissolute young nobles, of whom Rochester was one, to spend a few days at Kildhurm Tower, a most stupendous orgy forthwith began, which lasted nearly a week, and ended in the castle taking fire. There was no means of putting out the flames; and within six hours the only part of the building that remained habitable was the tower itself and one or two rooms adjoining it. This mishap happened in the winter; and the aspect of the naked Oak lit up by the red glare of the conflagration, and standing forth against the sable background of sea and sky, was demoniacal in the extreme.

'Ods-life, my lads,' remarked the wild Earl, as he gazed upon it, 'it does look damnably like one of us as we shall be a few years sooner or later!'

This was one of the last escapades in which Rochester was concerned. He soon afterwards fell into that illness which proved to be his last, and in the course of which he formed his edifying friendship with good Bishop Burnet. As for Sir Rupert, the disaster sobered him, not only at the time, but permanently. He stayed at what was left of his home for the remainder of his days, married the daughter of a neighbouring baronet, and died full of years and piety, though poor in this world's goods, in the latter part of George I.'s reign. He had a son, of whom this history has nothing to say, but with that son's son, born about the time of the grandfather's decease, our narrative resumes its thread.

Sir Norman Kildhurm was a scholar of some eminence, and of a philosophical and speculative turn; he is said to have written several lengthy and abstruse works, all of which have withdrawn into a dignified and happy oblivion. Personally, he was an odd, unconventional genius, of uneven temper and behaviour. His mind, in some of its aspects, was amazingly lucid and sane; but in others it seemed to forsake all rationality and clearness, and immersed itself in clouds of mysticism and paradox. The family Oak had, as might readily be supposed, a profound attraction for him. He spent much time in studying it, and posterity is indebted to him for having gathered together all available scraps of its past history, both actual and apocryphal. Among other discoveries he made the somewhat curious one that the Oak differed from all known species of the Quercus family, and was of another variety even than the Oak of Ennerdale, whereof tradition made it an off-shoot. Sir Norman boldly accounted for this difference by ascribing it to the strain of human blood which flowed in the tree's veins. Perhaps he may have known for a fact that a fluid which was not vegetable sap coursed beneath the rough bark; and, indeed, there is a rumour that he once dared to lop off one of the lesser branches, doubtless with a view to putting this questionable ichor to a chemical test. Whether the tree forgave the liberty in consideration of the importance of the result to be obtained, is open to question; though probably any being directly connected, as the Oak was, with the operations of destiny, would be superior to petty emotions of revenge or partiality. It cannot be denied, on the other hand, that Sir Norman's connection with the Oak was foreordained to end disastrously for him.

It is not to be expected of a man such as Sir Norman is described as being, that he would be socially inclined; and yet it is probable that his poverty was at least as much the cause of his seclusion, as was any innate aversion from, or quarrel with, his kind. Misanthropist or not, he married, when about thirty years of age, a daughter of Bishop Ferrand. The young lady might have made a more brilliant match; Kildhurm was quoted in the matrimonial market at by no means a high figure: we are forced to the conclusion that she must have fallen in love. She was no ordinary woman. In point of mental cultivation she was her husband's equal. As regards personal appearance, her features were rather too strongly marked to fulfil the ideal of feminine beauty; but her figure was stately and tall, her bearing dignified and graceful. She was ardently attached to her husband, and devoted herself in every way she could to his happiness and comfort. Not only did she square his worldly cash accounts for him, she assisted him also in his literary and philosophical labours; she even—so it is hinted—aided him in certain unorthodox efforts of his to pierce through the natural veil of things, and to explore secrets which are conditionally withheld from common approach. This may mean that Sir Norman had in some degree pretended to anticipate the exploits of the future Cagliostro; and used his lady as a passive but effective lens, to apprise him of matters which he was impotent to master by his own unfettered eyesight.

Be this as it may, there is reason for supposing that the Lady Kildhurm of this epoch was a person of exceptional temperament; that her manifestations were not always entirely comprehensible; that, in short, despite her cleverness, there was a screw loose in her somewhere. Sir Norman and she were not unfrequently referred to in critical social circles of the vicinity as the crazy couple, the mad Kildhurms. They bore their reputation philosophically, and were very fond of each other. A year or two after their marriage a son was born to them, and they approved themselves affectionate parents. But they were almost intolerably poor; and when poverty amounts to an inadequacy of means to ends, it becomes irksome. It was highly desirable that their financial resources should be increased. I cannot say whether Sir Norman, in addition to his other investigations, made any search for the philosopher's stone; but there can be no doubt that he stood greatly in need of some such implement. He was angry with fortune; he conceived that wealth was his due, not on account of his station merely, but by reason of personal merit. From a state of mind such as this—from a keen perception of the injustice of fortune—it is not always a long step to attempting to force fortune's hand. The Baronet's philosophical studies may have so expanded his views as to enable him to consider the feasibility of acquiring money by means divergent from what is vulgarly called morality. He was a slight-built, nervous man, of a bilious temperament, with the features and peculiarities of his race strongly pronounced in him; but he possessed in addition—what most of his ancestors did not—a soft and winning tone of voice, and a tongue which could be persuasive when he chose to make it so. Few women could withhold their confidence from him, if he set himself to gain it: and not a few men had acknowledged the pleasant cajolery which he could employ on occasion.

Soon after the baby was born, a widowed sister of Lady Kildhurm's—Mrs. Harriet Chepstow by name—came to the Tower and took up her abode there. Mr. Chepstow, deceased, was a younger son of a wealthy family, and had obtained some share of the property; consequently, there is every reason to suppose that the widow did not eat her host's bread without paying him a fair equivalent for it. The subject is a delicate one, but it is necessary that we should touch upon it. There was nothing in the affair to cause Sir Norman any mortification. The widow needed a home, and he needed a few pounds a week; it was a fair exchange. Nevertheless, the Baronet was, in his own way, a very proud man, and it is easily conceivable that he did not enjoy the spectacle of the descendant of his forefathers enacting the rôle of a lodging-house keeper; and that his desire to find the philosopher's stone, or some equivalent for it, should grow more than ever urgent. Lady Kildhurm sympathised with him, and tried, no doubt, to quiet and console him. She liked poverty no better than he did; but she was not rebellious at heart, like him, and still less was she capable of entertaining the unorthodox views as to moral responsibility which have been above alluded to. Sir Norman felt this, and had the good sense, or the precaution, never to attempt to argue such hazardous questions with her. A man must become a very bad man indeed who does not like to see his wife more honourable and more virtuous than he is himself. Let it not be inferred from this remark that Sir Norman had contemplated any definite criminal act. All that he had done thus far—and thousands of guiltless men have done as much—was to ask himself whether circumstances might not make some wrongs more justifiable than certain rights. At that point, or very little beyond it, he paused: circumstance and opportunity might carry the matter further, or might let it stand where it was. There was no telling.

CHAPTER VIII.

A HATFUL OF DIAMONDS.

Mrs. Chepstow, unlike most newly made widows, had little or nothing to say about her late husband; she was much more communicative concerning a redoubtable cousin of hers, a military gentleman, who had latterly been on service in India. Nothing had been heard of Colonel Banyon for upwards of a year, and Mrs. Chepstow began to express fears regarding his safety. She was a comfortable, round-bodied, fresh-faced woman, easily moved to tears or to laughter; and it would have been evident, even had she more striven to conceal it than she did, that if her valiant kinsman would only return home, and avail himself of his chances, he might have one of the most admirable and affectionate wives in the world. The Colonel, as she described him, was a charmingly gallant and romantic fellow, much addicted to harebrained adventures and dashing escapades; delightfully fortunate, moreover, and at the same time contemptuous of fortune. His way through the world was always from good to better, from bright to brilliant; and since he was as generous as he was lucky, he was altogether just the sort of person one would like to be acquainted with.

'We were very fond of each other, and I don't mind saying it to you, sister,' the widow observed to Lady Kildhurm, on more than one occasion. 'We seemed to get on together so well, if you know what I mean. And I was very sad to have him go to the Indies, so soon after my husband died, too. And I remember, the day he went away, he promised he'd bring me back his hat full of diamonds.'

'A hatful of diamonds?' repeated Sir Norman, who had come into the room without being observed by Mrs. Chepstow, and had overheard her last sentence.

'Oh, Sir Norman, how you startled me. Yes, indeed, his whole hat full; and he has a good-sized head, too, I assure you.'

'How did he expect to come by the diamonds?'

'Oh, from those Indian idols, as he called 'em. He says they're covered with 'em. Idols, I suppose you know, Rebecca,' she continued, turning to Lady Kildhurm, 'I suppose you know they're a kind of magistrate they have over there: so I understood from the Colonel. And he said they sometimes had diamonds in place of eyes; but I think he was only jesting then. And he said he should loot 'em—that was one of his words he was always using—as he had the right to do, because England was at war with the Indies, and then, besides, idols are always the enemies of Christians. But I should think it would be more Christianlike for us to convert 'em than to loot 'em; and I mean to tell the Colonel so, if ever I meet him again. Heigho! poor fellow! I hope he's not dead. If he is, I should never forgive myself, for I should always be thinking it was in getting me the diamonds that he lost his life. And he was always too venturesome—and having made a promise, he would be sure to try and keep it; so I fear all the idols may have got together and killed him. And oh! I had a dream last night; I dreamt I saw him floating in the sea over the cliff there, near the Oak, and he had a place crushed in on his head. I hope it won't come true! It isn't worth losing one's life for, Rebecca, is it?'

Lady Kildhurm, during this conversation, if conversation it could be termed, had been mending a hole in one of her little son's stockings; and the child himself was sitting on her knee, his attention divided between his own bare toes and the movement of his mother's darning-needle.

'What isn't worth losing one's life for, my dear?' she asked.

'A hatful of diamonds,' answered the widow.

'A hatful of diamonds?—No!' said Lady Kildhurm, bending to kiss her son's cheek, and thinking, perhaps, how many lives and how many diamonds into the bargain she would be ready to sacrifice for his sake.

'A hatful of diamonds?—I don't know!' murmured Sir Norman, glancing meditatively out of window, where the Oak stood dark against the afternoon sea of tender purple grey.

Presently afterwards he left the room and the Tower, and walked slowly down to the cliff. He sat himself down beneath the Oak, and, with his head thrown back, gazed up into its depths. Very gloomy it was, and very still; not a leaf stirred upon its twig. But after a long time, an acorn fell, and smote him smartly on the forehead. This broke his reverie; he rose, and laid his hand upon the ponderous bole of the tree, as upon the shoulder of a friend.

'Come, old demon!' he said, half aloud, 'I have waited long enough: it is time something should happen. Awake, and do your best, or your worst; the prophecy is ripe for fulfilment. "Death of three and wealth of one!" If I be not the one, 'tis very sure I shall be of the three, and that speedily! Come—promise me a hatful of diamonds! or even a handful.'

The tree made no sign: it only seemed to become gloomier than ever. Sir Norman emitted a long tremulous sigh.

'It is all folly!' he said dejectedly and with bitterness. 'Why could I not go to India and win diamonds for myself? Much good my calculations and my horoscopes and my hopes and fears have done me! A man may rob in India and be called a hero for it: why am I in England, where robbery is hanging? Here have I stayed, as if I were a rooted tree myself, and have gathered together the legends about this dumb old Oak, and pondered over them, and believed in them, until at last I have come verily to expect that these barren boughs shall drop gold upon me! I will expect it no more. This is the last day that it could have happened. Old demon, thou art a liar and a blockhead! I disbelieve and abjure thee! If ever thou didst have power, it is gone out of thee, never to return. To-morrow I will have thee hacked down, like any other timber, and piled up for use in the kitchen fire. And for my own part, I will cease to wait for the fulfilment of prophecies made by greater fools than myself; I will begin to act, and that to some purpose!'

An abrupt, thunderous sound, prolonging itself in softer echoes, seemed to answer him from the shore. A great wave had stolen unobserved through the calm, to fling down its message at the foot of the cliff. Before the echoes had died into silence, a low and hoarse murmur began to come forth from the deepest centre, apparently, of the hitherto silent Oak. With a movement of nervous eagerness, Sir Norman again raised his head and strove to make his glance penetrate the obscurity. The murmur grew in loudness and volume, and the heavy foliage was tumultuously agitated, and anon waved forcibly to and fro, and the branches, though as stalwart, many of them, as ordinary trees, moved and groaned and laboured, as if battling against the onset of a gale. It was an appalling spectacle—this turbulent storm roaring in the dark circumference of the Oak while all the evening round about was still as death. Sir Norman stood there in a mood of mingled awe and exultation. He was beholding what no other living eye had beheld: what none living besides himself, perhaps, had ever dared believe in. The miracle of a century ago was true again to-day. The demon was awake once more and was training his myriad tongues to speech. Sir Norman listened, and his ears were filled with a sound that was, and yet was not, articulate utterance. It spoke to his thought; but then his thought laid hold of it and seemed to be itself the speaker, or at least the shaper, of the word. And when the stormy voice was at its loudest, suddenly it sank into broken whispers and sighings, and soon was altogether hushed. The message had been given. What that message was, Sir Norman only could know.

The adventure had left him excited and tremulous, and for several minutes after he was as one overawed and distraught. By degrees, however, his mind began to recover from the first poignancy of the impression that had been made upon it; and he questioned with himself whether the occurrence had really been as miraculous as at the moment it had appeared to be?—whether his own imagination, in combination with certain natural causes, had not been answerable for at least the greater part of it? But this was only the instinctive effort of the amazed reason to deliver itself from the thraldom of the inexplicable. Further and quieter consideration showed the Baronet that he could not have been mistaken; and that there was no alternative between regarding himself as utterly insane, and acknowledging the miracle of the Oak. He preferred the latter horn of the dilemma. This night, then, was to be a momentous one for him and for his fortunes. Sir Norman issued forth from beneath the shadow of the Oak, and looked westward. It was just past sunset. He strolled across the breadth of lawn towards the Tower. On passing round to the outer gate, he was surprised to see a horse standing there, saddled and bridled, and bearing evidences of having made a long journey.

He called out to the gardener, as a bent old pauper was entitled who pottered about the grounds for a certain number of ineffective hours every day, and asked him where the horse came from. The gardener replied that a few minutes previous a gentleman had ridden up to the gate, dismounted, and having thrown his rein over the gate-post, had gone into the house. He had seemed to be in a great hurry.

'What sort of a gentleman was he?'

'Tall: and face brown like my hand: and he looked an active body: and his eyes were blue and merry: and he had a beard.'

'Take the horse to the stable. I suppose there is some hay there: take off his saddle and rub him down. This must be——'

'I am Colonel Banyon: are you Sir Norman Kildhurm? Sir, I have to ask your pardon for my lack of ceremony. Seeing no one outside, I rushed upstairs unannounced to find my cousin and kiss her hand.'

'Colonel, my pleasure in meeting you is second only to Mrs. Chepstow's. We have heard many things about you from her; and you have been long and anxiously expected. But may I ask where you are going——'

'Only to the stable,' said the Colonel, laughing and showing a sparkle of white teeth through his brown beard. 'I always make a point of seeing to my horse myself. And as I must resume my journey in three hours' time, it is the more needful that he should be well cared for meanwhile.' So saying, the Colonel threw the rein over his arm, and led the steed to the stable door, which the old gardener was holding open.

'Thank you, old chap,' he said to the latter; 'that's all I shall ask of you at present.' He put a gold piece into the man's hand, and, leaving him to stare at it in bewildered incredulity, he proceeded rapidly to unsaddle the horse and to rub him down vigorously with wisps of hay.

Sir Norman had followed him to the stable. 'Surely, Colonel,' he exclaimed in a tone of remonstrance, 'surely you don't mean to leave us again in three hours? Before that time it will be dark night, and there are signs of a storm coming on. I trust you will not hold our hospitality so cheap as to give it but a three hours' trial!'

'By no means, Sir Norman,' replied the other heartily. 'I hope to return hither a week or ten days hence, and to make a longer stay. But at present I have no choice but to make a forced march. The ship which brought me from India, you must know, was driven from its course by contrary winds, and I was landed last night at some port up here to the north, a hundred miles out of my way. I must report myself at Chester to-morrow; so you may know I have no time to lose. Luckily, my horse is one of the best in the world. But I should have been angry enough at my mishap, had I not found that it would enable me to pass Kildhurm Tower, and to catch a glimpse of my fair cousin; and to thank Lady Kildhurm and yourself for your kind care of her. Faith, she looked twice as pretty and as happy as when I bade her farewell a year and six months ago!'

'The hour of welcome better suits beauty than that of farewell,' observed Sir Norman with a smile. 'And now, Colonel, if you have made your horse as comfortable as the poor accommodation will admit, return with me to the house, and we will try to do the like by you. We have but homely country fare to set before you, but it is cordially at your service. And I think there is a bottle or two of wine in the cellar that will compensate some deficiencies.'

'I am the last man in the world to be particular about what I eat,' said the Colonel, as he and his host left the stables; 'if I were at the table of the King of the Cannibal Islands, I should devour what was set before me with gratitude and gusto—especially if I felt as hungry as I do now! But, in fact, the pleasure of seeing my dear cousin once more—and of making the acquaintance of Lady Kildhurm and yourself—is better to me even than a meal.'

Sir Norman bowed to the compliment, and led his guest upstairs. 'In this room,' said he opening a door, 'you can free yourself from some of the dust of travel; and meanwhile I will give orders for the other preparations. But, by the by, have you no luggage with you?'

'It has all gone round by sea,' answered the Colonel; 'all except such small matters as one may carry about his person; and except—this!' he added, 'which of course I am never parted from.'

As he spoke, he pulled from the front of his military jacket a bag made of soft yellow leather, curiously embroidered with coloured braid. It was about half as big again as a man's fist, and seemed heavy.

