And then Charley sauntered away to the whist-table to join his father and mother and Lady Helena. He had as yet found no opportunity of speaking to Edith, and at dinner she had studiously avoided meeting his eye. Captain Hammond took his post beside Miss Stuart's invalid couch, and made himself agreeable and entertaining to that young lady.

Trixy's eyes gradually brightened, and her color came back; she held him a willing captive by her side all the evening through. Papa Stuart from his place at the whist table beamed paternal approval down the long room.

A silken-hung arch separated this drawing-room from another smaller, where the piano stood. Except for two waxlights on the piano, this second drawing-room was in twilight. Edith sat at the piano, Sir Victor stood beside her. Her hands wandered over the keys in soft, dreamy melodies; they talked in whispers when they talked at all. The spell of a silence, more delicious than words, held the young baronet; he was nearing the speechless phase of the grande passion. That there is a speechless phase, I have been credibly assured again and again, by parties who have had experience in the matter, and certainly ought to know.

At half-past ten Lady Helena, pleading headache, rose from the whist-table, said good-night, and went away to her room. She looked ill and worn, and strangely anxious. Her nephew, awaking from his trance of bliss, and seeing her pale face, gave her his arm and assisted her up the long stairway to her room. Mrs. Stuart, yawning very much, followed her example. Mr. Stuart went out through the open French window to smoke a last cigar. Captain Hammond and Trix were fathoms deep in their conversation. Miss Darrell, in the inner room, stood alone, her elbow resting on the low marble mantel, her eyes fixed thoughtfully on the wall before her. The twinkle of the tapers lighted up the diamond on her hand, glowing like a miniature sun.

"You have been so completely monopolized all evening, Dithy," said a familiar voice beside her, "that there has been no such thing as speaking a word to you. Better late than never, though, I hope."

She lifted her eyes to Charley's face, Charley looking as he ever looked to her, "a man of men," handsome and gallant, as though he were indeed the prince they called him. He took in his, the hand hanging so loosely by her side, the hand that wore the ring.

"What a pretty hand you have, Edie, and how well diamonds become it. I think you were born to wear diamonds, my handsome cousin, and walk in silk attire. A magnificent ring, truly—an heirloom, no doubt, in the Catheron family. My dear cousin, Trix has been telling me the news. Is it necessary to say I congratulate you with all my heart?"

His face, his voice, his pleasant smile held no emotion whatever, save that of kindly, cousinly regard. His bright gray eyes looked at her with brotherly frankness, nothing more.

The color that came so seldom, and made her so lovely, rose deep to Edith's cheeks—this time the flush of anger. Her dark eyes gleamed scornfully; she drew her hand suddenly and contemptuously away.

"It is not necessary at all, Cousin Charley. Pray don't trouble yourself—I know how you hate trouble—to turn fine phrases. I don't want congratulations; I am too happy to need them."

"Yet being the correct thing to do, and knowing what a stickler you are for les convenances, Edith, you will still permit me humbly to offer them. It is a most suitable match; I congratulate Sir Victor on his excellent taste and judgment. He is the best fellow alive, and you—I will say it, though you are my cousin—will be a bride even a baronet may be proud of. I wish you both, all the happiness so suitable a match deserves."

Was this sarcasm—was it real? She could not tell, well as she understood him. His placid face, his serene eyes were as cloudless as a summer sky. Yes, he meant it, and only the other day he had told her he loved her. She could have laughed aloud—Charley Stuart's love!

On the instant Sir Victor returned. In his secret heart the baronet was mortally jealous of Charley. The love that Edith could not give him, he felt instinctively, had long ago been given to her handsome cousin. There was latent jealousy in his face now, as he drew near.

"Am I premature, Sir Victor, in offering my congratulations?" Charley said, with pleasant cordiality; "if so, the fact of Edith's being my cousin, almost my sister, must excuse it. You are a fortunate man, baronet. It would be superfluous to wish you joy—you have an overplus of that article already."

Sir Victor's brow cleared. Charley's frankness, Charley's perfect good-humor staggered him. Had he then been mistaken after all? He stretched forth his hand and grasped that of Edith's cousin.

She turned suddenly and walked away, a passion of anger within her, flashing as she went a look of hatred—yes, absolute hatred—upon Charley. She had brought it upon herself, she had deserved it all, but how dared he mock her with his smiles, his good wishes, when he knew, he knew that her whole heart was in his keeping?