'And what—if the question may be permitted—is that?' inquired Sir Norman, fixing his eyes keenly on those of his guest.

'Oh, they are my diamonds, which I promised my cousin to bring her from India. But, before giving them to her, I shall take them to a lapidary in London and have them carefully set. At present, as you may see, they are many of them in the rough state, and worthless for a lady's ornaments.'

'They are not in themselves worthless, however,' remarked Sir Norman, bending over the glittering pile of jewels which the Colonel had carelessly poured out upon the table. 'And not all of them are diamonds.'

'No, they are of all kinds—rubies, sapphires, emeralds, or diamonds—I was not particular. And they have a value of their own, as you say: a fellow who understands about such things once offered me a hundred thousand guineas for the lot. But, of course, it was not his money that I wanted: each of those stones has some adventure associated with it which no money could buy of me; and, besides, they are all destined to adorn the person of my pretty cousin.'

'A magnificent gift, indeed!' murmured Sir Norman.

'I hope she will like it,' replied the Colonel ingenuously.

'What woman—what human being, for that matter—could be indifferent to it!' sighed Sir Norman, turning away. 'Well, I will leave you for a moment; when you are prepared, come to the room where you first found Mrs. Chepstow. We shall await you with impatience.'

CHAPTER IX.

THE GUEST.

If Colonel Banyon's visit was brief, it was merry: it was filled from end to end with laughter, talk, and story. The Colonel had, naturally, a thousand anecdotes to tell, and a still greater number of questions to answer. Though a hero, he was neither a reticent nor a shamefaced one. He enjoyed what he was heartily. He had lived a successful, daring, reckless, honourable life, and was accustomed to look back over the past and forward to the future with equal satisfaction and cheerfulness. He gave a very vivid and entertaining picture of his recent Indian experiences, and when, at length, he declared that it was time for him to be off, Mrs. Chepstow could not conceal her chagrin: her pretty under-lip trembled, and tears stood in her eyes.

'You will be back soon, cousin?' she said piteously.

'In ten days, if I live so long,' he declared.

'Live ten days! What do you mean?'

'Nothing, upon my soul!' laughed the Colonel. 'They say, though, that when folks have been so merry as we have been this evening, calamity is nigh. And since I have been the merriest, it would be fair to infer that it's to me the calamity is nighest.'

'Don't talk so! you make me shudder!' exclaimed Mrs. Chepstow, hiding her face in her hands. 'And last night I dreamt I saw you dead!'

'Well, if I die, it will be my own fault,' returned the Colonel, still with the sparkle of laughter in his blue eyes.

'You ride armed, I trust,' put in Sir Norman. 'With such a treasure beneath your jacket, you should make your account for a highwayman or two.'

'I always keep one or two of these fellows about me,' said the other, showing the butt of a small pistol. 'Not that I should think of shooting a highwayman; poor devils, they have a hard enough time of it without that! No, I keep my pistols in case of accidents; and accidents are what never happen in civilised countries.'

'May none happen to you, at all events!' said Lady Kildhurm kindly.

'Thanks, noble lady,' replied the warrior, kissing her hand. 'Thanks and farewell! Farewell, my dearest cousin. You shall have the jewels back again as soon as the deftest of lapidaries can get them in order for you. Farewell, Sir Norman: my best acknowledgments for your hospitality.'

'Our parting shall not be yet,' said Sir Norman. 'I will saddle my mare and ride beside you for a mile or two. The road you must travel skirts the cliff, and in parts is dangerous to an unfamiliar tread, especially at nightfall. After seeing you safely past those treacherous spots, I can leave you with a better conscience.'

'I shall be heartily glad of your companionship, I need not say,' was the Colonel's answer. 'As to cliffs, however, I am not unaccustomed to them.'

He again took leave of the ladies, and followed Sir Norman down the stairs, and across the courtyard to the stables, where each man led out and saddled his own horse. The old gardener always made a point of retiring to his quarters at sunset.

'That storm you spoke of still holds off,' remarked the Colonel.

'It will overtake us before daylight,' answered the Baronet.

'Sir Norman, did you ever see a man struck by lightning?'

'Never.'

'I saw it once at sea. I don't know why I happened to think of it at this moment. There isn't lightning enough in all England, at this time of year, to kill me. There I go again, hinting at my own death! That sweet cousin of mine seems to have put foolish notions into my head. However, if anything is to happen to me, I have taken care that she shall lose nothing by it. My will is made, signed, and sealed, and both the jewels and all other wealth that I have got go to her.'

'Let us hope that you may find a better way of endowing her with your worldly goods than by bequeathing them to her,' said Sir Norman, smiling.

'It lies with her, and I think she likes me,' returned the Colonel, twisting his moustachios. 'But though I'm little enough afraid of most things, and by no means as blind as a mole either, I'm blessed if I dare to ask her whether she'll marry me, because I can't see quite clearly enough into her heart. However, all in good time! Perhaps the glitter of the gems may serve to throw some light upon the question.'

Sir Norman nodded, but he made no reply.

They were now riding along a narrow and rocky road, within sight of the sea, and following the line of the coast southward. There was as yet no wind, but the waves were breaking with a hollow, rhythmical sound along the shore, telling of some tornado a hundred miles away. There was no moon, and the sky was in great part overcast with clouds, so that the darkness was considerable. The riders could see no more of each other than their black outlines, as they rode along side by side. At the distance of about a mile from Kildhurm Tower, the coast began to rise; and the road, instead of skirting the inland base of this eminence, climbed up with it, and, moreover, approached so near the verge that, in some places, it actually infringed upon it. The Colonel's military eye did not fail to take note of this peculiarity.

'I have a better opinion of the legs of the fellows who built this road than of their brains,' he observed. 'Did they think it was shorter to climb up a precipice than to go round it?'

'There were two reasons why the road was made in this way,' replied the Baronet. 'First, there is a deep morass across the inland route, which is beyond the skill of our local engineers either to bridge over or to fill up. Secondly, there existed, at the time the road was planned, a convent at the highest point of the cliff; and it was deemed advisable, in that religious age, that the way of the world should run as near as possible to the convent door. We shall come to the ruins of the convent very soon: and there, or thereabouts, I shall take leave of you.'

The horses scrambled up the steep ascent, Sir Norman leading the way; and it was not until they had reached the summit that he spoke again.

'Are you a religious man, Colonel Banyon?' he abruptly asked.

The Colonel turned a surprised glance at him. 'I believe in my Saviour, and pray to Him when I get a chance and a prayer comes into my head,' he replied.

'If a man were about to die, I have thought that no place could be more fitting than this from which to take a last look at the world; and from which to offer up a last prayer to heaven, if he were that way minded.'

'I will remember your suggestion when my final hour approaches; and if I'm in this neighbourhood perhaps I may avail myself of it. The spot has one recommendation—that if, after all, Death made his approach too slowly, you would need to take not more than a single step to find yourself in his arms.'

'Yes, it is two hundred feet to the bottom, and barely three feet to the brink!' said the Baronet. 'Death hovers within arm's length of us as we ride.'

'He has been nearer to me than that, and yet I have snapped my fingers at him,' returned the Colonel, laughing. 'Well, I must be on my way again.'

'Let me lead your horse over this dangerous pass,' said Sir Norman, dismounting from his own horse and seizing the Colonel's bridle. 'And then, farewell indeed!'

'Have a care! What are you about?' cried Colonel Banyon, after a moment.

'Farewell!' repeated the other; and with all his strength he forced the Colonel's horse backwards to the edge of the cliff. The rider saw and perhaps comprehended the danger. He had not time to dismount; he drew his pistol, and at the same time drove his spurs into the horse's sides. The horse reared and strove to plunge forward, but it was too late. His hind hoofs trod upon the crumbling verge of the precipice. There was a cry, a flash and a report, and a scent of burnt powder on the night air, which Sir Norman breathed alone.

CHAPTER X.

A BURIED SECRET.

Sir Norman stood on the brink of the cliff, and listened. There was not much to hear—no more remarkable sound than might be caused by the fall of a loose boulder, and the murmur of the surf partly disguised even that. The tide was rising; in another half hour it would be dashing against the base of the precipice.

The Baronet took his mare by the head-stall, and began to lead her back down the steep road which he had so lately climbed in company with Colonel Banyon. His mood of mind was much more composed and lucid now than it had been then. While the deed which he was to commit was as yet in the future he had been full of agitation and doubt. Sir Norman had a single plain fact to deal with, not an indefinite number of vague and dangerous possibilities. He saw his proper course in the circumstances as clearly as if he had planned it all out beforehand; and he lost no time in following it.

Having arrived at the lowest dip of the road, he secured his horse to the branch of a dead tree, clambered down to the shore, and began to make his way as rapidly as he could towards that spot where he knew the body of Colonel Banyon must be lying. With an active step and a heedful eye he hurried over the broken débris of the beach, and presently came to that part which lies immediately beneath the loftiest altitude of the cliff.

It was not easy to distinguish the horse and man where they lay in the darkness, and anybody who had not been on the lookout for them might easily have passed them by in the belief that they were nothing more than a heap of sea drift. But Sir Norman was under no such delusion. When he caught sight of them—it was the whiteness of the Colonel's upturned face that first arrested his glance—he approached cautiously, with ears alert to detect whatever whispered groan there might still remain to hear. But there was nothing; the agony had not been prolonged, and it was over. Colonel Banyon and his horse were both quite dead. Sir Norman had certainly anticipated nothing else, and yet the visibility of the fact gave him a start. Colonel Banyon had been so very much alive a few minutes before, and now he was so very lifeless! The handsome, gallant, dashing officer, who had been so overflowing with hopes and projects, and love and laughter, was now suddenly become inert and devoid alike of thought and passion, good or evil. It was so impressive that it affected Sir Norman almost like something theatrical. The Colonel appeared to him for a moment to be acting a part. When the curtain came down, he would get up, like Mr. Betterton in 'Hamlet,' and come out and make his bow before the audience. But unfortunately there is no curtain in these cases, and the poor actor, having died with what realism he can command, is obliged to remain dead indefinitely.

The surf, now breaking near at hand, reminded Sir Norman that he also had a part to enact. Not that he had been altogether idle since leaving Kildhurm Towers; but he had accomplished only the preliminary portion of the work which he had resolved to perform. In looking forward to this night's occupations, he might have been led to suppose that the murder would be more difficult to an unpractised hand than the robbery; but experience proved that the truth was just the other way. To hurl his victim over the cliff had been an excitement—fierce, and, in a certain sense, pleasurable. But this despoiling the corpse in cold blood afterwards was neither pleasant nor exciting; and yet it had to be done, else all the benefit of the murder would be thrown away. To kill, moreover, was aristocratic; Sir Norman's ancestors had won renown by doing no more than he had just done; but to pick a pocket was plebeian, and none of his ancestors, so far as he was aware, had ever been guilty of that. But again, there was no escape from it—or only one escape! Sir Norman might, if he chose, return to his horse, mount him, ride him up the cliff, and leap him over the verge to a resting-place here beside the Colonel. By this means, and by this only, could he avoid the logical necessity of pocket-picking, and at the same time conceal, and perhaps in some measure expiate, the crime already committed. Sir Norman thought of all this, and weighed the question for a moment in his mind. Should he go on, or should he turn back? He decided to go on: and, stooping over the body of his late guest, he drew the purse of embroidered leather from its hiding-place, thrust it into his own pocket, and turned away. He had got a fortune, according to the promise of destiny; but if it had been larger than it was, he already felt that he had paid a fair equivalent for it. As he stumbled back along the dark shore, he was glad of the darkness, and inclined to wish that daylight might altogether cease from the earth. It was a wish characteristic of a fresh-born criminal. By-and-by he would learn how to make his own face answer all the purposes of darkness, so far as the concealment of what was within was concerned. In one way or another, however, darkness must be his category from this time forth. He was a creature of the night, and would for ever remain such.

'I do not intend to excuse my act,' said Sir Norman to himself, when he had once more attained the road and resumed his saddle. 'But if I admit the sin of it, I have a right also to take account of its uses. I have deliberately and treacherously murdered the man who was my guest; I have murdered him from no feeling of hatred or anger, but solely for my pecuniary advantage. That is the worst there is to be said, and I admit that it is damnable. But now for the other side. I have restored the fortunes of my family. I have given comfort to my wife, prosperity to my son, and power to myself. I shall have caused my sister Chepstow to shed a few tears, perhaps, when she learns (if she ever does learn it) that her dream about her dead lover has come true; but in a week or a month her eyes will be dried by some other suitor, and meanwhile she will receive, as compensation for the loss of her jewels, all the fortune in ready money which her cousin bequeathed to her in his will. That, certainly, cannot be considered an injury. As to Colonel Banyon himself, I could not have killed him had not his hour been fully come; and therefore he can have no more quarrel with me than with any other instrument which fate might have chosen to employ. Nor have I harmed society or the state; for the murder which is not known to be a murder becomes a simple death, which can neither outrage the law nor corrupt the morals of the people. I conclude, then, that no person or thing has been wronged or injured by my act, except myself: and I have even benefited others at the sacrifice of my own moral welfare and repose. And finally, since I have been my own accuser, let me also be my own judge!'

At this point of Sir Norman's soliloquy, the storm which had been all night brewing suddenly came into noisy and violent existence. Buffeted by the wind and pelted by the rain, the Baronet was distracted from his casuistical and metaphysical vein, and his meditations took a more outward and material turn.

'No one can have seen these gems besides ourselves,' he thought; 'but yet there is danger to be feared from those which are uncut. Perhaps I may find it safest to dispose of them abroad. Meanwhile, I can put them where they will be as secure as death itself, and might remain so for a hundred years if necessary. It will be best, at all events, to take no further step in the business until the Colonel's death has been discovered, and his property administered. The gems, no doubt, are mentioned in the will; inquiry will be made for them; and it will be known that the Colonel was last seen alive under our roof. And what after that? Why, then, I rode forth with him, to set him on his way: and it was known to me that he carried the gems upon his person. Yes, and I had spoken warningly to him of the peril which menaced a lonely traveller, so richly laden, in these parts: the women will bear witness to that. But then it will be asked: "How far did you ride with him? and which way was he heading when you saw him last?" What shall be my answer? Shall I say, "I left him at the rise of the convent cliff, and know no more of him?" Why not rather tell the truth up even to the last moment? Why not tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and only not the whole truth?—which, indeed, finite man can never tell. Why not say, "I rode with him to the top of the cliff, my hand on his bridle; but there, in the darkness, his horse took fright, and reared, and fell backwards: and I, unless I would have been dragged over also, was fain to loose my hold of the bridle, and let them go. Then I went down to the shore to search, but ... well, but the tide had risen, and the storm had come on, and it was impossible to reach the bodies." That would be better than downright vulgar perjury: more decent, and perhaps more prudent likewise. Stay, though! if I take this stand, it must be taken at once! I must burst into the room, heated, dishevelled, distraught, and gasp out my story with horror in my voice! Am I actor enough for that? I fear not! And who knows but another sort of horror might find its way into my tones or eyes, and betray me! No, I cannot venture it. As yet, I have looked on no living human face since I saw his vanish over the cliff, lit up for an instant by the flash of his pistol. Perhaps—who knows?—I shall blanch and turn pale under the glance of the first questioning eyes I meet. I know the man I have been heretofore, but I do not yet know the man I am now. Perhaps I am a coward, or an idiot, or a madman. What wonder if I were, after such a night's work! Was ever a night so black, or a storm so boisterous! All the witches in hell might be abroad, and I among the rest! Am I a witch, then? Who knows? The country folks have long believed no better of me; and perhaps to-night's work will bring about an encounter between his Satanic majesty and me, and a signing of the Book! Where shall the meeting be held? Where but beneath Kildhurm's Oak, where all the mischief was hatched from the beginning! Forward, mare! Why do we lag here in the rain, when company is awaiting us at home? Forward!'

Goaded by whip and spur, the mare put herself to her best speed, and before many minutes Sir Norman knew, less by any visible sign than by the direction and inclination of the road, that the Tower was near. He drew rein, and paused for a moment. Should he take his mare to the stable now, or—afterwards? He resolved on the latter course. Keeping as much as possible on the turf, and feeling rather than seeing his way, he pressed cautiously forward until he found himself almost beneath the branches of the Oak. There he dismounted.

The din of the tempest was bewildering. The waves came thundering against the shore with such headlong power that a tremor of the earth was perceptible every time they struck. There was a fury of white foam beneath the rocky, overhanging parapet, on which the Oak stood, and this whiteness extended far out, until the blackness of the night prevailed over it. Occasionally sounds like moaning and sighing seemed to come from the mid-tumult of the sea, as if some huge creature were complaining there: and the driving spray and the rain assumed strange drifting forms, like disembodied spirits hurtling through the air. But terrible as was the sea, the Oak was more terrible still. It fought the wild wind with its great arms like a mad creature. Its cumbrous foliage flapped and hissed through the wet gale like the matted locks of a wrestling giant. Its whole vast frame rocked to and fro, as if it were about to tear itself up from its rooted place, and go forth to meet and struggle with the storm. And from the grinding together of the mighty boughs were generated shrieks and human-like outcries and noises like weeping and like mocking laughter, as though a knot of evil spirits were tearing each other to pieces in the central darkness of the tree; or were they combining to torture and torment some newly-captured human soul? Dimly, meanwhile, through the murky obscurity, glowed three red squares of light from the Tower, where Lady Kildhurm and her sister waited for Sir Norman's return. The Baronet saw the light, and a vision of the two innocent and loving women rose before his mind; and of the infant boy, lulled asleep in his crib by the muffled voices of the gale. All that was as a foreign country to him now; all the more alien because it had been so intimately his own. He turned his back upon it, and fixed his regard upon the haunted Oak. He stepped beneath the wide spread of the labouring branches; then, with a leap from the ground, he caught the lowest of these between his arms, and in another moment had swung himself up into the heart of the tree, and out of sight of earth and sky.