"It shall not be in his keeping long," she said savagely, between her set teeth. "Ingrate! More unstable than water! And I was fool enough to cry for him and myself that night at Killarney."

It was half-past eleven when she went up to her room. She had studiously avoided Charley all the remainder of the evening. She had demeaned herself to her affianced with a smiling devotion that had nearly turned his brain. But the smiles and the brightness all faded away as she said good-night. She toiled wearily up the stairs, pale, tired, spiritless, half her youth and beauty gone. Farther down the passage she could hear Charley's mellow voice trolling carelessly a song:

"Did you ever have a cousin, Tom? And could that cousin sing? Sisters we have by the dozen, Tom, But a cousin's a different thing."

Every one went to bed, and to sleep perhaps, but Sir Victor Catheron. He was too happy to sleep. He lit a cigar and paced to and fro in the soft darkness, thinking of the great bliss this day had brought him, thinking over her every word and smile, thinking that the first of September would give him his darling forever. He walked beneath her window of course. She caught a glimpse of him, and with intolerant impatience extinguished her lights and shrouded herself and her wicked rebellion in darkness. His eyes strayed from hers to his aunt's, farther along the same side. Yes, in her room lights still burned. Lady Helena usually kept early hours, as befitted her years and infirmities. What did she mean by "burning the midnight oil" to-night. Was that black lady from London with her still? and in what way was she mixed up with his aunt? What would they tell him to-morrow? What secret did his aunt hold? They could tell him nothing that could in the slightest influence his marriage with Edith, that he knew; but still he wondered a little what it all could be. At one the lights were still burning. He was surprised, but he would wait no longer. He waved his hand towards Miss Darrell's room, this very far gone young man. "Good-night, my love, my own," he murmured Byronically, and went to bed to sleep and dream of her. And no warning voice came in those dreams to tell Sir Victor Catheron it was the last perfectly happy night he would ever know.



CHAPTER XIV.

TO-MORROW.

To-morrow came, gray and overcast. The fine weather which had lasted almost since their leaving New York showed signs of breaking up. Miss Stuart's ankle was so much better that she was able to limp downstairs at eleven, A. M., to breakfast, and resume her flirtation with Captain Hammond where it had broken off last night. Miss Darrell had a headache and did not appear. And, in the absence of his idol and day star, Sir Victor collapsed and ate his morning meal in silence and sadness.

Breakfast over, he walked to one of the windows, looking out at the rain, which was beginning to drift against the glass, and wondering, drearily, how he was to drag through the long hours without Edith. He might go and play billiards with the other fellows; but no, he was too restless even for that. What was he to do to kill time? It was a relief when a servant came with a message from his aunt.

"My lady's compliments, Sir Victor, and will you please step upstairs at once."

"Now for the grand secret," he thought; "the skeleton in the family closet—the discovery of the mysterious woman in black."

The woman in black was nowhere visible when he entered his aunt's apartments. Lady Helena sat alone, her face pale, her eyes heavy and red as though with weeping, but all the anger, all the excitement of yesterday gone.

"My dear aunt," the young man said, really concerned, "I am sorry to see you looking so ill. And—surely you have not been crying?"

"Sit down," his aunt replied. "Yes, I have been crying. I have had good reason to cry for many years past. I have sent for you, Victor, to tell you all—at least all it is advisable to tell you at present. And, before I begin, let me apologize if anything I may have said yesterday on the subject of your engagement has wounded you."

"Dear Lady Helena, between you and me there can be no talk of pardon. It was your right to object if you saw cause, and no doubt it is natural that Edith's want of birth and fortune would weigh with you. But they do not weigh with me, and I know the happiness of my life to be very near your heart. I have only to say again that that happiness lies entirely with her—that without her I should be the most miserable fellow alive—to hear you withdraw every objection and take my darling to your arms as your daughter."

She sighed heavily as she listened.

"A wilful man must have his way. You are, as you told me yesterday, your own master, free to do as you please. To Miss Darrell personally I have no objection; she is beautiful, well-bred, and, I believe, a noble girl. Her poverty and obscure birth are drawbacks in my eyes, but, since they are not so in yours, I will allude to them no more. The objections I made yesterday to your marriage I would have made had your bride been a duke's daughter. I had hoped—it was an absurd hope—that you would not think of marriage for many years to come, perhaps not at all."