'He has been gone more than two hours,' said Lady Kildhurm, breaking silence at last.

'I do heartily pray nothing has happened to him—it is dreadful to think how wet he will get in this rain, poor fellow; and he must be in Chester to-morrow, he said. I wish he had spent the night here.'

'And so do I; but it was of my husband that I spoke.'

'Oh, Sir Norman knows his way about! wasn't he born and bred here? No fear but he will find his way home safe enough.'

'But he should have been away half an hour at the most: and now—see! it is close upon midnight. I fear something has gone wrong.'

'It is the rain that keeps him. He has taken shelter somewhere, and will bide his time till the worst of it is over. But my poor cousin—what will become of him! Heigho! I felt, when I said good-bye to him, as if 'twas for ever.'

Lady Kildhurm laid down the sewing with which she had been occupying herself and clasping her hands on her knee, sat gazing out on the black and rain-smitten window-pane. Suddenly she said:

'This is his evil day. I had forgotten it. Oh, my heart!'

'His evil day, sister? What do you mean?'

'Yes; he showed me it once in his horoscope. The evil and the good came side by side, but the evil was the stronger. He should not have gone out; to-night of all nights I should have kept him! Oh, Norman—my husband, come back to me!'

'La, sister, how you talk! you make me shudder. As for horoscopes, I'm sure no Christian ought to believe in them.'

'I feel as if he were near me!' exclaimed Lady Kildhurm, rising from her chair and moving about the room uneasily. 'He is near me, somewhere, and yet I am not happy: I cannot breathe freely, and there is pain in my heart.'

'La! sister, indeed you frighten me. Pray sit down again, and do not stare about so! do you think to see him through a stone wall?'

'He is near me—and it is not well with him. He is looking towards me—now—can you not see his face at the window?'

'His face at the window! Pray remember, my dear, that the window is fifty feet from the ground, and——'

'No, there is no face there. It was a flake of foam, maybe. But I cannot bear to lose him; I could not bear it!'

'You are working yourself into such a state of mind, my dear, that very soon I shall be more anxious about you than I am about him. As for not being able to bear things, you never know what you can bear till you try. I have borne the loss of my husband, and a great many worse things. One can bear almost anything, I believe. Because, if the thing to be borne comes, what else can you do?'

'I could not bear it!' repeated Lady Kildhurm feverishly. She moved again to the window, and peered out for a few moments into the darkness.

'Depend upon it,' said Mrs. Chepstow, with a confidence of tone that was not altogether warranted by her interior sentiments, 'depend upon it, my dear, your husband has stepped into one of the peasants' huts out of the rain, and is at this very instant swallowing a draught of hot ale, with a pipe of tobacco in his other hand. How he will laugh when I tell him how you have——'

'Hark!'

'Merciful heavens! what is it?'

Quick as thought, Lady Kildhurm had unfastened the catch of the lattice, and the wind, violently driving it open, burst headlong into the room, put out the candles, and went roaring through the house, slamming doors, flapping curtains, and shaking soot down the chimneys. None of this disturbance, however, had been noticed by the two women. Their ears had been filled and their hearts stopped by the sound of three frantic screams, following rapidly one upon another, and rising high above the confusion of the tempest. They were the screams of a man in mortal agony and horror. Both the women had known at once whose voice it was, though they had never heard it pitched in that key before. But what could have happened to him? The screams were not repeated. The women exchanged a ghastly look.

CHAPTER XI.

THE DEVIL'S GRIP.

'Let us go together,' said Mrs. Chepstow at last, in a shaking voice.

'No,' replied her sister, decisively. 'Do you stay here and guard my son. I must go to meet them yonder alone.'

'Them! who are they? Do you think my cousin is there too?'

'Satan and his imps are there. Hush! you must not question me. If they have taken him, they must take me also—unless I can win him back! That is the question, for I cannot bear to lose him. Either he must return to me, or I will follow him: I cannot live apart from him. Hush! Do you stay by the child; and on your life, do not come near the Oak till after sunrise.'

While Lady Kildhurm had been speaking in this strange fashion, she was making her preparations to go forth, and the only provision against the storm and its portents which she took with her consisted of a small Bible, which she put in her bosom, and a cross of carved ivory, which she hung at her girdle. Thus equipped, and wearing still the embroidered satin gown which she had put on that evening in honour of her guest, she went out, and the darkness closed upon her. Mrs. Chepstow crept fearfully to the child's crib, and knelt down there; and crying, praying, and dropping asleep by turns, she passed the long hours of that memorable night.

But Lady Kildhurm, on issuing from the gate, made straight for the Oak. As she approached it, a kind of phosphorescent gleam seemed to hover about the branches, such as sailors sometimes behold on the yardarms of their vessel in bad weather. The gale, however, had suddenly fallen almost calm; and though drops of rain fell occasionally, it was evident that the storm had raged itself out. The sea tossed its waves upwards aimlessly, as if forgetting whither to drive them, and therefore appealing to the clouds. A sense of exhaustion and heaviness seemed to pervade nature, as if she had aroused herself to do some hideous deed, and now, the deed being done, were awaiting shudderingly what should follow.

The woman paused just outside the circle of the Oak's boughs, and sent her glance resolutely into the obscurity underneath. After a few moments' scrutiny, she took the ivory cross between her hands, and went forward. The phosphorescent gleams wavering to and fro, illuminated duskily the figure of a man stretched out near the base of the trunk. Lady Kildhurm crouched down beside him and spoke close to his ear:

'Norman, thy wife is with thee!'

The man emitted a stertorous breath, but uttered no word.

'Norman, thou art dying. Tell me, how is it with thy soul? for whither thou goest thy wife shall follow thee. If it is well with thee, kiss this cross for a sign. See I hold it to thy lips.'

But the man's lips did not move.

'Has the Evil One overcome thee, then?' said the woman sadly, after a pause. 'But take comfort, my beloved, for I will not desert thee. We have seen and known many marvellous things, Norman—thou and I together: and I have never shrunk from going along with thee, hand in hand, wherever thou didst lead the way. And now, my love shall go with thee across the grave; I will not seek a happiness where thou art not; and in proof of it, my husband, if thou biddest me to fling the cross into the sea, and to tear the leaves from the Holy Book and cast them on the air I will do it! Only move thy hand in answer, and it shall be enough.'

For a long time, as it seemed, the man lay wholly motionless; his life, which had hung trembling on the balance, appeared quite to have slipped away. A great fear bestirred itself in Lady Kildhurm's soul: if her husband died, and made no sign as to whither he had gone, how should she follow him? Under the influence of this dread, she placed her lips to his ear, and spoke sharply and urgently:

'Norman, my husband,' she cried; 'come back! Tell me what I am to do!'

A tremor passed through the man's body. Slowly and stiffly he raised himself on one arm, and lifting the other hand, he pointed upwards.

'There!' he muttered, in a sluggish but articulate tone; 'there is treasure! seek for it!'

For a moment after saying these words, he maintained his position: one hand pointing upwards, while his face, on whose features death was visible, beat heavily towards the earth. Then, stiffly, he sank back; his wife received his head in her lap. He was already dead: and, indeed, his spirit seemed to have returned to its human clay, in obedience to the wife's summons, only to utter those ambiguous sentences, and then to finally depart. But, ambiguous or not, they had answered their purpose; they had planted hope, like a seed, in the very midst of the bereaved woman's despair. He had spoken to her of a treasure above—a treasure in Heaven; and had bade her seek it there. But if he knew of a treasure in Heaven, it must needs be a treasure which he himself had laid up there: and thither, consequently, he must himself have gone. So reasoned Lady Kildhurm; and she forbore to fling away her cross, or scatter the leaves of the Holy Book to the winds. In her shaken and now distempered mind, she beheld a vision of a long vigil of prayer and sanctity, and at the end a death which would be blessed, because it would unite her once more to him. She drew the lifeless body to the foot of the Oak, and seated there, resting against the weather-blackened bole, she waited for the morning.

The morning dawned early and pure, with a sky like banks of wild roses and primroses, and breezes cool and sweet breathing from them. The facile sea translated these fragrant glories into deeper-toned but scarce less enchanting beauty; and the earth sparkled with freshness. But Kildhurm's Oak, standing in the midst of so much loveliness, did not mingle with it, but rather seemed to hold darkly and grimly aloof from it, as if conscious of a spirit altogether at variance with the gentler influences of creation. It stretched its branches above the group of lifeless and living humanity huddled beneath it, with an air of sardonic protection. 'Behold my handiwork!' it appeared to say, 'and sweeten it with the graces of the morning if you can!' When Mrs. Chepstow and the old gardener and the boy, Philip, first came upon the two, they thought that both were dead. But as they drew near, they perceived that the woman's eyes were open and seeing, though there was a wild and unsettled expression in them. Nor did she answer when her sister or the old man addressed her; she only whispered to herself, and then bent over and whispered again in the dead man's ear, and smiled. But when her little son Philip spoke to her in his childish tones, some vestige of motherly memories glimmered in her haggard face; and presently she beckoned him to her.

'There, my son,' she said in solemn tones, pointing upwards with her finger; 'there is treasure! seek for it!'

'Where, mamma?' demanded the little fellow. 'In the Oak?'

Lady Kildhurm smiled drearily, and relapsed into silence.

A stretcher was brought, and the body of Sir Norman was carried back to the Tower. The manner of his death was a mystery, and one which was not for many years fully explained. His mare, still saddled and bridled, was found in her stable, whither she had evidently made her way after the catastrophe to her rider had happened. But of what nature had been that catastrophe? It was found, upon examination, that the Baronet's neck had been dislocated, which of course amply accounted for the fact of his death, though not for anything beyond that. Some opined that his horse must have taken fright during the storm, and rushing beneath the Oak had either thrown the Baronet there, or he had been swept off his saddle by a branch of the tree. This latter hypothesis seemed plausible enough, though there were still those three terrible screams left uninterpreted. The screams, however, might have been comfortably ignored, had it not been for a certain appalling sign of violence which had been left upon the person of the dead man himself, and the significance of which, if it could not be fathomed, it was equally impossible to do away with. The right hand, from the wrist to the finger-ends, was stripped of the skin, and in parts even of the flesh: the bone of the thumb was crushed, and the wrist was wrenched out of joint. These indications—so far as the awe-stricken senses of the beholders were able to apprehend them—seemed to show that the Baronet's hand must have been caught in a grasp of superhuman strength; and that in tearing it free with the energy of desperation, he had left part of its substance behind. Whose hand, then, had gripped his own so hard? and for what purpose? any answer to such questions must evidently be purely conjectural. It was indeed a grisly problem to ponder over, and one which nervous people would rather discuss with cronies in broad daylight than with their own minds in the small hours of the night. Especially would this be the case after certain wiseacres had intimated their opinion that the marks left upon Sir Norman's hand had been made by no other talons than those of his Satanic majesty; who must have been strangely impressed with the idea that the Baronet was his property—if firmness of grasp is to be taken as any criterion of conviction of ownership. On the other hand, it was to be said in the Baronet's favour that he had, after all, succeeded in wrenching himself loose; but since a rough comparison of times proved that he must have died a few minutes after this escape, the doubt suggested itself whether, in his disembodied state, Satan might not have proved too strong for him. Might it not be, in fact, that although the fleshly hand had been freed, the spiritual one had remained in the Arch-Enemy's gripe? Three screams of horror and agony had been heard, but not so much as a single shout of triumph and victory. Upon the whole, therefore, the preponderance of contemporary opinion went rather against poor Sir Norman, though it was admitted by everyone that it was never safe to dogmatise about an occurrence of this kind. Besides, the man was dead, and dead people, even when they have lived under the suspicion of being wizards, had better not be abused. Sir Norman, accordingly, was buried with the ceremonies of His Majesty's most Christian Church. On opening his will, in which the few possessions he owned were bequeathed to his wife in trust for their son, it was observed that particular mention was made of a signet ring; but the ring was nowhere to be found. Mrs. Chepstow, however, being interrogated, declared that the Baronet had always been in the habit of wearing this ring on the fourth finger of his right hand; and that she had noticed it there on the last occasion of her seeing him alive. This evidence made it clear that whoever had squeezed the Baronet's hand so tightly was, in all likelihood, the present wearer of the signet ring. For the rest, the evidence was not of much practical value—unless it should aid some time in the identification of the other party to this mysterious and grisly encounter.

About the time that the mortal remains of Sir Norman were safely laid in their last resting-place, the drowned corpse of Colonel Banyon was discovered by a fisherman some distance down the coast. It was plain from the condition of the body—many of the bones on the left side had been broken—that the Colonel must have fallen from a great height; and the subsequent discovery of his horse, in a similar shattered state, helped the coroner in coming to the conclusion that the deceased must have ridden over the cliffs during the late storm. There was no trace of the leather bag of jewels which the Colonel was reported to have had with him; but his garments had become so much torn and loosened by the action of the waves and the attacks of fishes, that this was not surprising. The gems, if they were anywhere, must be at the bottom of the bay; such was the coroner's verdict upon this point; and it had so much weight, with the fishermen's boys along the coast, that for many years thereafter, squads of them might be seen every day at low tide, groping amidst the sands and seaweeds for precious stones. But not so much as a single diamond, emerald, or ruby ever rewarded these industrious searchers.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SIBYL.

Lady Kildhurm, if she could not properly be called insane, was none the less in a very abnormal mental state. The attitude of her mind, indeed, might be considered almost the reverse of that usual to mortals: for to her the material world appeared visionary and unstable, and the objects of her inner life were her only realities. Being thus removed from sympathy with her fellow-creatures, she necessarily occupied a place apart, where she commanded the respect, and sometimes the awe, of those who came into contact with her, but never their comprehension. Always a striking-looking woman, her appearance was now invested with a solemn majesty, to which the shadow of the tragedy with which she had been connected no doubt lent impressiveness. By degrees she adopted certain peculiarities of costume and demeanour and fell into various eccentricities of speech and conduct, all of which tended to confirm the country folks of the neighbourhood in the opinion that the lady of Kildhurm was a species of wise-woman, or sibyl, acquainted with supernatural lore, and able to give them a good harvest or a bad rheumatism according as her whim might be. Of course when a delusion of this kind once gets a footing in the popular mind, nothing can occur, either good or bad, which will not be cited in support of it. Fortunately for Lady Kildhurm, it was generally agreed that her salutary outweighed her hostile influence. Mothers brought their sick children to her to touch, as if she had been a monarch; and fathers sought her advice on questions of business, and shaped her vague and wandering utterances into profoundly pertinent replies. Thus, without being necessarily aware of it, the poor lady created around her a voluntary host of feudal retainers, quite as loyal as those which the former lords of Kildhurm had lost, and much more willing and unstinting in the matter of supplies of provisions, and of tributary hay and corn. So it happened that the domestic economy of Kildhurm Tower had not, for many years past, been in so prosperous a condition as it was now. The curse which seemed to have been darkening over the place for several successive generations, had now begun to lift and lighten, as if it had done its worst. Mrs. Chepstow also remained at the Tower, and practically had the entire charge of the household and of the education of young Sir Philip, and had moreover contributed to this better state of things by making over to the heir the whole of the fortune which Colonel Banyon had bequeathed to her; reserving to herself, until the boy came of age, the right of spending the income of this estate for the common benefit of the family. It will be seen, therefore, that, leaving out the fact that the lord of the Tower had died a violent and mysterious death, and that his wife had lost her reason in consequence, Kildhurm had not much more cause to complain of its destiny than have other ancient and partially decayed families.

The Oak, meanwhile, had by no means ceased to connect itself with the family interests, although it, also, seemed to have become less menacing since its last terrible manifestation. Its present relation to the household was more intimate and friendly than had ever been the case before; it had, in fact, become the haunt and almost the home of Lady Kildhurm herself. It was her daily and also her nightly habit to climb into its branches, and there sit for hours, gazing out on the sea and singing to herself fragments of songs; or occasionally carrying on what had the semblance of being long and earnest conversations with some interlocutor who never made himself visible to any other eyes than those of her ladyship, and who was probably only subjectively manifest even to her. Be that as it may, this unseen personage's existence was solidly believed in by many intelligent persons, several of whom went so far as to say that they had heard the tones of his voice. Others affirmed that he could be no other than the genie himself of the Oak, who, having made away with Lady Kildhurm's husband on account of some slight which the latter put upon him, was now making amends to the wife by taking her into his confidence, and imparting to her many invaluable family secrets, as well as giving her instructions as to the future. Among other things, he must have explained to her the true meaning of the prophetic verses inscribed upon the silver disc, which was at this period almost entirely embedded in the substance of the bark: and she must therefore be aware of the nature of the fortune which was in store for the Kildhurm race, and of the means by which it was to be acquired. But the more things she was credited with knowing, the less inclined did she seem to satisfy the curiosity of the ignorant; insomuch that not one well-authenticated word of all the tales that the genie of the Oak was said to have poured into her ear has ever transpired from that day to this.