"But, Aunt Helena—"

"Do I not say it was an absurd hope? The fact is, Victor, I have been a coward—a nervous, wretched coward from first to last. I shut my eyes to the truth. I feared you might fall in love with this girl, but I put the fear away from me. The time has come when the truth must be spoken, when my love for you can shield you no longer. Before you marry you must know all. Do you remember, in the heat of my excitement yesterday, telling you you had no right to the title you bear? In one sense I spoke the truth. Your father—" she gasped and paused.

"My father?" he breathlessly repeated.

"Your father is alive."

He sat and looked at her—stunned. What was she saying? His father alive, after all those years! and he not Sir Victor Catheron! He half rose—ashen pale.

"Lady Helena, what is this? My father alive—my father, whom for twenty years—since I could think at all—I have thought dead! What vile deception is here?"

"Sit down, Victor; you shall hear all. There is no vile deception—the deception, such as it is, has been by his own desire. Your father lives, but he is hopelessly insane."

He sat looking at her, pale, stern, almost confounded.

"He—he never recovered from the, shock of his wife's dreadful death," went on her ladyship, her voice trembling. "Health returned after that terrible brain fever, but not reason. We took him away—the best medical aid everywhere was tried—all in vain. For years he was hopelessly, utterly insane, never violent, but mind and memory a total blank. He was incurable—he would never reclaim his title, but his bodily health was good, and he might live for many years. Why then deprive you of your rights, since in no way you defrauded him? The world was given to understand he was dead, and you, as you grew up, took his place as though the grave had indeed closed over him. But legally, as you see for yourself, you have no claim to it."

Still he sat gazing at her—still he sat silent, his lips compressed, waiting for the end.

"Of late years, gleams of reason have returned, fitfully and at uncertain times. On these rare occasions he has spoken of you, has expressed the desire that you should still be kept in ignorance, that he shall ever be to the world dead. You perceive, therefore, though it is my duty to tell you this, it need in no way alarm you, as he will never interfere with your claims."

Still he sat silent—a strange, intent listening expression on his face.

"You recollect the lady who came here yesterday," she continued. "Victor, looking far back into the past, have you no recollection of some one, fair and young, who used to bend over you at night, hear you say your baby prayers, and sing you to sleep? Try and think."

He bent his head in assent.

"I remember," he answered.

"Do you recall how she looked—has her face remained in your memory?"

"She had dark eyes and hair, and was handsome. I remember no more."

She looked at him wistfully.

"Victor, have you no idea who that woman was—none?"

"None," he replied coldly. "How could I, since she was not my mother. I never heard her name. Who was she?"

"She was the lady you saw yesterday."

"Who was the lady I saw yesterday?"

She paused a moment, then replied, still with that wistful glance on his face:

"Inez Catheron."

"What?" Again he half-started to his feet. "The woman who was my mother's rival and enemy, who made her life wretched, who was concerned in her murder! Whom you aided to escape from Chesholm jail! The woman who, directly or indirectly, is guilty of her death!"

"Sir Victor Catheron, how dare you!" Lady Helen also started to her feet, her face flushing with haughty anger. "I tell you Inez Catheron has been a martyr—not a murderess. She was your mother's rival, as she had a right to be—was she not your father's plighted wife, long before he ever saw Ethel Dobb? She was your mother's rival. It was her only fault, and her whole life has been spent in expiating it. Was it not atonement sufficient, that for the crime of another, she should be branded with life-long infamy, and banished forever from home and friends?"

"If the guilt was not hers it was her brother's, and she was privy to it," the young man retorted, with sullen coldness.

"Who are you, that you should say whether it was or not? The assassin is known to Heaven, and Heaven has dealt with him. Accuse no one—neither Juan Catheron nor his sister—all human judgment is liable to err. Of your mother's death Inez Catheron is innocent—by it her whole life has been blighted. To your father, that life has been consecrated. She has been his nurse, his companion, his more than sister or mother all those years. I loved him, and I could not have done what she has done. He used her brutally—brutally I say—and her revenge has been life-long devotion and sacrifice. All those years she has never left him. She will never leave him until he dies."

She sank back in her seat, trembling, exhausted. He listened in growing wonder.

"You believe me?" she demanded imperiously.

"I believe you," he replied sadly. "My dear aunt, forgive me. I believe all you have said. Can I not see her and thank her too?"

"You shall see her. It is for that she has remained. Stay here; I will send her to you. She deserves your thanks, though all thanks are but empty and vain for such a life-long martyrdom as hers."

She left him hastily. Profound silence fell. He turned and looked out at the fast-falling rain, at the trees swaying in the fitful wind, at the dull, leaden sky. Was he asleep and dreaming? His father alive! He sat half dazed, unable to realize it.

"Victor!"

He had not heard the door open, he had not heard her approach, but she stood beside him. All in black, soft, noiseless black, a face devoid of all color; large, sad, soft eyes, and hair white as winter snow—that was the woman Sir Victor Catheron saw as he turned round. The face, with all its settled sadness and pallor, was still the face of a beautiful woman, and in weird contradiction to its youth and beauty, were the smooth bands of abundant hair—white as the hair of eighty. The deep, dusk eyes, once so full of pride and fire, looked at him with the tender, saddened light, long, patient suffering had wrought; the lips, once curved in haughtiest disdain, had taken the sweetness of years of hopeless pain. And so, after three-and-twenty years, Victor Catheron saw the woman, whose life his father's falsity and fickleness had wrecked.

"Victor!"

She held out her hand to him shyly, wistfully. The ban of murder had been upon her all these years. Who was to tell that in his inmost heart he too might not brand her as a murderess? But she need not have doubted. If any suspicion yet lingered in his mind, it vanished as he looked at her.

"Miss Catheron!" He grasped her hand, and held it between both his own. "I have but just heard all, for the first time, as you know. That my father lives—that to him you have nobly consecrated your life. He has not deserved it at your hands; let my father's son thank you with all his soul!"

"Ah, hush," she said softly. "I want no thanks. Your poor father! Aunt Helena has told you how miserably all his life has been wrecked—a life once so full of promise."

"She has told me all, Miss Catheron."

"Not Miss Catheron," she interposed, with a smile that lit her worn face into youth and beauty; "not Miss Catheron, surely—Inez, Cousin Inez, if you will. It is twenty-three years—do you know it?—since any one has called me Miss Catheron before. You can't fancy how oddly it sounds."

He looked at her in surprise.

"You do not bear your own name? And yet I might have known it, lying as you still do—"

"Under the ban of murder." She shuddered slightly as she said it. "Yes, when I fled that dreadful night from Chesholm prison, and made my way to London, I left my name behind me. I took at first the name of Miss Black. I lived in dingy lodgings in that crowded part of London, Lambeth; and for the look of the thing, took in sewing. It was of all those years the most dreary, the most miserable and lonely time of my probation. I lived there four months; then came the time of your father's complete restoration to bodily health, and confirmation of the fear that his mind was entirely gone. What was to be done with him? Lady Helena was at a loss to know. There were private asylums, but she disliked the idea of shutting him up in one. He was perfectly gentle, perfectly harmless, perfectly insane. Lady Helena came to see me, and I, pining for the sight of a familiar face, sick and weary to death of the wretched neighborhood in which I lived, proposed the plan that has ever since been the plan of my life. Let Lady Helena take a house, retired enough to be safe, sufficiently suburban to be healthy; let her place Victor there with me; let Mrs. Marsh, my old friend and housekeeper at Catheron Royals, become my housekeeper once more; let Hooper the butler take charge of us, and let us all live together. I thought then, and I think still, it was the best thing for him and for me that could have been suggested. Aunt Helena acted upon it at once; she found a house, on the outskirts of St. John's Wood—a large house, set in spacious grounds, and inclosed by a high wall, called 'Poplar Lodge.' It suited us in every way; it combined all the advantages of town and country. She leased it from the agent for a long term of years, for a 'Mr. and Mrs. Victor,' Mr. Victor being in very poor health. Secretly and by night we removed your father there, and since the night of his entrance he has never passed the gates. From the first—in the days of my youth and my happiness—my life belonged to him; it will belong to him to the end. Hooper and Marsh are with me still, old and feeble now; and of late years I don't think I have been unhappy."

She sighed and looked out at the dull, rain-beaten day. The young man listened in profound pity and admiration. Not unhappy! Branded with the deadliest crime man can commit or the law punish—an exile, a recluse, the life-long companion of an insane man and two old servants! No wonder that at forty her hair was gray—no wonder all life and color had died out of that hopeless face years ago. Perhaps his eyes told her what was passing in his mind; she smiled and answered that look.

"I have not been unhappy, Victor; I want you to believe it. Your father was always more to me than all the world beside—he is so still. He is but the wreck of the Victor I loved, and yet I would rather spend my life by his side than elsewhere on earth. And I was not quite forsaken. Aunt Helena often came and brought you. It seems but yesterday since I had you in my arms rocking you asleep, and now—and now they tell me you are going to be married."