I am far from supposing, on the other hand, that Lady Kildhurm was above sharing the persuasions of these unenlightened people as to the extent of her own enlightenment, or perhaps, as to the channels through which it was obtained. Persons in her peculiar condition are not apt to be lacking in self-appreciation, and easily adopt any theory concerning themselves which seems to give them the distinction appertaining to supernatural pretensions. It is highly probable that the widow of Sir Norman believed that she held communion with beings of another world or plane of existence, and that she was happy in that belief. It is certain that she regarded herself as in a manner a sacred personage, and that she attributed the highest importance to all her acts and utterances, no matter how meaningless these might appear to the uninitiated observer. She commonly spoke of the Oak as 'My Friend,' or 'My Counsellor,' and was careful to observe certain ceremonies and formalities before ascending into the seclusion of the branches: such as kneeling at the foot of the trunk and touching her forehead to the bark, and tracing a circle round about the base of the tree with her ivory cross. A few rude foot-rests had been made, by means of which she could ascend to her retreat with ease; and in the angle of the boughs she had constructed for herself a sort of seat, which she called her throne. Here, no doubt, the pleasantest hours of her weird and lonely existence were passed. Here she gathered in the harvest of her wisdom, and from hence she gave it forth. The sinister Oak, which had been the hostile tyrant of the Kildhurm race for more than a hundred and fifty years, was become this forlorn woman's most intimate and inexhaustible companion. On summer days the branches which supported her swayed soothingly, and the broad leaves whispered in a murmurous undertone; while glimpses of yellow sunshine strayed here and there through the interstices of the foliage; or, perhaps, a shower pattered harmlessly on the living roof overhead. From below came up the endless prattle of the musical ocean, and the sparkle of its breezy blue. What wonder if, at such moments, she heard voices that do not speak to mortal ears, or beheld visions whereof the outward eye can take no note? But when the great equinoctial gales were let loose, and came shrieking down upon the astonished coast, then did the sibyl and her Oak strike a wilder and more interior chord of harmony. The Oak breathed forth its deep organ-tones of power and defiance, while the sibyl loudly chanted a thrilling treble, that often rang out above the other noises of the natural symphony, and caused passing travellers to start and stare, and, if the night were already fallen, to hasten their steps and wish themselves safe at home. After such a bout, the prophetess would descend from her perch with a flashing eye and an exalted mien, as if instinct with the divine fury of the seers of old; and occasionally, after an exceptionally boisterous gale, she would appear with a cluster of acorns or a branch of leaves in her bosom or amongst her hair, and she was more careful of these adornments and more proud of them than if they had been gold and precious stones. 'They are my friend's gift,' she would answer to inquirers; 'and the token of his confidence and favour.'

But this fantastic behaviour was, for the most part, confined to her hours of actual association with the Oak; at such times as she was within doors, her bearing was gentle and undemonstrative, her look passive and vacant, and she spoke but little, and that feebly and vaguely. She was less observant as a rule, of sights than of sounds; she always seemed to recognise the voice of Philip, and to be aware of the bond that united him to her; and she was fond of walking about with his hand clasped in hers, or with her arm resting upon his shoulder, when he had grown bigger. She was never weary of listening to his childish and boyish talk, and he, for his part, was never more pleased with himself and with things in general than when he was pouring out to her the riches of his small mind—appealing to her at the end of every sentence or two for sympathy or approval, which she never failed to accord with a smile, or a movement of the head or hand, or a murmured word. And sometimes—but this very rarely—she would in turn talk to him, in a low cadenced voice, as if chanting blank verse, and with a delivery free alike from emphasis and from hesitation. Whether or not any wisdom were contained in these monologues, Philip only could tell; and he used to declare that they were replete with everything that was most sapient and profound. He never, in fact, gave in to the belief that his mother was in any respect deficient in mental effectiveness; on the contrary he held her to be an altogether superior being, and argued that she appeared 'queer' to ordinary people only because the latter were too far below her in the intellectual scale to be able to appreciate her illustration. He was proud of her preference; and she yielded him every indulgence he could desire, save one:—she never permitted him to climb the Oak and share her mysterious vigils amidst the branches. 'No,' she would answer, smiling, to his entreaties, 'no, dear, no—no. He is our friend, but it is to me he speaks; you must hear him only through me. Be content—be content! by-and-by you shall know all.'

'But when will by-and-by come, mother?'

'When the great change comes, and the seal is broken, and the prophecy is fulfilled, and the sibyl and her counsellor have vanished. There is time; do not seek to hasten the steps of fate. Love will lead the way, and pass through the valley of tribulation, and honour and wealth shall wait for him beyond. You are but a boy yet! be content! by-and-by you shall know all.'

'But I don't want you to vanish, mother, or your counsellor either. Why should you vanish, and where are you going to vanish to?'

'Those who impart happiness must not wait to behold its enjoyment. The bearers of evil tidings remain; but the heralds of joy pass on.'

What all this meant, Philip might have found it difficult to explain: but he was bound to consider it satisfactory. And then his mother, laying one hand on his shoulder, and with the other pointing upwards through the branches of the Oak, would say solemnly, 'There—there is treasure! Seek for it!'

CHAPTER XIII.

THE HEYDAY OF YOUTH.

The conditions of life in this world do not permit boys to retain their boyhood indefinitely; and so it was that the boy Philip grew in time to be a young man, and to entertain the thoughts and aspirations proper to that important and interesting stage of human existence. He came of age, and a celebration was held in honour of that event; and after that he considered it to be a part of his duty to go forth and see the world. The world, as not infrequently happens in such cases, took more out of its beholder than its beholder could get in return from the world; in other words, Sir Philip Kildhurm spent the larger part of the fortune which his aunt Mrs. Chepstow had made over to him, in discovering that it is not so easy as it looks to be wise without experience. This curious bit of news having been duly recorded in his memory, he presently made his way back to Kildhurm Tower, which he found very much in the state in which he had left it; though it appeared to him rather more stupid and monotonous than of yore. However, young men are always fertile of expedients to relieve monotony; and the medicine which Sir Philip prescribed to himself in the present instance was the singularly original one of falling in love. He fell in love with an excellent and charming young lady; and she fell in love with him, which was probably more than he deserved: and in due course they were betrothed, and married. Within a year from the wedding-day, the new Lady Kildhurm presented her husband with a daughter; and soon after having done this, she died; but the little girl lived and grew strong and vigorous and charming.

The widower, whose somewhat frivolous and unsteady disposition had been sobered and steadied by the shock of his much-beloved young wife's death, sought compensation for her loss in his little daughter. No father was ever more devoted than he; and now he fancied he had attained a deeper understanding of that old saying of his mother about the treasure above. Old Lady Kildhurm, it should be mentioned, was still living at nearly eighty years of age, and was apparently neither more nor less vigorous than she had been twenty years before. Only now her hair was completely white, and hung down in long thick braids, reaching below her waist. Her face, also, had undergone a certain change. The vacant expression had given place to what might be described as a childlike look; for it had all the serenity and frankness of a child, and the eyes possessed that unconscious quality of penetration that is born of the child's unsullied intuitions. When these untroubled eyes rested upon the beholder's, therefore, he generally looked away, if he was a bad man; but if he was a good man he looked into them, and the further he looked, the more he found himself thinking, not of old age, but of childhood; and if, moreover, he happened to be acquainted with little Hilda, the granddaughter, he was apt to find himself thinking particularly of her. Certain it is that the infant woman and the aged one lost no time in becoming dearly attached to each other, as if they had been kindred spirits; and when Hilda was three years old, her sibylline grandmother did an unprecedented thing; for she took the child in her arms, and mounted with her to her seat in the Oak. Sir Philip almost feared for his precious little daughter's safety, and confidently expected to hear her break out into a clamour of alarm and aversion at the gloom and all the strange surroundings. But as it turned out the small neophyte underwent her initiation not only with composure but with gratification. When, after an hour's withdrawal from the world the venerable sibyl restored her to her father's arms, Hilda seemed regretful rather than relieved that the experience was over.

'What did grandmamma show you?' inquired Sir Philip.

But Hilda, with praiseworthy discretion, only looked at him and shook her wise little head, with a roguish smile in her brown eyes.

'Oh, so you are going to keep the secret as well!' said Sir Philip laughing.

'It is her secret now,' said old Lady Kildhurm, laying her thin dark hand on the child's golden hair. 'The spirit of the Oak was my friend, but he is her servant. She is mistress of Kildhurm, and all it contains. In her shall the race be blessed and their sorrows be comforted: and woe unto him who would thwart her purpose or dispute her will!'

All this might be true; but the fact nevertheless remained that as Hilda grew up, the worldly fortunes of Kildhurm went down; until, at about the period of the young lady's seventeenth birthday, they were pretty nearly in as bad a condition as when, forty years before, Sir Norman had ridden out to show his friend Colonel Banyon the way over the Convent Cliff. Evidently, therefore, if Hilda was going to restore the fortunes of the race, she could not set about the business too soon. Hilda herself, however, did not appear to have any idea how the thing was to be done; nor (being a person of a disposition to derive a great deal of pleasure from a very economical expenditure) did she seem to think a fortune of any paramount importance. She performed her household avocations with cheerfulness and punctuality, and enjoyed her recreation on the sea shore or the hills as heartily as if she had been mistress of ten thousand a year. But at last, luckily for Kildhurm, and for the reputation of prophecy, an unexpected occurrence took place. A strange young gentleman made his appearance in the neighbourhood.

He was in every respect a highly interesting object. He was blue-eyed, handsome in face and figure, courteous and brave. Though hardly more than twenty-five years old, he was a captain of Grenadiers, and had won his rank by gallant services in the American War. He was rich and well connected; and it was reported that he had come into the neighbourhood to buy land, to build a house, and to settle down in it. His name was Harold Bramston; and he was a bachelor.

Improbable as it may appear, one of the last people in the county to hear the news about Captain Bramston was the very person who was generally considered to be the most affected by it: namely, Miss Hilda Kildhurm. The first she knew about the matter was, that one afternoon, as she was sitting beneath the Oak, mending a rent that she had made in her frock the day before, she saw a gentleman ride along the road, and draw rein at the Tower gate; and a moment afterwards she saw him pulling vigorously at the bell-handle. This proved (what Miss Hilda had already suspected) that the gentleman was a stranger; for anybody who was not a stranger would have known that the bell of Kildhurm Tower had been cracked and done away with any time these ten years past. Now, it was unquestionably the duty of the Kildhurm family to be hospitable to strangers; and since that family at present consisted of three members, one of whom—Sir Philip—was absent in the neighbouring market town, and another of whom—Miss Hilda's grandmother—was presumably asleep in the topmost chamber of the Tower;—such being the state of affairs, it inevitably devolved upon the third and only available member—Miss Hilda herself—to do the honours of the occasion. So she arose, and paced demurely across the grass towards the stranger. As she drew near she perceived that he was very good-looking, in both senses of that phrase, and this discovery gave her a certain satisfaction. Moreover, when he turned to look at her it was evident that he found her appearance agreeable, which was the more noteworthy inasmuch as she was by no means dressed to receive company, and her hair was in disorder. She thought the stranger must be a man of great natural kindliness, and very easy to please. When she was within speaking distance, therefore, she asked him, in a friendly tone, whether he wanted to see anyone?

He eyed her for a moment very intently, as if she were the first young woman he had ever beheld; and he answered in a deep but very pleasant voice, lifting his hat from his forehead,

'I beg your pardon!' (which she thought quite unnecessary). 'I am Captain Bramston—Harold Bramston: you may chance to have heard mention made of me——?' He bowed slightly with an expectant look.

'No: I never heard of you before,' replied Hilda, with a meditative air, as if she were searching her memory to make sure.

Captain Bramston coloured a little. 'You are, I venture to suppose, Miss—that is, Miss——'

'Yes, I am Miss Kildhurm,' she replied gravely. 'Hilda Kildhurm,' she added, after a pause.

The Captain hereupon doffed his hat again, and continued to hold it in his hand while he spoke.

'I am happy and honoured to meet Miss Kildhurm,' he said. 'Though you have never heard of me, I heard of you long ago, and I have often thought of you—pardon the liberty!—especially of late. I am a sort of relative of yours, you must know: a distant one, I fear; but still——'

'A distant one is better than none at all,' put in Hilda, intending no more than to help him out with his sentence; for he seemed to find a difficulty in finishing his sentences; and when he broke off in the midst of them he had a way of resting his eyes on her face, as if he expected to find the conclusion there.

'Thank you for thinking it worth while to say that!' exclaimed the Captain, straightening himself and lifting his head with a very bright glance.

'Oh, you must not think I meant that—exactly!' Hilda said in some haste and panic, and with a flush that may have indicated her regret at having been born such a fool.

The Captain was certainly very kind. He took no notice of her embarrassment, but went on, smoothing the feather in his hat as he spoke,

'I was going to explain, in regard to our being relations, that I had a grand-uncle, whose name was Banyon. He was an Indian colonel.'

'Oh, I know all about him,' said Hilda, glad to show that she was not quite such a fool after all. 'He was in love with his cousin, poor old Mrs. Chepstow, my grand-aunt; and left her all his precious stones in his will; only she never got them, because, poor man....' Here Hilda paused, and threw a glance at the handsome young officer.

'Because he was drowned, wasn't he?' said he, smiling however in a very unnephew-like manner. 'And the precious stones were drowned along with him, of course.'

'That is what the common people believe,' said Miss Kildhurm with a certain reserve in her manner that prompted the Captain to say,

'Ah then, if I may ask it, what is Miss Kildhurm's belief?'

'I believe,' said she, after a moment's silence, 'that there is a secret, and a mystery!'

'A mystery?' repeated the Captain, opening his blue eyes. 'Where?'

Hilda's brown eyes met his blue ones with a grave and somewhat doubtful expression: but at last she raised her hand and pointed to the Oak, saying nothing.

'In the Oak?' Captain Bramston at first reddened a little, as if he thought he were being made game of; but in a moment he exclaimed in a tone full of interest, 'Oh, is that the famous Oak—the Oak of Kildhurm?'

'Yes, that is our Oak,' replied Hilda, with a breath of pride.

'You see, I had heard of it before,' said the Captain.

'I should think there was no one who had not heard of the Oak of Kildhurm,' replied Hilda, rather amused at the contrary suggestion. 'I suppose there might be some who couldn't,' she added charitably, reflecting that India and America were a long way off, and their inhabitants probably very ignorant.

'May I see it?' resumed Captain Bramston.

'You cannot see the mystery!' Hilda answered with some awe in her voice. 'I have not seen that myself; I only know a little about it. My grandmamma is the only one who has seen!'

'I was speaking of the Oak. As to the mystery, I shan't ask about seeing that as long as I may see you.'

'I don't see how you can say that,' replied Hilda, 'since you have known me only so short a time.'

'But I have been waiting to know you a long time,' the Captain was bold enough to say: 'ever since I was a man. And the longer one waits to know a woman, the faster he gets to know her when he begins.'

'But I have not been waiting any time at all to know you, and yet—' began Hilda. But there she broke off, and said, 'You will think I have no manners, Captain Bramston. I have forgotten to ask you on what errand you are come here. And will you not step into the house and have some refreshment? I expect my father back in an hour or so.'

'Miss Kildhurm, have I offended you?' said the Captain very humbly.

'No, indeed, anything but that!'

'Else you would not speak so formally.'

'I must not speak as I might speak, if my father were here,' answered the young lady with a blush. 'I am the representative of the family until he comes, and I must speak for them and not for myself.'

'Then—I wish your father were here!' exclaimed the Captain.

'So do I.'

'Why do you wish it? So that you might get rid of me? or so that you might not continue to be the representative of your family?'

'That does not seem to me a very wise question. But will you not step into the house?'

'You were sitting under the Oak when I first saw you: would you mind letting me come there?'

'Wherever you wish,' replied Miss Kildhurm graciously; and she led the way to the Oak, and she and the Captain established themselves beneath its shadow.

The Captain thought it was the loveliest day and the loveliest spot that he had ever seen; which simply showed that he must have been a very unobservant young man hitherto, because, in his travels about the world, he had met with scenes and with climates far lovelier than Kildhurm could boast of at its best. But the Captain, though he praised the prospect, looked at it much less than at his companion; and if he had said that his travels had never brought him in contact with anybody like her, he would probably have been declaring more nearly what he felt to be the truth. She was so simple, and yet so dignified: so naïve, and yet so sensible: so lovely, and yet so unconscious. He gazed, and wondered, and blessed his stars for having brought him round the world, and reserved this fairest of all sights for him at the end of his pilgrimages and dangers. Yes, it was a blessed fortune that had put it into his mind to come and settle down here, in this remote and beautiful region, here to make his home and to spend his days. And it was a beneficent Providence, surely, that had kept his heart free and unstained through those perilous years of early youth, when hearts are so apt to go astray. What happiness to think that he might say to this charming maiden, 'You are the first woman I have loved; and I am not wholly unfit to take your hand in mine, and to look in your dear eyes!' For it was nothing less than this that the Captain already imagined himself as saying to Miss Kildhurm.

But having got thus far in his thoughts he began to entertain gloomy and portentous fears. What if Miss Kildhurm should not respond to this sudden and unlooked-for passion of his? What should she know of love? And why should she love him? This last was a question which Harold Bramston might not have thought it necessary to ask himself in respect of every woman that he had met: but, as regarded Hilda Kildhurm, he found himself destitute of any vanity whatever, and inclined to look upon himself as the most insignificant of men. The most insignificant of men? Was there then some other man who was more significant—or who possessed more significance in Hilda's eyes? This idea was torture to Captain Bramston, and he tried to put it away, and to fight against it; but the more he tried the more numerous and plausible were the reasons which suggested themselves to him for supposing it to be true. There must be young men enough in the country-side to love and woo fifty Hildas; and such a Hilda as this might raise up lovers to herself in the midst of a desert. And if she were loved, why might she not love in return? Oh! misery, why might she not be engaged to somebody at this very moment? Was it consistent with human nature to suppose that she could have lived for a little less than twenty years in the world without having been obliged to engage herself to somebody? Captain Bramston groaned inwardly, and cursed his luck for not having made him to be born and raised under the shadow of Kildhurm's Oak.