The sensitive color rose over his face for a second, then faded, leaving him very pale.

"I was going to be married," he answered slowly, "but she does not know this. My father lives—the title and inheritance are his, not mine. Who is to tell what she may say now?"

The dark, thoughtful eyes looked at him earnestly.

"Does she love you?" she asked; "this Miss Darrell? I need hardly inquire whether you love her."

"I love her so dearly that if I lose her—" He paused and turned his face away from her in the gray light. "I wish I had known this from the first; I ought to have known. It may have been meant in kindness, but I believe it was a mistake. Heaven knows how it will end now."

"You mean to say, then, that in the hour you lose your title and inheritance you also lose Miss Darrell? Is that it?"

"I have said nothing of the kind. Edith is one of the noblest, the truest of women; but can't you see—it looks as though she had been deceived, imposed upon. The loss of title and wealth would make a difference to any woman on earth."

"Very little to a woman who loves, Victor. I hope—I hope—this young girl loves you?"

Again the color rose over his face—again he turned impatiently away.

"She will love me," he answered; "she has promised it, and Edith Darrell is a girl to keep her word."

"So," Miss Catheron said, softly and sadly, "it is the old French proverb over again, 'There is always one who loves, and one who is loved.' She has owned to you that she is not in love with you, then? Pardon me, Victor, but your happiness is very near to me."

"She has owned it," he answered, "with the rare nobility and candor that belongs to her. Such affection as mine will win its return—'love begets love,' they say. It must."

"Not always, Victor—ah, not always, else what a happy woman I had been! But surely she cares for no one else?"

"She cares for no one else," he answered, doggedly enough, but in his inmost heart that never-dying jealousy of Charley Stuart rankled. "She cares for no one else—she has told me so, and she is pride, and truth, and purity itself. If I lose her through this, then this secret of insanity will have wrecked forever still another life."

"If she is what you picture her," Inez said steadily, "no loss of rank or fortune would ever make her give you up. But you are not to lose either—you need not even tell her, if you choose."

"I can have no secrets from my plighted wife—Edith must know all. But the secret will be as safe with her as with me."

"Very well," she said quietly; "you know what the result will be if by any chance 'Mrs. Victor' and Inez Catheron are discovered to be one. But it shall be exactly as you please. Your father is as dead to you, to all the world, as though he lay in the vaults of Chesholm church, by your mother's side."

"My poor mother! my poor, murdered, unavenged mother! Inez Catheron, you are a noble woman—a brave woman; was it well to aid your brother to escape?—was it well, for the sake of saving the Catheron honor and the Catheron name, to permit a most cruel and cowardly murder to go unavenged?"

What was it that looked up at him out of her eyes? Infinite pity, infinite sorrow, infinite pain.

"My brother," she repeated softly, as if to herself; "poor Juan! he was the scapegoat of the family always. Yes, Sir Victor, it was a cruel and cowardly murder, and yet I believe in my soul we did right to screen the murderer from the world. It is in the hands of the Almighty—there let it rest."

There was a pause—then:

"I shall return with you to London and see my father," he said, as one who claims a right.

"No," she answered firmly; "it is impossible. Stay! Hear me out—it is your father's own wish."

"My father's wish! But—"

"He cannot express a wish, you would say. Of late years, Victor, at wide intervals, his reason has returned for a brief space—all the worse for him."

"The worse for him!" The young man looked at her blankly. "Miss Catheron, do you mean to say it is better for him to be mad?"

"Much better—such madness as his. He does not think—he does not suffer. Memory to him is torture; he loved your mother, Victor—and he lost her—terribly lost her. With memory returns the anguish and despair of that loss as though it were but yesterday. If you saw him as I see him, you would pray as I do, that his mind might be blotted out forever."

"Good Heaven! this is terrible."

"Life is full of terrible things—tragedies, secrets—this is one of them. In these rare intervals of sanity he speaks of you—it is he who directed, in case of your marriage, that you should be told this much—that you are not to be brought to see him, until—"

She paused.

"Until—"

"Until he lies upon his death-bed. That day will be soon, Victor—soon, soon. Those brief glimpses of reason and memory have shortened life. What he suffers in these intervals no words of mine can tell. On his death-bed you are to see him—not before; and then you shall be told the story of your mother's death. No, Victor, spare me now—all I can tell you I have told. I return home by the noon-day train; and, before I go, I should like to see this girl who is to be your wife. See, I will remain by this window, screened by the curtain. Can you not fetch her by some pretence or other beneath it, that I may look and judge for myself?"

"I can try," he said, turning to go. "I have your consent to tell her my father is alive? I will tell her no more—it is not necessary she should know you are his keeper."

"That much you may tell her—it is her right. When I have seen her, come to me and say good-by."

"I shall not say good-by until I say it at Chester Station. Of course, I shall see you off. Wait here; if Edith is able to come out you shall see her. She kept her room this morning with headache."

He left her, half-dazed with what he had heard. He went to the drawing-room—the Stuarts and Captain Hammond were there—not Edith.

"Has Edith come down?" he asked. "I wish to speak to her for a moment."

"Edith is prowling about in the rain, somewhere, like an uneasy ghost," answered Trixy; "no doubt wet feet, and discomfort, and dampness generally are cures for headache; or, perhaps, she's looking for you."

He hardly waited to hear her out before he started in pursuit. As if favored by fortune, he caught a glimpse of Edith's purple dress among the trees in the distance. She had no umbrella, and was wandering about pale and listless in the rain.

"Edith," Sir Victor exclaimed, "out in all this downpour without an umbrella? You will get your death of cold."

"I never take cold," she answered indifferently. "I always liked to run out in the rain ever since I was a child. I must be an amphibious sort of animal, I think. Besides, the damp air helps my headache."

He drew her hand within his arm and led her slowly in the direction of the window where the watcher stood.

"Edith," he began abruptly, "I have news for you. To call it bad news would sound inhuman, and yet it has half-stunned me. It is this—my father is alive."

"Sir Victor!"

"Alive, Edith—hopelessly insane, but alive. That is the news Lady Helena and one other, have told me this morning. It has stunned me; I repeat—is it any wonder? All those years I have thought him dead, and to-day I discover that from first to last I have been deceived."

She stood mute with surprise. His father alive—madness in the family. Truly it would have been difficult for Sir Victor or any one else to call this good news. They were directly beneath the window. He glanced up—yes, a pale face gleamed from behind the curtain, gazing down at that other pale face by Sir Victor's side. Very pale, very set just now.

"Then if your father is alive, he is Sir Victor and not you?"

Those were the first words she spoke; her tone cold, her glance unsympathetic.

His heart contracted.

"He will never interfere with my claim—they assure me of that. Alive in reality, he is dead, to the world. Edith, would it make any difference—if I lost title and estate, would I also lose you?"

The beseeching love in his eyes might have moved her, but just at present she felt as though a stone lay in her bosom instead of a heart.

"I am not a sentimental sort of girl, Sir Victor," she answered steadily. "I am almost too practical and worldly, perhaps. And I must own it would make a difference. I have told you I am not in love with you—as yet—you have elected to take me and wait for that. I tell you now truthfully, if you were not Sir Victor Catheron, I would not marry you. It is best I should be honest, best I should not deceive you. You are a thousand times too good for so mercenary a creature as I am, and if you leave me it will only be serving me right. I don't want to break my promise, to draw back, but I feel in the mood for plain speaking this morning. If you feel that you can't marry me on those terms—and I don't deserve that you should—now is the time to speak. No one will be readier than I to own that it serves me right."

He looked and listened, pale to the lips.

"Edith, in Heaven's name, do you wish me to give you up?"

"No, I wish nothing of the sort. I have promised to marry you, and I am ready to keep that promise; but if you expect love or devotion from me, I tell you frankly I have neither to give. If you are willing still to take me, and"—smiling—"I see you are—I am still ready to be your wife—your true and faithful wife from the first—your loving wife, I hope, in the end."

They said no more. He led her back to the house, then left her. He hastened to Miss Catheron, more sombre even than when he had quitted her.

"Well," he said briefly, "you saw her?"

"I saw her. It is a beautiful face, a proud face, a truthful face, and yet—"

"Go on," he said impatiently. "Don't try to spare me. I am growing accustomed to unpleasant truths."

"I may be wrong, but something in her face tells me she does not love you, and," under her breath, "never will."

"It will come in time. With or without love, she is willing to be my wife—that is happiness enough for the present."

"You told her all?"

"I told her my father was alive and insane—no more. It will make no difference in our plans—none. We are to be married the first of September. The secret is safe with her."

The door opened, and Lady Helena came hastily in.