And what were Hilda's thoughts all this time? She said to herself that there was a sensation in her heart which she had never known till now: a lightness, a fulness, and yet a fear: it affected her voice, so that she found it difficult to speak evenly or to breathe as regularly as usual, or to keep under control the blood that sought her cheeks. Moreover, a smile was ever attempting to manifest itself on her lips, without her being able to account to herself satisfactorily for its being there. She told herself that this was very silly; but its being silly did not prevent it from being rather pleasant. Another singularity in her sensations was, that she felt a great tenderness and affection for the world at large. Everything seemed kind to her, and considerate of her happiness. There was a bird up somewhere in the branches of the Oak that sang just the kind of song that she would have liked to sing, if she had known how. Surely the sunshine need not have fallen with such mellow radiance of warm colour on the grass and on the grey Tower, if it had not wished to do her an especial favour: surely the sea need not have murmured with such languorous sweetness beneath the cliff, if it had not wished to echo the inarticulate harmony that whispered in her own soul. And, by the way (not that this had anything to do with it), what a delightful voice Captain Bramston had, and what a noble countenance, and what a gentle and withal spirited expression, and what a picturesque way of leaning against the trunk of the Oak, and of occasionally moving his hand when he spoke, and of throwing back his head when he laughed. What a strange freak of destiny to bring this young hero all round the world to sit here at her feet at last, and make a summer afternoon so memorable! It was a remarkably brief afternoon, however, and once gone it would never return. It would never return. There was a sweet pain in that reflection—the sweeter the more painful. Yes, Captain Bramston would ride away by-and-by, and he would never come back. Why should he come back? There could never be such another afternoon: there could never be such another Captain Bramston: there could never be such another longing, and tenderness, and fear as abode now in Hilda's heart. Such things, such times, came once and came no more. As Hilda said this to herself, she felt quite melancholy in the midst of her happiness; and soft tears stood in her eyes as she looked seaward.

It must not be supposed that these two young people allowed anything of what was passing in their minds to appear in their conversation: by no means! They talked of anything rather than that. The Captain gave an interesting account of his adventures abroad, and described the American Indians, and General Lafayette, and General Washington, and General Arnold, and unfortunate Major André, who was so cruelly hanged. Captain Bramston was of opinion that Arnold was much more deserving of hanging than André. To all this Hilda listened and replied and questioned; and then, being questioned in turn, she attempted to give some account of her own life at Kildhurm; whom she saw, what she did, what she wanted to do: but it all struck her as being profoundly uninteresting and empty, and she was sure that Captain Bramston must share her opinion, though he very politely made believe that he liked to hear her. So the hours passed away and the sun reached the hills, and Hilda expected every moment to hear Captain Bramston say that now he must be going. But he stayed on in the most unaccountable way. It was strange, too, how well acquainted with each other they seemed to have become, though they had been but so short a time together, and had talked about such external matters. It almost seemed as if they must have known what was passing, unuttered, in each other's hearts. Could it be that those things that can never be spoken manage to get themselves expressed, somehow, in the tones of the voice and the glances of the eyes, and effect more in a few hours than words can tell in as many months?

'You have not yet told me, Captain Bramston,' Hilda said at last, 'the reason why you came here.'

'I did not know why I came till after I got here,' said the Captain.

Hilda gazed at him inquiringly.

'I knew as soon as I saw you,' the intrepid gentleman pursued.

'Oh! then it was not anything worth knowing!'

'I care more about it than about anything else in the world!'

'Then what did you care most about before this?'

'About—myself, I suppose!'

'You should have left somebody else to do that!'

'Somebody else? Who?'

'Oh—anybody!'

Captain Bramston took hold of her hand, and his eyes were ardent. 'Miss Kildhurm, I—may I tell you something?'

She made an effort to draw her hand away. 'I think I would rather you didn't—at least with that voice, and——'

'Don't turn away from me!' exclaimed this impetuous warrior; and he kissed her hand passionately. 'I cannot help it! Hilda, I——'

An imperative voice here interrupted the young people, and brought Captain Bramston to his feet. 'Stop, sir!' it said. 'Whoever you are, this conduct is inadmissible. Stand back, sir!'

It was Sir Philip; and old Lady Kildhurm was with him. Sir Philip was looking as stern—and, indeed, fierce—as it was in his nature to do. Hilda, rising also, said appealingly,

'Don't, father! It wasn't his fault!'

'Not his fault—!' Sir Philip, in a mixture of amazement and indignation, glared first at his daughter, then at the handsome stranger, who, however, met his look frankly and resolutely. For a few moments the baronet's face worked strangely: then, much to the surprise and more to the relief of the guilty persons, he burst into a shout of laughter.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE WEDDING-GIFT.

It was not so difficult, after this, to make the necessary explanations and apologies. Sir Philip had heard about Captain Bramston before, though Hilda had not; and, in the bottom of his heart, he did not object to regard him in the light of a possible son-in-law. But it would not do to confess this just at present. Captain Bramston had stood to his guns, and, on the spot where he stood, had declared his love for Hilda Kildhurm, and demanded Sir Philip's consent to their betrothal.

'I can give you nothing of the kind, sir,' replied the Baronet, endeavouring to look immitigable. 'Your request is as premature as—as it is contrary to sound principle. Anyone would suppose, Captain Bramston, that you expected the world to come to an end by to-morrow morning, by the haste you are in to have your affairs settled!'

'In this case, Sir Philip,' replied the Captain, with equal respect and firmness, 'sound principle is of no use. The falling in love is an accomplished fact. The next thing to settle is the date of the wedding.'

'Upon my word, Captain Bramston,' the Baronet exclaimed, 'if you are as pushing in war as you seem to be in other matters, you should have been a general long ago. But we will, if you please, dismiss this subject for the present. I am in no hurry to lose my daughter in the first place, and moreover, in an affair of this nature, I could not think of deciding anything without consulting Lady Kildhurm, my mother.'

Lady Kildhurm and Hilda had withdrawn during this colloquy between the gentlemen, and Hilda had gone into the house. But as the Baronet and Captain Bramston, still conversing earnestly, slowly made their way across the lawn, they were suddenly aware that Lady Kildhurm was again near them. They halted, and were silent.

She was, at this time, almost at the extreme limit of old age; yet her eyes were clear and her bearing dignified; and so far from her mental infirmity having become exaggerated, it had grown year by year less obtrusive, though she was at least as far as ever from being on normal terms with the material world. She lived in a world of her own; but she accommodated the latter to the former more easily than before. So serene and unexaggerated were her tones and gestures, that a stranger would hardly have suspected that she was virtually unconscious of what most people call the realities of life.

When the venerable sibyl was within a yard or so of Harold Bramston, she paused, with her face and the palms of her hands turned towards him: and without seeming to look at him in the usual way, she still had the air of taking his measure so keenly and fully, that, unless the Captain's conscience was cleaner than most men's, he must have passed an uneasy minute or two. But at length the sibyl raised her hands slowly and let them fall again with a gesture like a benediction; and the expression of her face was gracious as she said, in a gentle and flowing voice:

'He that rode over the Convent Cliff was a true man; and a spirit akin to his is here. If the treasure reveal itself to him, let him take it: he is worthy of it. I have waited long, I am weary. Lord, now speedily wilt Thou suffer me to depart. So be it!'

At this undeniable declaration in the young Captain's favour, Sir Philip felt a great deal more satisfaction than he was at all disposed to show; and the end of it was that the two lovers were allowed to stroll off by themselves beneath the Oak, and there formally to renew and re-seal the compact, in the making of which the Baronet had so aptly surprised them. That evening, after Hilda had gone to her chamber, the Baronet and Captain had a private confabulation in the former's study. The Captain then and there made a full statement regarding his position in the world, more particularly from the pecuniary point of view. It appeared that his circumstances were more than easy; that he had absolute control over nearly a hundred and fifty thousand pounds; and that he was prepared to settle any part of this sum, or the whole of it, according as Sir Philip pleased, on his wife, on the day of their marriage. He only wished that he could do something more.

'I must say, Bramston,' exclaimed Sir Philip, laughing, 'that you are more dangerously in love than any man I ever saw or heard of. You must go off somewhere for a month and see if you can't get rid of a little of it. I shall positively refuse to sign settlements with a man in so pitiable a condition as you are now. Recollect, my good fellow, that Hilda goes to you literally penniless; and that I never should feel comfortable if I had not left open to you every avenue of escape in my power. Besides, don't you see that you will be paying one another a finer mutual compliment by waiting a while and seeking distractions, than by coming together at once, and so losing all opportunity of making sacrifices? Well, whether you see it or not, those are my orders, and you will have to put up with them.'

'You will of course allow us to correspond?' demanded the Captain, when he saw that he was beaten on the main point.

'I should greatly prefer not.'

'Then I will write to her, Sir Philip, in spite of you!' cried out the other, firing up.

'Oh, very well: in that case I agree,' rejoined Sir Philip with a twinkle in his eyes. 'You may write to her five times in the course of the month—choosing your own times, whether all in one day, or once in every six. But are you sure a month will be long enough to get your affairs in order?'

'Oh, Sir Philip! And they are in order. They have been in charge of a friend of mine for three years past. I shall have a look through his accounts, so as to see exactly where I stand—that will take me about three hours I should say—and then I shall have nothing else to do until the month is up. Six times a week am I to write, did you say? Why not make it six times a day?'

'Ha, ha, ha! But as regards this friendly man of business of yours. You are quite certain he is trustworthy? That's a lot of property to leave out of your hands for three years, especially if you only require three hours in which to look through the accounts!'

'I trust him, dear Sir Philip, as I trust myself. If you only knew him——'

'Quite right! if I only knew him of course I should not have made the inquiry. As it is—having known what it was to lose money in my youth—I did make it! And now, Captain Bramston, as I can't ask you to spend the night here, I must bid you good-bye. I shall be glad to see you back, safe and sound, when your month is up; and I won't pretend to say that I don't believe you'll come, and that Hilda won't expect you. As for the money-matters, of course it's a capital thing to have a rich son-in-law; but I must confess that I should have liked you a good deal better if honours had been a little more equally divided!'

On these terms the two gentlemen parted; little anticipating what was to happen.

Hilda received her first letter on the day following her lover's departure, he having written it on his way to London, and despatched it back to her by special messenger. She did not expect a letter on the next day, nor on the next, and not much on the day after that; and this was well, for on no one of these days did a letter come. A week passed, and no letter. Ten days, and no letter. Two weeks, and still no letter. It was now apparent, even to Sir Philip, who had affected to make great fun of her at first, that something must have happened. The address which Captain Bramston had given had been at his business manager's; Sir Philip privately sent a messenger thither, to make inquiries; but at the end of the third week the messenger returned, and brought with him the astounding news that there were no news to bring! Nothing was known at the address given either of the manager or of Captain Bramston. Was the man dead, or an impostor, or had he simply changed his mind? It was at all events plain that he would never again show his face at Kildhurm Tower.

It was necessary, therefore, to have a very painful interview with Hilda. Poor Sir Philip recoiled at the prospect; but it was not to be avoided; and at last he sent for her, and having taken her by both hands and kissed her, he opened his mouth to begin. But she suddenly and quietly laid her hand upon his lips.

'I know what you are going to say, father, and you need not say it.'

'You have given him up, then? That's my brave girl!'

'I have not given him up. He is the same to me as ever, and I to him. I feel that he is true. I should know if he was not. You need not be uneasy or angry, dear father; and above all you need not try to persuade me that this is not so. He will come back; and we shall be happier even than we thought of being before.'

'Has my mother spoken?' demanded Sir Philip, after a long pause.

'She believes as I do: but it is not from her belief that I believe; it is from myself.'

'I shall not contradict you, my daughter,' said Sir Philip, after another silence. 'I will even say that it is possible—as everything is possible—that you may be right. But one thing I must ask of you. How long do you mean to hope? What day will you call the last?'

'The last day of the month to be sure, father. That is the day on which he will come.'

'What makes you say that, my daughter?'

'Because that is the day on which he promised to come!' returned Hilda with an involuntary smile. 'Do you think Harold would not keep his promise?'

The last day of the month came, and Hilda appeared with her best frock on, and with fresh flowers in her hair. 'He will be here at dinner,' she said; and she made her arrangements accordingly, setting a chair for him, and decorating that and his plate with leaves and blossoms. Sir Philip looked on with a heavy heart; but he held his peace. The faith of his child appalled him, but he dared not share it, and the moment was not yet come to repudiate it. His agitation was so great that he strove in vain to conceal it: but Hilda, though her colour was high and her eyes bright, was as calm and confident as if her lover had arrived the day before. Dinner time drew near; and, shortly before the hour struck, Harold appeared at the door as if by magic.

Sir Philip started up from his chair with a great hoarse shout, and remained stationary. Hilda came up to her lover, threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him heartily! As for Harold, he looked haggard and grim, and he made scarce a show of returning Hilda's caress.

'Come, now, sit down,' she said, in the most natural and sensible way in the world, 'and tell us why you have not written, and what all this trouble has been about!'

'It is better that I should tell you at once,' said Harold, in a husky voice. 'All the money that I had is gone. I am almost a beggar. The friend whom I trusted....' He stopped for a few moments and then went on, 'I followed him—all this month until to-day I have been hunting after him; but he is gone, and all is gone; and I am come, Sir Philip, to release your daughter from her engagement, and to be gone also.'

So saying Captain Bramston got up from the chair in which he had unconsciously seated himself, and stood with his head bent, and his eyes on the floor.

Hilda broke into an irrepressible little laugh. 'How silly you are, Harold,' she said, 'to make so much fuss about a little money! Nobody paid us to fall in love with each other, and why should we be paid to be married?'

Harold raised his face, now flushed to the roots of his hair, and his eyes burning. 'But what say you, Sir Philip?' he cried in a sharp, ringing voice.

'I say I should marry her, if I were in your place,' answered the Baronet, with humorous indifference; 'and the next time you get a fortune, take better care what you do with it. Meanwhile, shake hands, my dear boy; and let me observe that I'm uncommonly glad (and surprised) to see you.'

'Your happiness is near,' said Lady Kildhurm, who had entered the room so quietly that none of the three had noticed her. 'To-night the spell is broken. The saying shall be made perfect. It shall be well with you, and with me. To-morrow, early in the morning, search the Oak.'

On that night all in the household were visited by strange dreams; and through the dreams they heard a sound of a voice chanting a weird song, and rising higher and clearer; until at last there came a deep booming sound like thunder: and after that the chant was heard no more.

In the morning, early, Harold and Hilda went out, and walked arm-in-arm to the cliff where the Oak had stood. But lo! the Oak was gone. The overhanging promontory on which it grew had parted from the main land during the night, wrenching the mighty tree with it. But the ocean had received the tree in its arms, and had carried it away, never again to be seen by mortal eyes. For the waves had been the friends of the mysterious Oak from the beginning; and they had drawn a veil of solemn mystery over its end.

But where was the ancient sibyl? She too had vanished, singing her wild chant; perhaps to find in another world the treasure whereof she had prophesied so long on this earth. At all events, no one ever saw her living or dead, after that night; and it came to be believed that she had been borne on her last journey amidst the branches of the tree which she had made her home.

But on the brink of the freshly-made chasm still stood a tall and rugged fragment of the Oak, which had remained in its place when the bulk of the tree was wrenched away. High up in this fragment there appeared a narrow and deep crevice or hole, now revealed, section-wise, by the rending asunder of the wood. At the bottom of this hole was seen a small wallet of embroidered leather: and when Harold shook the fragment of the tree, the wallet fell from its place, and bursting open on the ground, a flash of precious stones greeted the lovers' wondering eyes. Amidst the stones was found the lost signet ring of Norman Kildhurm.

In that narrow hole, therefore, these gems must have rested ever since the felonious right hand of Sir Norman had placed them there. But he, hurriedly striving to withdraw his hand, was caught by the narrow mouth of the hole; and fancying, in his guilty fear, that the demon of the Oak had got hold of him, he had screamed three times in uncontrollable terror, and had torn himself loose, mangling his hand, and leaving his signet ring behind. And the desperate vehemence of his effort had caused him to overbalance himself; so he fell backward through the branches to the ground, and his neck had been miserably broken by the fall. Such, at least, is the commonly accepted explanation of that dark catastrophe.

But to whom belonged the jewels thus strangely brought to light? Harold, as the nearest living relative of the murdered Colonel, was his legitimate heir; to him, accordingly, the long-deferred but most opportune inheritance came. To tell all that he did with it would require a new story. Whatever it was, it was done with the approval of his unworldly-wise wife, and of the worldly-wise Sir Philip, his father-in-law. For, after the days of mourning for the vanished Lady Kildhurm were over, Harold and Hilda were married, and lived together in much happiness, though they were never able to agree as to which had the best of the other in the matter of settlements. In process of time they became the parents of the child who grew up to be the beautiful Lady Mainwaring of our own day, and who, as has been intimated, deigned to furnish so modern a person as the present writer with the materials for this history of Kildhurm's Oak.

THE NEW ENDYMION.

I.

The term was over, and William Maybold had got his double first.

Under certain circumstances, and especially in youth, the mind becomes abnormally sensitive to impressions of all kinds. Severe and long-continued study, a light diet, lack of exercise, and a superfluity of anxiety, had combined to bring my mental man into a condition somewhat resembling the ascetic ecstasy ascribed to the monks of old time—a condition in which the young men see visions and the old men dream dreams. In other words, I had overworked myself, and my health, never very robust, now seemed to run some risk of breaking down altogether. My brain was in a state of nervous exaltation; my hands were thin and tremulous; my nights were disturbed by strange dreams, and even by occasional somnambulism; and I no longer felt energy to undertake the long walks which had been my panacea for bodily ailments. It seemed likely that my university honours might turn out to have been bought at too high a price.

My doctor, having felt my pulse, furnished me with the somewhat gratuitous information that what I needed was rest—rest absolute and persistent, bodily and mental: to dream beneath green trees; to linger by still waters; to forget that such things as books and knowledge existed; to think of nothing, and converse with nobody more stimulating than birds, beasts, country yokels, and speckled trout. Anything in the shape of newspapers, railways, days of the week or month, or, in fact, of time and civilisation in general, were to be entirely ignored. I was to establish a sort of rural eternity for myself, and to forget that such a thing as a nineteenth century had ever been born.

I was wholly persuaded of the soundness of this advice; the trouble was, I had not 'go' enough left in me to follow it. I wanted somebody to give me a shove in the required direction. Unfortunately, I was almost alone in the world, and could think of no quarter whence the external impetus might be expected. I had made few intimate friends in the university, and none of a temperament at once idle and energetic enough to provide the sort of companionship I needed. I was an only child, and my widowed mother had died about a year previous, leaving me an empty house somewhere in the suburbs of London, a comfortable competence, and no relations that I could remember ever to have seen. I was as solitary in the midst of the populous earth as if I had changed places with the man in the moon.

I was doing my situation less than justice, however. Just as I had begun to subside into I know not what sluggish depths of despondency, I received a letter which put a new face upon matters, and lent a fillip to my jaded mood such as awakened me to something like liveliness. The letter was from an uncle of mine, whose very existence had been almost mythical to me, for he was a recluse and an eccentric, who never went anywhere, and lived in an out-of-the-way place, where nobody ever went. As his communication was brief and to the point, I will give it here at full length:

'Dear Nephew,—If your studies have left you brains enough to apprehend the vanity of double firsts and their consequences, come to me and let me look at you. If I like your looks you may stay here a month or two. You will see the country, Diana, and the stars; you will hear the winds, the birds, and the brook; and of the world you have hitherto lived in you will see and hear nothing. I shall expect you the day after to-morrow.—Your uncle,

'Philip Norman.'

I allowed myself no doubts as to this invitation, but wrote an acceptance by return of post. The rest of the day was spent in packing my trunk and making arrangements for my absence. It was only on the evening preceding departure, when all preparations were complete, that I found time to sit down and recall what little I knew of my uncle Philip, and to forecast the kind of life I might expect with him. He was my mother's brother, and I remember hearing that he had quarrelled with her on the occasion of her marriage some twenty-five years ago. Later on, he had himself married, but his wife had died in childbirth within the year, leaving him with an infant daughter—presumably the Diana referred to in his letter. But 'Diana—and the stars'—what was the meaning of that? Was my worthy relative a dabbler in astrology—a devotee of forbidden sciences? The idea moved me strangely. I had always been an imaginative youth, and nothing had stimulated the boyish poetry of my nature so much as the beauty and mystery of the heavenly bodies. I loved to speculate as to whether they were inhabited, and, if so, by what sort of beings: I loved to believe that they exercised some inscrutable influence over human destinies; that, at all events, the fortunes of our earth were connected with them in some manner whereof the attraction of gravitation was but the material symbol. Such speculations used to inspire me with a feeling at once of insignificance and of exaltation; and I deemed that my life could not be spent more wisely and worthily than in pondering over these secrets of the stars, and striving to solve the problem of their affinity with man. As I grew up, however, the course of my education drew me away from the region of these fancies; not without a vague sentiment of disappointment, I learned to open the gates of practical knowledge with the key of inductive reasoning; and the mystic enchantment of those heavenly suns and planets was half destroyed by the rude facts of spectrum analysis, and the ingenious calculations of distances, orbits, and dimensions. Astronomy, with its certainties and its syllogisms, repelled me: it revealed too much, and yet nothing to my purpose. I hated the impertinence of him who would tell me the density of Jupiter, the composition of Sirius, and the names of the mountains in the moon. To my sense, such petty knowledge was worse than no knowledge at all, and I was shocked by the self-complacent irreverence of its professors. Better, thought I, than these were the astrologers of yore, with their statistical ignorance, their spiritual insight, and their humble faith. They, at least, appreciated the awful solemnity that should attend the thought of other worlds, material, perhaps, as our own, yet for ever separated from us by a chasm as profound and as mysterious as death. Away with the modern man of science, ready primed with his dapper theories, who cares not to meditate upon the divine reason which placed that eternal gulf between the moon and us, but fancies he has disposed of the whole matter by informing us just how many miles and furlongs it measures across! Can he learn no loftier lesson from the ghastly majesty of that weird sphere?

With such prejudices against astronomy as distinguished from astrology, it is no wonder that I shunned the former as much as possible, both at school and at college. Though I could not avoid acquiring a certain familiarity with the phraseology and the general principles of the science, what I learned took no root in my mind, but remained lifeless and barren. It was my intention to improve the earliest opportunity of clearing it out altogether, and then to endeavour to regain, so far as might be possible, the poetical superstitions of my earlier time. Deliberate recantations of this kind are not, however, so practical as we fain would have them, and, until I read that chance sentence about the stars in my uncle's letter, I had really bestowed little or no serious consideration upon the matter. But his words, and the memories and reflections to which they gave rise, produced in me a singular excitement, which my abnormal state of health doubtless did much to foster. My sleep that night was more than usually disturbed, and when, the next day, I started for my uncle's house, I was in a tremor of indefinite expectation that was anything but healthful.

II.

The railway station at which I alighted was, the porter told me, about seven miles distant from Mr. Norman's place. This information rather staggered me, as there were no cabs in that part of the world, and walking, for one in my state of health, was quite out of the question. Just then, however, a country waggon drove up to the station door, with a stout, serviceable bay mare between the shafts. The elderly farmer who handled the reins threw them on the mare's back, and, clambering to the ground, faced about and abruptly asked me whether I were William Maybold.

'Yes,' I said, amused at his rustic bluntness; 'were you sent here by Mr. Philip Norman?'

'I'm to drive you to his house,' replied the man, gruffly. 'Get up, sir. Got any luggage?'

'Only that trunk; can you lift it?'

I needed scarcely have asked the question. My farmer, though not of any great height, was as broad and muscular as an old Roman gladiator, and he swung the trunk into the back of the waggon as easily as if it had been a lady's handbox. He was in every respect a fine type of the men of that region. His face was dark, and ruggedly moulded, and the deep lines which traversed it gave it an expression of sternness, which the gruffness of his tones in speaking seemed to confirm. His grizzled black hair was cropped short round the lower part of his head; the crown—as I noticed when he took off his hat to wipe his forehead—was bald; and he wore a great shaggy beard like a prophet. But the remarkable features of his face were his eyes, which were large and dark, and had the steady, distant look in them that is often observable in the eyes of seafaring men. They seemed to have beheld sights beyond ordinary human ken.

'I suppose you know Mr. Norman?' I said to my companion as we drove away.

'Yes; I have charge of his garden.'

'He sees very little of the world, I believe?'

'There are more worlds than one, young man.'

As I did not know exactly what to make of this reply, I was silent, and gave my attention to the country through which we were passing. It was fertile, and rich in verdure, but the houses were very scarce. The road we were travelling wound considerably, but constantly ascended, and bade fair to land us at last on the summit of a commanding eminence. The prospect constantly widened around us as we proceeded, and its beauty, as it reposed in the mellow splendour of the afternoon sunshine, so wrought upon me that at length I let slip some exclamation of delight.

'Can a Cockney care for this?' demanded the farmer, fixing his eyes upon me for a moment.

'I'm not infatuated with London,' I answered, laughing. 'I've travelled farther away from it than this, before now.'

'Ay, London's not the world, young man, and the world is not the universe,' rejoined my companion, whom I now began to recognise as a 'character.' After a pause, he added, 'Have you seen the Alps?'

'More than once.'

'What did they make you feel?'

'I think their loneliness and silence impressed me most. I felt that they were very mighty, and I very little.'

For what reason I could not imagine, this answer appeared to please the dark-browed farmer. He nodded his head once or twice, and murmured in a deep, inward voice 'Ay—right—right! But there are mountains wilder, and mightier, and lonelier than they.'

'You are a traveller yourself, then?' I exclaimed, surveying him with a new interest 'You have been a sailor, perhaps?'

'I have sailed a wide ocean and a deep one; and I have seen distant lands; yet I have never set foot off the shore of England,' was the reply.

Again I was silenced. There was something decidedly mysterious in the tone of this man's conversation. What did he mean by his talk of other worlds, and of visiting foreign countries without leaving his own? I should have set him down as perhaps a little wrong in the head, had not the stern self-possession and utter absence of extravagance in his manner discountenanced such a supposition. On the other hand, he was manifestly a man of some education and even refinement. His dress was rude enough, but his speech was accurate, and his face, despite its ruggedness, was sensitive to the play of thought within. It occurred to me that he might be a spiritualist, and that the strange lands to which he alluded might be the visions of mesmeric trance. Yet no; there was in him no trace of the morbid and unwholesome restlessness of the confirmed disciples of that unlucky science. What, then, was he?

I looked round at him as I asked this question of myself, and met those far-seeing eyes of his directed upon me with something like a grave smile lurking at their bottom. This smile quite changed the impression of his visage, illumining it with a genial light that was singularly winning. It brought a sudden memory to my mind.

'You take me for a lunatic, young man,' said he; 'well, in a certain way, perhaps I am one. You must ask your uncle.'

'I dare say he could tell me as much about you as anyone,' I replied, returning his smile; 'for I believe you are my uncle, yourself!'

'What makes you think that?'

'You smile as my mother used to do.'

At the mention of my mother his face saddened again, and he sighed; but after a moment, 'Well, my boy, you have found me out,' he said, patting me kindly on the shoulder. 'I wished to meet you as a man before I greeted you as a nephew. You seem to be an honest fellow, though you have but a flimsy body to carry your honesty about with. I am glad to see you here.'

There was so much quiet heartiness in this welcome, that I felt at home with my relative at once. He now talked with me more freely, asking many particulars about my mother and myself, and indulging in no more of those enigmatical utterances which had made him seem so questionable at first. In this manner we slowly wound our way to the top of the long acclivity, and after driving a level mile or so, I saw the summit of a lofty stone tower peering above the trees.

'That is my travelling-carriage,' said Uncle Philip, pointing to the tower with his whip. 'The house stands beside it; we shall see it when we have turned that corner.'

'His travelling-carriage!' thought I. But reflecting that all these enigmas could not fail to explain themselves under the influence of my month's sojourn, I held my peace for the present; and in another minute we had come in full view of the dwelling. It adjoined the tower, and, like it, was built of grey stone. It was an old farmhouse, of no great size, with a red-tiled roof and gabled ends; a clustered brick chimney divided the ridgepole, and two dormer-windows pushed themselves up above the low eaves. The windows beneath were cut down to the ground, and served as supplementary doors: they opened vertically, and from within was a glimpse of pleasant, low-ceiled rooms. As for the tower, which was half draped with ivy, it was evidently a much more ancient structure than the house; it must have been at least seventy feet in height, and its top rose well above the trees; and standing as it did on the highest point of ground for many a mile round about, it would overlook an amazing expanse of country.

'You are very near the moon, up there!' I remarked; and then I caught sight of a figure standing in the open doorway, which immediately commanded every faculty of my mind to the one function of looking.

III.

The waggon drew up to the door. 'Jump down, sir,' said my uncle. 'Diana,' he continued, 'this is your cousin William. I think you may trust him.'

She came forward and gave me her hand—it was soft, and smooth, and slender. She conquered me with the first glance of her great hazel eyes. Her whole figure and bearing were goddess-like, and withal completely feminine. She was well-named after the chaste huntress of mythology. I never saw a woman's form at once so stately, so supple, and so refined.

Her pale auburn hair was massed over her low forehead like the crescent moon. Her nose was straight and delicate, her cheeks oval, her mouth curved like a bow, her chin round and white. She was dressed in white, with a black bow at her throat, and a black sash round her waist; and a black velvet ribbon bound her hair. She was tall, but not too tall; and the lines of her figure were at once graceful and severe. She would have impressed me at any time and in any place; but in this secluded spot, and in my condition of peculiar sensitiveness, she came upon me almost like a being from a superior world. The ordinary daylight seemed too rude and familiar for her. She should have dwelt, methought, under the mystic influences of the moon; the original reserve and innocent dignity of her demeanour were somehow suggestive of the pure cold glamour of that strange companion of our earth.

While her father took the waggon round to the stable, she led me within doors, and made me sit down in the pleasant little parlour. It was full of the odour of flowers.

'You look tired, Cousin Will,' said she. 'It is a long way from London here.'

'It seems so, indeed. If I had journeyed to another planet, all this could not seem more fresh and delightful. Have you ever been there?'

'In London? Oh no; why should I? I was born here, and this is my home.'

True enough, London with its smoke and turmoil was no place for this young sibyl. Her beautiful feet were made to tread nothing lower than mountain-tops. I asked her whether many people visited them here.

'Last year we saw a great many—twelve, I believe,' she answered quite simply, as if the population of the earth were but a small multiple of that number. 'But they were all scientific persons, who came to find out about our discoveries. You are not scientific?'

'No, indeed! I am nothing—only a young man.'

'You are the first young man I have seen.'

'I wish I were a better specimen!' I said rather ruefully. 'They are not all like me, I assure you!'

She turned upon me the full gaze of her changing eyes, and I felt that she was looking very far into me. After a pause she said thoughtfully, 'It is strange! You look a little—yes, a great deal—like.... Are you like your mother?'

'I believe more like my father.'

She shook her head, still thoughtfully. Then, rousing herself, she said with a smile, 'You look pale and tired; but that we shall cure you of.'

'Why I begin to feel cured already, what with this pure air and—and all! But tell me, Cousin Diana, what are these discoveries you speak of?'

At this question her face became quite grave again, and she answered with a somewhat altered manner, and a lower intonation, as though touching upon a subject invested with a kind of sacredness:

'We do not speak of it to strangers—that is, we never speak of it. But you are not a stranger: and father said I might trust you: and—I think I may! Well, you shall know in good time.'

At this juncture my uncle came in.

'Now, nephew, your room is ready for you. You and Diana have had time enough to become good cousins, I hope? Very well, come up and get ready for dinner. This way!'

He conducted me along a passage to a narrow door, on opening which a winding staircase was discovered. Ascending this—a somewhat weary journey for me—my uncle paused on the third landing and ushered me into a nearly circular room, fitted and furnished with dark carved wood. Two or three dusky oil-portraits hung on the walls—which last, judging from the deep embrasures of the windows, must have been of extraordinary thickness; and the massive groined ceiling seemed designed to support a vast superincumbent weight.

'This is the lower chamber,' observed my uncle. 'As long as you stay with us it will be yours.'

'I'm not turning you out of your travelling-carriage, Uncle Philip?'

'That's overhead,' he answered, with a smile. 'After dinner, if the evening turns out clear, you may go up there, and try a little excursion.'

A light began to dawn upon my slow wits.

'It is an observatory!' I exclaimed. 'You are an astronomer?'

'Yes and no. I have been an astronomer, but only as a necessary condition to being something higher than that. But I gave it up, for the most part, years ago: I found myself growing old—my mind losing its delicacy of perception. Diana is the master now: and she—if she chooses—may indoctrinate you in the mysteries.' And nodding kindly to me, he shut the door and was gone.

He had not left me without food for reflection. I now understood—or at all events I had the key to—all that had puzzled me from the time I received his note of invitation down to the present hour. 'Diana and the stars' were to be my entertainment here: well—nothing, certainly, could so well have suited my own inclinations. The lore of the heavens, followed in such companionship, would be heavenly lore indeed! My aversion from astronomy now appeared to me unreasonable; or, rather, my uncle's words had enabled me to assign to astronomy its true place—that of an instrument to the study of 'something higher.' And Diana was the master—of this loftier science, that is. It was not likely, indeed, that my beautiful cousin would be content to spend her time in the pursuit of mere technical details; but, on the other hand, who was so fitted as she to enjoy a sort of imaginative existence among those far-shining planets, divining their strange secrets, and catching the aroma of their marvellous life? These, then, were the journeys to which my uncle had figuratively alluded; the seas that he had crossed were the profound abysses of space, and the foreign countries that he had visited were foreign in the largest sense. The longer I reflected upon the romantic conditions of this life, the more powerfully did it seize on my imagination; I seemed to have a glimpse of possibilities beyond what had hitherto been deemed the limits of human attainment; the thought of what they had perhaps dared to know made my hand tremble and my breath come fast. That discovery that Diana had mentioned—was it not some device whereby the magnifying power of the telescope had been vastly increased, enabling the student to behold sights such as man had scarcely as yet dreamed of? Oh, in that stone-built chariot of theirs, fast-bound to the whirling earth, what ineffable mysteries might not Philip Norman and Diana have explored! And now—was I to be admitted the companion of their sublime voyages?

To calm my excitement, I threw open the window, and, leaning upon the broad window-sill, looked out. The sun, swathed in clouds of golden dust, was just about to vanish behind the mighty shoulder of the glowing world. Beneath me stretched a wide and fertile plain, broken by hills, variegated with woods and fields, and dotted here and there with towns and hamlets. All the happiness and homely prosperity of human lives were there, at home in the bosom of benevolent nature, busied with lowly cares, ignorant and careless of aught beyond the familiar earth on which they were born, which yielded them food and raiment, and which at death resolved their mortal parts into itself again. Beautiful and peaceful was the prospect to look upon; beautiful and peaceful might be the lot of him who should cast his lines in those pleasant places, nor ever vex his soul with loftier things. And I myself, not longer ago than yesterday, would have been well content to settle down in some such fruitful valley, basking in the sunshine by day, sleeping dreamlessly by night, and not at any time caring to lift my eyes above the horizon rim. But that yesterday was gone for ever. To-day, in the stone chamber overhead, hung poised, I knew, the wondrous engine framed to overcome all space. What interest had this earth compared to the sights that piercing crystal eye had looked upon? Penetrating by its aid into the depths of the universe, the spirit would breathe a finer air and rise to grander heights than any known to earthly experience. Already I felt myself impatient of my corporeal trammels, and longed to push aside the veil that separated me from those far-off worlds. And now, happening to glance eastwards, I saw, pallid amidst the darkening blue, the great white moon stealing upwards like a ghost, solitary, silent, and inscrutable!

IV.

A hand laid upon my shoulder caused me to start nervously. I turned, and met the grave dark eyes of my uncle Philip.