"If you wish to catch the 12.50 train, Inez," she said, "you must go at once. It is a long drive from this to the station. The brougham is waiting—shall I accompany you?"

"I will accompany her," said Sir Victor. "You had better return to our guests. They will begin to feel themselves neglected."

Miss Catheron left the room. In five minutes she reappeared, closely veiled, as when he had met her on the stairs. The adieux were hastily made. He gave her his arm and led her down to the close brougham. As they passed before the drawing-room windows, Miss Stuart uttered an exclamation:

"Oh! I say! where is Sir Victor going in the rain, and who is the dismal-looking lady in black? Edith, who is it? You ought to know."

"I don't know," Edith answered briefly, not looking up from her book.

"Hasn't Sir Victor told you?"

"I haven't asked Sir Victor."

"Oh, you haven't, and he hasn't told? Well, all I have to say is, that when I'm engaged I hope the object of my affections will keep no secrets from me."

"As if he could!" murmurs Captain Hammond.

"I declare, he is going off with her. Edith, do come and look. There! they are driving away together, as fast as they can go."

But Edith never stirred. If she felt the slightest curiosity on the subject, her face did not show it.

They drove rapidly through the rain, and barely caught the train at that. He placed her hurriedly in an empty carriage, a moment before it started. As it flew by he caught one last glimpse of a veiled face, and a hand waving farewell. Then the train and the woman were out of sight.

Like a man who walks in his sleep, Sir Victor Catheron turned, re-entered the brougham, and was driven home.



CHAPTER XV.

LADY HELENA'S BALL.

Three days after, on Thursday, the fifth of June, Lady Helena Powyss gave a very large dinner-party, followed by a ball in honor of her American guests. When it is your good fortune to number half a county among your friends, relatives, and acquaintances, it is possible to be at once numerous and select. The creme de la creme of Cheshire assembled in Lady Helena's halls of dazzling light, to do honor to Sir Victor Catheron's bride-elect.

For the engagement had been formally announced, and was the choice bit of gossip, with which the shire regaled itself. Sir Victor Catheron was following in the footsteps of his father, and was about to bring to Catheron Royals one of the lower orders as its mistress. It was the Dobb blood no doubt cropping up—these sort of mesalliances will tell. An American, too—a governess, a poor relation of some common rich people from the States. The best county families, with daughters to marry, shook their heads. It was very sad—very sad, to see a good old name and a good old family degenerate in this way. But there was always a taint of madness in the Catheron blood—that accounted for a good deal. Poor Sir Victor—and poor Lady Helena.

But everybody came. They might be deeply shocked and sorry, but still Sir Victor Catheron was Sir Victor Catheron, the richest baronet in the county, and Catheron Royals always a pleasant house to visit—the reigning Lady Catheron always a desirable acquaintance on one's visiting-list. Nobody acknowledged, of course, they went from pure, downright curiosity, to see this manoeuvring American girl, who had taken Sir Victor Catheron captive under the aristocratic noses of the best-born, best-bred, best-blooded young ladies in a circuit of twenty miles.

The eventful night came—the night of Edith's ordeal. Even Trix was a little nervous—only a little—is not perfect self-possession the normal state of American young ladydom? Lady Helena was quite pale in her anxiety. The girl was handsome beyond dispute, thoroughbred as a young countess, despite her birth and bringing up in a New England town and Yankee boarding-house, with pride enough for a princess of forty quarterings, but how would she come forth from the fiery furnace of all those pitiless eyes, sharpened to points to watch for gaucheries and solecisms of good breeding—from the merciless tongues that would hang, draw, and quarter her, the instant their owners were out of the house.

"Don't you feel nervous, Dithy?" asked Trix, almost out of patience at last with Edith's serene calm. "I do—horribly. And Lady Helena has got a fit of the fidgets that will bring her gray hairs to an early grave, if this day lasts much longer. Ain't you afraid—honor bright?"

Edith Darrell lifted her dark, disdainful eyes. She sat reading, while the afternoon wore on, and Trixy fussed and fluttered about the room.

"Afraid of the people who are coming here to-night—is that what you mean? Not a whit! I know as well as you do, they are coming to inspect and find fault with Sir Victor Catheron's choice, to pity him, and call me an adventuress. I know also that any one of these young ladies would have married him, and said 'Thank you for asking,' if he had seen fit to choose them. I have my own pride and Sir Victor's good taste to uphold to-night, and I will uphold them. I think"—she lifted her haughty, dark head, and glanced, with a half-conscious smile, in the pier-glass opposite—"I think I can bear comparison by lamplight with any of these 'daughters of a hundred earls,' such as—Lady Gwendoline Drexel for instance."