'What are you dreaming about, young fellow?' said he. 'How pale and nervous you are! We shall have to put you on a strict regimen, I see: early hours and plenty of milk to drink. Come, let's see what sort of an appetite you can show!'

'Would not you feel rather at a loss, Uncle Philip, if the moon were to drop out of the sky some day?'

'I see your mind is running on the observatory,' he returned, with his short deep laugh. 'Ask Diana! She knows more about the moon than I do—or than anyone else does, for that matter.'

The conversation at dinner was not, however, much more transcendental than is customary on such occasions in England. Diana said but little; and her father and I kept our feet pretty constantly on terra firma; soaring but rarely beyond the attraction of gravity. The two things which chiefly affected me were, the luminous grace of my cousin's face and figure, and the airy potency of the wine, which was unlike anything I had heretofore tasted. It glowed like the warmth of a better life within my veins, and, while seeming to brace and clear my perceptive faculties, it stimulated and encouraged the poetical side of my nature. I felt, under these combined influences, as if my soul were obtaining a delightful mastery over my body. I noticed meanwhile, not without surprise, that although Diana vouchsafed to join me in more than one glass of this exquisite beverage, her father never touched it, but confined himself instead to a bottle of doubtless excellent burgundy.

'No,' he said, in answer to my remark, 'no, it is many years since I have drunk that wine. It is the wine of youth; and, for genuine youth, it possesses precious properties. Old age, whether premature or natural, finds it insipid and ineffective stuff enough. To its full enjoyment, a tender and sensitive texture of both mind and body are indispensable.'

'You are the first man who has cared to drink it,' observed Diana, looking at me. 'Generally, I have it all to myself!'

'How can anyone who has once tasted it care for other wine?' I exclaimed. 'It inspires one like beautiful music.'

'Your appreciation compliments you, nephew,' my uncle said. 'Most young fellows of your years would prefer a glass of brandy-and-water to a whole hogshead of that liquor. Among its other merits, therefore, it acts as a test of character.'

'How did you come by it?'

''Tis of a very ancient vintage,' he replied, 'and I believe every bottle of it now extant is in my cellar. It was grown in a famous comet year, and under favourable aspects of the heavenly bodies. I can remember when I used to find it an agreeable tipple, previous to taking an observation. It has—for those who can drink it—the rare quality of brightening the faculties without afterwards reacting upon them. A child could use it without injury.'

I looked at Diana, curious as to whether she had been brought up on this marvellous elixir; but, as if she had divined what was in my mind, and preferred to remain unquestioned, she arose at this point and went out, leaving her father and me to our decanters.

'You are fortunate in having made such good friends with your cousin,' he remarked. 'You are about the first man, except myself, to whom I have ever heard her volunteer an observation. Yea and nay is the sum of her speech to most of the inhabitants of this planet.'

'She is certainly not talkative,' said I, disguising the pleasure I felt at discovering that I had found favour in her sight. 'You see very little company, I believe?'

'Well, I don't seek men much, and they find little encouragement in seeking me,' returned my uncle, taking a draught of burgundy, and fixing his dark eyes upon me. 'We do not sympathise with their aims, nor they with ours. And yet, nephew, I sometimes wish that Diana could see the world. She has strange fancies: perhaps I have no right to call them mere fancies, either!'

He stopped abruptly: I was silent: presently he resumed again.

'I have tried to follow her in those strange flights of hers; if I were her own age, perhaps I might follow her after a fashion; but women are mysterious to men, especially young women like Diana—innocent as a flower, and fathomless as the ether. She is alone, quite alone, as far as human companionship goes. Ay, it might be well for her to see the world, were that possible, without the world's seeing her! I tell you, I sometimes fear the effect of this solitary life upon her—upon a girl with such a mind and heart. Heaven knows—I dare not ask—what unearthly friends she may hold communion with, up yonder in her tower!'

'I can imagine no communion so fitting for her as that of the stars,' said I.

'She was born to those studies, and has grown up in them: and she has divined secrets which no other human being has attempted. When she was born, I was full of the faith and eagerness of youth; and Diana, even as a child, showed traces of the influences that were uppermost with me. He who would fathom the stars, nephew, must needs be reverent, humble, and of a willing mind: they will not reveal themselves to self-conceit and prejudice. Age has stiffened my mental movements; the epoch of my deepest insight is gone, long since! Some rays of the great light once shone upon me; but they have faded—faded! Diana inherits all, and has made it more. Why, she is more at home among the craters of the moon than in her own boudoir!' and with this my uncle laughed again.

'She is the new daughter of the old astrology!' said I.

'Astrology? humph!' said my uncle. 'Mediæval astrology was crippled by religious superstition and intellectual darkness. But there was, no doubt, in prehistoric ages, an ancient race of men who had a profounder knowledge of this subject than modern minds are apt to imagine. From that primitive wisdom the science of ancient Egypt was a derivation—one of great subtlety and ingenuity, but lacking the celestial light of the earlier men. And the Egyptians, in turn, furnished the stock-in-trade upon which is founded the lore of our later Nostradamuses.'

'And is there truth in horoscopes and nativities?'

'They are but a paltry matter after all. There is better wisdom in the stars than that. The universe is human nature writ large; and he who learns to spell the least word of that great page will never afterwards condescend to work out horoscopes with compasses and logarithms. No: in those worlds yonder,' said my uncle, rising and sauntering towards the open window, 'live human races in every conceivable degree of development. Ay, think of that!'

'And is there most wickedness or goodness there?'

'They shine fair enough, don't they?' answered my uncle, after a short silence; 'but all their light cannot elucidate that question. You must ask your own heart; the elements of the solution are there.'

V.

It was a warm clear night, and we sat out on the balcony for an hour, smoking my uncle's excellent cigars, and sipping coffee; but our conversation died away as the shadows deepened, and for a long time no word passed between us. At length a lamp was lighted in the room—a moonlike globe of creamy glass, which contended in its homely way with the calm lustre of the great satellite that now stood high above us in the dark immutable ether. A figure was moving slowly to and fro within, which I knew, without directly looking at it, was Diana's. By-and-by she came to the window, and stood there between the lamplight and the moonlight, looking up.

'Which does she belong to?' I murmured to my uncle.

He understood me, and answered with a smile, 'The man in the moon has had it all his own way thus far; but now I shall take it kindly if you set up a wholesome rivalry with him!—Come in, nephew: I feel the dew—Diana, will you give us some music?'

She took a violin from a small table in the corner, and, sitting down where the moonlight fell into the room, she fixed her eyes dreamily upon the cold planet, and began to play. The violin, when skilfully touched, has always affected me more than any other instrument, and I had never been in so susceptible a mood as I was to-night. But ah! what music was that—so strange, so sweet, so wild! Wild it was as the far-off howling of wolves, when the moon shines upon snow-covered prairies; but organised, proportioned, and enriched by the subtle intelligence of a human musician's brain. It stirred my blood with eerie thrills; the home-like room in which I sate grew indistinct and vanished. I was alone with Diana and the music—and where were we? Not on earth, surely—not in any region where men and women ever lived and breathed. My eyes followed hers towards the moon; the white rays touched my heart and spirit, and mystically waived me thither. Slowly the burnished disc waxed larger and brighter: the fairy melody of the violin sounded keener and intenser in my ears: in the rarefied atmosphere I almost ceased to breathe: Diana was before me, but she too seemed fading out of sight: if I lost her, I should be alone in the bottomless void of space. The vibration of the strings died away....

'Drink this,' said my uncle's deep but kindly voice. 'That's it! You were within an ace of fainting dead away, my dear boy. You must be more exhausted by your journey than I thought. Hadn't you better turn in for the night?'

'It's nothing!—only a sort of—of momentary drowsiness that sometimes comes over me,' I replied, greatly mortified at such a display of my feebleness. 'I shall be all the better for it presently. As for turning in, I can't think of doing that before I've been up to see the telescope!' In saying this, I turned and met the glance of my cousin Diana. I thought—it may have been only a fancy—that she looked upon me with much more tenderness and interest than she had done heretofore. She bent down towards me, resting her beautiful hand on the arm of the sofa, close to my shoulder.

'You shall see it,' she said, in a tone so sweet and gentle that it brought the blood to my cheeks; to see her so near me made me feel warm and happy. 'You shall see what no one else has seen. But not to-night!'

'Oh, why not to-night?'

'You need strength to look at what I have to show.'

'I am not so good-for-nothing as I seem—indeed I'm not!'

'Father, do you think it would be safe?' said she, turning towards my dark-browed uncle, who was standing aside, with his arms folded, thoughtfully gazing at the lamp.

Eh?—safe?—why not?' returned he, rousing himself from his reverie. 'A peep through a telescope ought not to upset a young fellow who has seen Europe, and got a double first! Besides, my dear, you mustn't expect that he will see as much as you can!—well, at all events, you can let him see the observatory and the arrangements, and then, if it seem advisable to put off the rest till another evening, why, so be it!'

Diana stood silent a few moments, with her head lifted, in an attitude common with her, looking out into the night. Then she moved towards her father with a slow, sauntering, royal step—no other woman ever trod as she did—and, placing her hand within his arm, drew him to the window. They had some conversation together in an undertone; I did not willingly listen to it, and I cannot even be sure that what I heard was not—in part at least—the creation of my own fancy. But my invalid condition had made my hearing, as well as my other senses, preternaturally acute, and the conversation seemed to me to run somewhat thus:

'Did you see his face, as he lay there?' Diana had asked.

'Yes, my dear; a good-looking set of features enough: what then?'

'Don't jest about it, father.'

'Well, well, my dear, I see what you are driving at. Yes, there is a resemblance, certainly; I noticed it from the first; but it might occur in a dozen or twenty instances beside this one. There are more handsome fellows in the world than you think for!'

Diana smiled. 'And the day—is that an accident, too, father? And—' here she pointed upwards, apparently at a certain constellation near Orion—'is that conjunction one that might occur again?'

'Now, Diana! no fatalism! Be yourself, my little girl!'

'But ... it frightens me, father!' she murmured, with a sudden tremulousness, clinging closer to his arm, and leaning her cheek on his broad shoulder. But at this juncture, being determined to hear no more, I got up from the sofa, and, walking to the other end of the room, began to turn over a portfolio of drawings that was resting on an easel there. I had just come upon one representing a young man in a reclining posture, the right knee drawn up, the left arm hanging relaxed, and the head bowed forward in a shadow that obscured the face, rendering its contour indistinguishable:—I was just examining this sketch when my uncle and cousin, still arm-in-arm, approached.

'Your lunar passport is made out,' said the former; 'and here is the courier to guide you thither, if you feel equal to the journey. Ah!' he added, bending over the sketch that I still held in my hand, 'how does that design strike you?'

It puzzles me!' I replied. 'In the general pose it is very like a famous antique bas-relief of Endymion that I remember seeing in Rome, and which is supposed to date back to the time of Phidias.'

'An antique bas relief of the time of Phidias!' repeated my uncle, musingly. 'How now, Diana!'

'Of Endymion, did you say?' she asked, withdrawing from her fathers arm, and taking hold of the free end of the paper with a hand that quivered a little, though her voice was steady. 'And this is like it?'

'Except this, and this,' answered I, indicating certain parts of the design, 'it might have been copied directly from the bas-relief.'

'But in those parts the sketch is original, eh?' put in my uncle.

'No—not even there,' I replied; 'and that is what puzzled me. There is another design of an Endymion—an Egyptian or an Assyrian one, I forget which—but at any rate it was evidently the model of the Greek, and of course immensely more ancient. Now, though the two designs—the older and the later one—closely resemble each other in the main, there are two or three marked points of difference; and this drawing, following as it does the ancient version in those points, while in its general style it takes more after the Greek, seems to be a sort of combination of them both. Certainly,' I added, 'it is more life-like and natural than either. Where did you get it?'

'It's one of your cousin's performances,' said my uncle, carelessly.

'You have been in Europe, then?' I demanded of her, surprised.

'No!' she answered softly, with an in-drawing of the breath.

'How strange, then, that you should have independently hit upon so wonderful a likeness!' I exclaimed. 'I am more puzzled than before!'

'It is strange! and yet,' said she, with an unfathomable look in her hazel eyes, 'perhaps I may have copied it from an original older than either the Grecian or the Egyptian! Cousin Will, do you remember the faces? were they alike in both? and was there anything—anything noticeable in the features?'

It seemed to me that these last questions were asked with an especial earnestness which her low utterance could not wholly conceal. Whether or not my answer relieved her suspense I could not determine.

'No, they were not alike,' I said: 'and so far as I remember there was nothing remarkable about either of them. They simply followed the ordinary classical type of their several schools.'

'I have made a separate study of a head and face for my drawing,' she remarked, after a pause. 'Some time, perhaps, you will see it. But now, if you are ready, we will go up to the observatory.'

'Meanwhile I shall have another cigar on the balcony,' said my uncle. 'If you should wish to join me any time during the next hour or two, nephew, you will find me there.'

He grasped my hand for a moment, and then I followed Diana out of the room.

VI.

We were at the top of the tower staircase. Diana pressed against a panel at the side of the door, and it swung inwards on its hinges, easily and yet ponderously. We entered, and I found myself in a tiny antechamber, with a heavy curtain of embroidered leather in front of me. This Diana pushed aside sufficiently for me to pass on to the room beyond, while she closed the door behind.

It was a circular room, like my own chamber below, but much loftier, and without any sign of windows. A mild half-light descended from a ring of shaded lamps affixed round the walls at a height of nine feet from the floor, leaving the vaulted ceiling in shadow. The walls below the lamps were draped with a kind of tapestry of rich dark hues; and at one side stood a tall carved cabinet of black wood, furnished with a pair of folding-doors and a broad desk, upon which were books and some small instruments of polished brass. On the side opposite the cabinet was a deep niche in the stone wall, supporting a slender antique vase of embossed silver.

These particulars I noticed but passingly: that which immediately and predominantly commanded my attention was the mighty instrument which, with its appurtenances, rose pyramid-like in the centre of the room; lifting heavenward its awful eye, that had looked familiarly upon the mysterious faces of the planets, and revealed their secrets to man. The upper portion of the shaft was enveloped in the obscurity which brooded in the vault; but this dusky veil only deepened its impressiveness. Below, the softened lamplight shone upon a complex arrangement of machinery; wheels and grooves and chains, and subtle levers, all artfully contrived to turn and slide without jar or irregularity, obedient to the light touch of Diana's taper finger. She was the priestess of this temple; here were her virgin stronghold and her home. During the few moments that I had been plunged in contemplation she had thrown on, over the black silk demi-toilette which she had worn during the evening, a flowing mantle of delicate texture, dark as night, with wide drooping sleeves, and falling in soft folds from her shoulders to the floor. Upon her auburn hair she had placed a black velvet cap, such as the astrologers of old used to wear; and as she now stood before me, smiling at me out of her unfathomable nixie eyes, she looked more like an enchantress, wise with the arts of witchcraft than like a mortal maiden with warm blood and human affections. Was she a witch indeed?

'This clockwork can be adjusted so as to keep any one of the stars or planets within the field of the telescope,' said she, quietly, laying her hand upon one of the wheels. 'I have only to move this, and one of these, and then there is nothing more to be done but to sit in the chair, there, and look through the lens.'

'Shall we see the moon to-night?' I asked.

'Yes, if you like.'

She pressed a lever somewhere in the machinery, and immediately the vast tube, that seemed fixed so immovably, swung noiselessly and steadily towards the right, and, pausing there without shock or tremor, waited motionlessly as before.

'It looks at the moon now,' said Diana in a low voice.

'It obeys you as if it could hear you speak,' I responded in the same hushed tone; for as the moment of vision approached nearer, a nervousness which I could not wholly control pervaded my body, and made me fearful of betraying some symptom of unmanly agitation to my companion.

Diana touched the spring which she had before pointed out to me; then laid her finger on her lip and drew me back a step.

All the wheels were in motion; and grandly, slowly, almost imperceptibly, as the sweep of that far-distant planet which it was following in its course through space, the marvellous engine moved along its orbit. At the same moment a strain of subdued melody, resembling somewhat the music of Æolian harps heard far off, floated out and palpitated upon the still air of the vaulted room. The strain grew louder and clearer, then sank again to whisperings almost inaudible: and then once again increased in power and volume, seeming now like a chorus of angelic voices chanting a hymn of praise. I held my breath to listen, and, for a time, forgot surprise in the pure pleasure of the ear.

'What is it?' I whispered at length.

'I call it the song of the moon,' answered Diana. 'You will hear it whenever the moon's rays fall upon the glass. I love it the best of all.'

'There are others, then?'

'Each planet has its song, different from all the others: and the stars also: but those we cannot hear.'

This was said so quietly, and with an air so grave, that I knew not whether my cousin expected me to take it seriously. 'Are you really an enchantress,' I asked, 'that you can bring down to earth the music of the spheres, as well as make their mysteries visible?'

'Why not? is one more wonderful than the other?' she returned, with a faint smile. 'But you must not expect me to tell you all my secrets at once, Cousin Will. Think of me as an enchantress for to-night. I am not the first who has practised magic in this tower. It was built they say, in the time of King Arthur, by the magician Merlin; and Friar Bacon once lived here, and worked upon the problem of the Speaking Head. But none of them could do what I can do, or ever saw what I have seen a thousand times!'

If it had been Diana's intention—as it certainly was not—deliberately to inspire me with a sentiment of superstitious awe and expectation, by working upon an imagination always apt enough for the marvellous and recondite, she could not have chosen a more fitting time and means. The strange aspect of the lofty room, dimly illuminated below and shadowy overhead; the fantastic legends associated with it; the weird music that still trembled through it; and above all the spectacle of that potent instrument even now moving in harmony with the march of the universe;—these things alone might have stimulated the emotions of one of firmer nerves and sturdier health than mine. But, such as I then was, their influence upon me was profound and overmastering. The facts of my past life in the world, the little learning I had acquired—the material certainties, in short, whereby men are accustomed to steady themselves when assailed by aught that threatens to undermine the teachings of their experience—were become to me as nothing. Not what I had known and touched and could explain was true; but, rather, all that was inexplicable and supernatural. I was in love with mystery, and with Diana, and desired no better than to believe in them and do homage to them.

As for Diana, familiar from childhood with the scene and the proceedings, her mood was of composed and deep-seated enjoyment; and she was doubtless far from suspecting my overstrained and almost hysteric plight: nay, I myself was as yet unaware of the degree of my prostration. I watched my cousin walking hither and thither, quietly and methodically completing I knew not what further preparations for the coming revelation, until, unable longer to endure inactive suspense, I asked whether the moment for looking through the telescope were yet arrived.

'There is only one thing more to do, but that is the most important of all,' was her answer. 'Sit in this chair, and you shall see.'

She took hold of the lower end of the telescope, which was there about nine inches in diameter, removed the brass cover from it, and then, with a few light turns, unscrewed the ring that held the lens in place, and brought away the lens itself in her hands. I noticed that it was thicker through the centre than the generality of lenses, and that at one part of the rim there was a small projection, like the neck of a phial, giving the whole something of the appearance of a circular, flattened crystal flask.

She was about to set it edgewise in a velvet-covered frame evidently made for the purpose, when, glancing at me, she seemed to alter her intention.

'You may hold it if you like, Cousin Will,' she said: 'but hold it fast, for it is more precious than adamant. There is none other like it in the world.'

She put it in my hands. 'This is not a lens!' was my thought, as I felt its weight; 'it is hollow!'

'Yes,' she said, answering my look with a smile; 'it is a phial, made to hold an elixir more precious than itself. That silver vase is full of it; and now I am going to pour some into the phial. Then you will see something beautiful!'

'Is this that discovery you spoke of this afternoon?'

'Not the elixir; but the use to which we put it. The receipt for the elixir is a heritage from some of those old alchemists who used to carry on their experiments in this tower hundreds of years ago; and my father thinks it had been handed down to them from some philosopher far more ancient still. At all events he found the parchment on which the receipt was written in a concealed hollow of this wall—in that niche where the silver vase now stands. After long study, he succeeded in deciphering it; and then the elixir was made.'

'But what was it originally intended for—by the alchemists?'

'My father thinks it may have been their famous drink of Immortality,' replied Diana, taking the silver vase from its niche as she spoke. 'But he did not taste it, for he neither wished to live for ever nor to die by poison—and this may as well be an aqua toffana as an elixir vitæ! But, while brewing it, he had noticed the strange effect of moonlight upon it; and as he was there searching for some means of strengthening the telescope, it occurred to him to try an experiment. And this was the result!'

In saying these words, she slipped a funnel into the neck of the phial or lens, and, while I steadied the latter upon my knees, she poured into it about a pint of liquid from the vase. Then, taking it heedfully from my hands, she replaced it in its proper position in the neck of the telescope, secured it there by screwing on the ring, and finally, by turning a button attached to the pipe that supplied the lights, they were at once extinguished, and we were left in darkness.

Yet no—not entirely so! For, when my eyes had had time to recover from the first impression of blackness, I began to perceive that there was still light in the room, though proceeding from a different quarter. It seemed to have a deep crimson hue; and in the course of a minute or two I could see it coming through the lens of the telescope, and evidently taking its colour from the liquid with which Diana had just filled it. But whence did this light originate?

I must have asked this question aloud, for I heard Diana's voice answer:—

'It is the light of the moon. Stoop down, now, and watch the elixir change. But be careful not to look through it, until I give you leave!'

I stooped accordingly, and fixed my eyes upon the crystal. The sound of the mysterious music, rendered more weird by the darkness, did not prevent me from hearing the soft breathing of my companion, whose presence I felt close beside me, though I could not see her. She, too, was watching the changes of the magic liquid; and strange and beautiful in truth they were!

The crimson tint, at first deep and turgid, gradually cleared, until it shone like the purest ruby. A kind of fermentation, momentarily increasing, seemed to be at work within it, and I presently noticed minute currents of blue twisting about like tiny serpents, and multiplying as they moved, until the crimson grew to violet, which, in the course of a few minutes, cleared and strengthened in its turn to a brilliant and superb purple, perfectly translucent, and emitting a lustre so powerful as partly to reveal the figure of Diana, kneeling, with her hands folded upon her lap, in an attitude of thoughtful contemplation. But the fermentation was not yet complete. Again the slender serpents twined and wreathed themselves, dispelling more and more the remaining rays of crimson, and creating a uniform and ever-intensifying light of azure. It was an azure as pure as that of an Egyptian sky, but possessing a wealth and sparkle of colour such as no atmosphere can rival—the sparkle of the ideal sapphire which no lapidary has yet discovered.

'What causes this?' I whispered at length; 'and how is it to end?'

'It is the moon purging the elixir of its last earthly impurities, and making it fit to hold its image,' replied Diana, gravely. 'These changes that you see following each other so rapidly would ordinarily last for days; it is the power given to the rays by the other lenses that hastens the work. See! the blue is already becoming green: now the green brightens into yellow: and now....'

As she spoke, the fermentation gradually ceased; the liquid, having passed through all the preparatory stages, now gleamed white and pure as a diamond. The illumination which it gave forth was so intense, and yet so soft, that it permeated the whole chamber with an unearthly radiance—with the cold, colourless radiance of another world. It was as if the spirit of the moon, obeying the mandate of some irresistible spell, were present with us in that ancient tower.

'It is finished!' said Diana, with a vibration of solemnity in her tones. 'The moon is as near us now as the valley over which you saw her rise this evening. Are you ready?'

Why did I hesitate? The moment for which I had so ardently wished was come. I needed but to turn my face to behold a spectacle which no human beings save Diana and her father had yet looked upon, and which, perhaps, none other than ourselves might ever see. Was it fear that withheld me? Fear of what? Of the revelation on the brink of which I stood? or of myself?

'Are you ready?' Diana repeated.

'No!'

She gazed at me with eyes in which I dreaded to detect indignation or contempt. But no!—their glance was of grave and searching inquiry, nothing more. I forced myself to attempt an explanation of what I myself did not understand.

'I cannot trust myself, Diana. What right have I to know things which God has kept secret from other men? might it not be a kind of profanation? I am not like you—I have not lived so spotless and serene a life. You are worthy of this revelation: no one besides you is worthy of it. Even your father dares not share it with you any longer—in spite of his strength, he distrusts his strength for that. What would you think of me, if I were to look, and yet not see what you see, or feel what you feel? The risk is too great.'

It seemed to me a long while before Diana answered; and first, she sighed.

'You may be right: I have not thought of it—I do not wish to think of it,' she said. 'And perhaps all my life has been wrong—a mistake! Why should what is wrong for you be right for me?'

'There is no parallel between us, Diana.'

'I am a woman and you are a man; we were both born on the earth, to live here and to die here. Only I have lived alone in this tower, and no one has taught me what was good or bad. I tried to find the good in my own way: my father left me to myself; you are the only other man I have ever talked with. I had no companions in the world, so I tried to find one somewhere else. But perhaps it was only something within myself that I found, after all. I cannot tell: I hoped you might be able to help me, cousin.'

'You misunderstand me,' I replied, startled and agitated by the new tone in which she spoke, so different from her usual quiet and cool reserve. 'I would not presume to criticise you, Diana: you seem to me so good and noble that—that sometimes, for my own sake, I almost wish you were less so! It was of my own weaknesses and imperfections that I was thinking.'

'If all the world were no more imperfect than you, I think I should love the world,' said Diana, simply.

I felt the blood come to my face; but I feared so much to shock her by speaking too soon what was in my heart to speak, that I kept silence. Presently she said—

'You will not look, then?'

There was in her voice an accent of such wistful appeal as made my refusal seem cowardly and selfish.

'If you ask it—if you wish it—I will!'

There was a moment's pause.

'I do not wish it!' she exclaimed, standing erect and lifting her head with a gesture of decision. 'If I have done wrong, I must teach myself to feel it—will you leave me now, cousin? I need to be alone a little, I think.' I went to the door; she followed me, and held out her hand. 'Good night, Will,' she said: 'pleasant dreams! we shall see each other again in the morning.'

VII.

It is needless to say that I did not go back to the dining-room in search of my uncle. What with the turmoil of one emotion and another, I had never felt myself less capable of coherent and rational conversation. My whole body was thrilling with excitement; my brain was confused and dizzy. Once or twice I narrowly escaped missing my footing on the narrow winding stair. Having gained my room, I dropped into the chair by the window, thoroughly exhausted. The moon, I remember, though now high in the zenith, was visible from where I sat, and her rays fell upon my upturned face as I lay back, breathing heavily. Before many minutes had passed, I must have fallen asleep. How long my sleep lasted I do not know; but it was long enough for me to have a very vivid and painful dream.

It seemed to me that a tall dark figure, whose face was concealed by a veil, stood beside me and put his hand over my eyes. A dull reddish light was before me: I felt impelled to arise and move towards it. The path by which I went was narrow and uneven; it ran along the summit of a ridge which divided an apparently bottomless valley. Lurid vapours, green and yellow, rolled about far below me, or crept sluggishly up the precipitous sides of the ridge. Suddenly the red light which I followed disappeared; I was upon a rock in the midst of a black, waveless ocean. Far away towards the north a small boat flew horizonwards without sails or oars. In the boat sat the tall dark figure, and by his side was Diana. A feeling of anguish and bitter jealousy burned within me: the woman I loved was being taken away from me by a malignant creature who was neither man nor angel. Further sped the boat: yet I saw Diana turn towards me and wave her hand, as if calling me to save her. I sprang into the black water and swam after her with desperate strokes, but the current swept strong against me, and I made no headway. There was no wind, yet the waves now broke in foam around me, and the foam changed to white serpents, coiling in hissing knots. Then I knew that it was no longer a sea in which I struggled, but the infinite void of space. I moved with the constellations, in an appointed orbit, and in that orbit I must move for ever. The boat had spread a pale luminous sail that gleamed against the darkness: it swept on a course concentric with my own, but a myriad leagues away. Never should that fatal gulf be crossed, or its breadth diminished. Rounder grew the sail; it shone like burnished metal; against the disc I saw the shadowy form of the robber, and Diana in his arms. Through all eternity must I behold her thus, without the power to help or comfort her. Suddenly I passed into a great shadow, like the shadow of utter blindness. I heard a soothing melody, as of fairy choristers. A soft hand clasped mine. My dream was over. I was awake!

Awake—yes, that was certain; but where was I? No longer in my own room; I was standing in a silvery gloom, my temples still throbbing with the agony of my dream. Not yet fully master of my faculties, the idea possessed me that, in my course through space, I had fallen upon a grey cloud, which was bearing me gently onwards towards a great brightness, some glimpse of which I saw above the cloud's edge. Guided by the same soft hand, I reached the edge and sat down upon it. The brightness broke upon my eyes in a white lustre, which for a moment forced me to cover my face with my hands. Then I looked again.

Below me, and close at hand, stretched a vast plain, lit by a ghastly light. Vividly clear it was, but terrible: for there was no colour on those pinnacled mountain-summits, nor along their headlong flanks, nor in the depths of the gaping valleys. No colour, no vegetation, no life: but everywhere a frozen, voiceless, stony immobility, and a metallic lustre, as if the silent feet of innumerable centuries had worn the surface hard and smooth. It was a land of dead volcanoes, whose jagged shadows, blacker than night, lay like blots along the plain. No kindly winds blew down the awful cañons; no tender atmosphere softened their iron outlines; no clouds mercifully swathed their grim nakedness. Here seemed to lie the mighty bones of a creation which God had cursed and forgotten, upon which the sun shone only in mockery, and which was cast adrift upon the universe as an appalling warning, and symbol of the doom of sin. Amidst the happy throng of living, sentient planets, this burnt and frozen skeleton was doomed to glide eternally, seen but unseeing, fleeing for ever, but for ever held in place and pitilessly exposed by a mysterious spell. And what was this accursed world, that hung so near beneath my feet that one step, it seemed, would cast me downward upon its needle peaks? Had it a name? That which it had borne when living was buried in the oblivion of countless ages; never again, through all time to come, should tongue of man repeat its forbidden syllables: but there was another name, lawful to know and speak, which now rose intuitively to my lips and found utterance there: 'the Moon!' And at my ear a low voice that I dimly recognised seemed to confirm my divination: 'Yes,' it said, 'the Moon!' I pressed the little hand that still lay within my own, and thanked God that in this hour of unearthly vision it linked me with humanity.

I had beheld enough; but my eyes, sternly fascinated, gazed on in my own despite. In the foreground of the spectral plain an irregular chasm opened, whose perpendicular walls plunged straight down into pitch darkness. On the further verge of this chasm I saw an object which, at the first glance, I took to be a shapeless boulder, arrested there on its way from the mountain summit to the depths below. But, as my glance continued to dwell upon it, it took on form and meaning—a meaning which made my pulses torpid with dismay—which I strove to reject and disbelieve, but which revealed itself in defiance of my efforts with inevitable distinctness. Was it a carven statue? Or had that petrified figure once had life? Some day in the immeasurable past had it stood erect, moved and breathed, loved and hated? The last survivor of its race, had it witnessed the destruction of all existence, and then lain down defiant, unrepentant, and calm, and composed itself to the stony sleep from which not time itself should see the awakening? There he lay, the nameless Titan, more alone than a mortal brain dare conceive, a being who had spoken his last word, were it curse or blessing—who had done his last deed, were it good or evil—æons before the first vague dawn of life awoke upon our earth—there he lay, lifeless and soulless, yet with the power to shake my soul to-night, and even to assert a weird rivalship with me in the heart of the woman I loved! For this was the figure whose likeness I had found that evening in Diana's portfolio; it was with his ghastly fate that her girlish fancy had conceived a lofty sympathy: with him her pure thoughts had dwelt throughout her youthful years, dreaming who could tell what dreams of strange romance!—seeing in him, who was revealed to herself alone of all women, who knows what stern ideal of supernatural manhood! So had this immemorial relic of another world swayed the life and moulded the character of a mortal creature of to-day, giving to her feminine heart the companionship which it demanded, but which, in the world of men, had been thus far denied her.

And what were the features of my wondrous adversary—he with whom I must struggle for Diana's love? A shadow lay upon them; as I sought to penetrate it, methought the figure stirred! Was its repose of ages at an end, and had it roused itself to meet my human challenge? It stirred: its stiffened limbs moved with slow majesty; the vast trunk swayed and turned. But lo! the whole mountain side moved with it: the frozen crust, contracting with force irresistible, was crushed against itself, and broken; vast masses, bursting from the rocky bed, piled themselves in jagged pyramids. The lips of the great chasm trembled, and approached each other: but ere they met, I saw the form of the Titan sweep downwards to the brink, shattered and riven, but the Titan still. He paused for an instant over the abyss, then plunged headlong in, and the irrevocable lips ground together above him. Even as he plunged his face met mine, and in its stony lineaments I recognised the prototype of my own!

It was not until two or three months afterwards, as I lay recovering from the brain fever brought on by this night's adventure, that I learned how it came about. I had risen from my chair in my sleep, climbed the tower stairs, and re-entered the observatory, where Diana still remained. The touch of her hand and the sound of the music (which was produced by connecting a sort of organ with the machinery of the telescope) had partially awakened me, though not sufficiently to show me where I was. In this condition I had looked through the lens, and the vast spectacle of the moon, brought within the apparent distance of a mile or two by the magnifying power of the elixir, had burst unexpectedly upon me.

That magic lens, by the way, did not long survive the catastrophe which I witnessed by its aid. I believe Diana destroyed it that same night; I know, at all events, that she never used it again herself. She gave up the moon, much to her father's satisfaction, and, I need not say, to my own unspeakable happiness. It has been the care of my life to make her feel that better possibilities of enjoyment exist in the world than in the world's satellite. It was only a few years ago, however, that I trusted myself to tell her the story of the Titan's annihilation. We had been looking over an old portfolio of her drawings together, and a Diana of four years of age, with brown hair and hazel eyes, was assisting us in the work.

'Oh! here's papa,' she suddenly exclaimed.

Diana's mother took the drawing and examined it.

'I did this before I ever saw papa,' she said.

'Then how did you make it so like him?' demanded the small lady.

'I had a presentiment of him, my dear.'

'What's a pre-sent——?'

'My presentiment, in this case, was the man in the moon!' said Mrs. Maybold, laughing. 'Do you remember, love,' she added, handing the drawing to her husband, 'my telling you, on a certain evening, that I had made a study of a certain face, and that I would show it you some time? Well, the time has come!'

'I never was so good-looking as that,' said Mrs. Maybold's husband, with a sigh. 'However, no one will ever be able to compare your presentiment with the reality, for the former disappeared at the moment of my introduction to him.' And hereupon I told my tale. 'Do you regret him?' I asked, when it was finished.

'If you had told me this five years ago, I might have felt relieved by it,' said Mrs. Maybold, after a moment's reflection. 'As it is, the news does not affect me one way or the other.'

I shall not easily forgive my friend Mr. Edward Kemeys, the animal-sculptor, for depriving me of the right of claiming undivided credit for this story. He suggested the main idea, and some of the best details. As told by him, they seemed to me both poetic and powerful. If my version impresses the reader otherwise, it is my fault. I should regret that Mr. Kemeys had not treated the subject himself, were I not familiar with his genius as embodied in clay and bronze. If I could be the author of his 'Deer and Panther' or 'Bison and Wolves,' which had the place of honour at the Paris Salon this year, I would willingly forego the renown of a better story than I ever expect to write.

Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square, London.

[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed.]