"By lamplight," Trix said, ignoring the rest of her speech. "Ah, yes, that's the worst of it, Edith; you dark people always light up well. And Lady Gwendoline Drexel—I wonder what Lady Gwendoline will wear to-night? I should like to be the best-dressed young lady at the ball. Do you know, Dith," spitefully this, "I think Charley is quite struck with Lady Gwendoline. You noticed, I suppose, the attention he paid her the evening we met, and then he has been to Drexel Court by invitation. Pa is most anxious, I know. Money will be no object, you know, with Charley, and really it would be nice to have a titled sister-in-law. 'My sister, Lady Gwendoline Stuart,' will sound very well in New York, won't it? It would be a very suitable match for Charley."

"A most suitable match," Miss Darrell repeated; "age included. She is ten years his senior if a day; but where true love exists, what does a trifle of years on either side signify? He has money—she has rank. He has youth and good looks—she has high birth and a handle to her name. As you say, Trixy, a most suitable match!"

And then Miss Darrell went back to her book, but the slender, black brows were meeting in a steady frown, that quite spoiled her beauty—no doubt at something displeasing in the pages.

"But you mustn't sit here all day," broke in Trix again; "it's high time you were up in your dressing-room. What are you going to wear, Dith?"

"I have not decided yet. I don't much care; it doesn't much matter. I have decided to look my best in anything."

She arose and sauntered out of the room, and was seen no more, until the waxlights blazed from end to end of the great mansion and the June dusk had deepened into dewy night. Then, as the roll of carriages came without ceasing along the drive, she descended, arrayed for battle, to find her impatient slave and adorer awaiting her at the foot of the grand stairway. She smiled upon him her brightest, most beaming smile, a smile that intoxicated him at sight.

"Will I do, Sir Victor?" she asked.

Would she do? He looked at her as a man may look half dazzled, at the sun. He could not have told you what she wore, pink and white clouds it seemed to him—he only knew two brown, luminous, laughing eyes were looking straight into his, and turning his brain with their spell.

"You are sure I will do? You are sure you will not be ashamed of me to-night?" her laughing voice asked again.

Ashamed of her—ashamed! He laughed aloud at the stupendous joke, as he drew her arm within his, and led her into the thronged rooms, as some favored subject may once in his life lead in a queen.

Perhaps there was excuse for him. "I shall look my best in anything," she had said, in her disdain, and she had kept her word. She wore a dress that seemed alternately composed of white tulle and blush-roses; she had roses in her rich, dark hair, hair always beautifully worn; Sir Victor's diamond-betrothal ring shone on her finger; round her arching throat she wore a slender line of yellow gold, a locket set with brilliants attached. The locket had been Lady Helena's gift, and held Sir Victor's portrait. That was her ball array, and she looked as though she were floating in her fleecy white draperies, her perfumery, roses, and sparkling diamonds. The dark eyes outshone the diamonds, a soft flush warmed either cheek. Yes, she was beautiful; so beautiful that saner men than her accepted lover, might have been pardoned if for a moment they lost their heads.

Lady Helena Powyss, in sweeping moire and jewels, receiving her guests, looked at her and drew one long breath of great relief. She might have spared herself all her anxious doubts and fears—low-born and penniless as she was, Sir Victor Catheron's bride would do Sir Victor Catheron honor to-night.

Trix was there—Trix resplendent in pearl silk with a train half the length of the room, pearl silk, point lace, white-camelias, and Neapolitan corals and cameos, incrusted with diamonds—Trix, in all the finery six thousand dollars can buy, drew a long breath of great and bitter envy.

"If one wore the Koh-i-noor and Coronation Robes," thought Miss Stuart sadly, "she would shine one down. She is dazzling to-night. Captain Hammond," tapping that young warrior with her point-lace fan, "don't you think Edith is without exception the most beautiful and elegant girl in the rooms?"

And the gallant captain bows profoundly, and answers with a look that points the speech:

"With one exception, Miss Beatrix, only one."

Charley is there, and perhaps there can be no doubt about it, that Charley is, without exception, far and away, the best looking man. Charley gazes at his cousin for an instant on the arm of her proud and happy lover, radiant and smiling, the centre of all that is best in the room. She lifts her dark, laughing eyes as it chances, and brown and gray meet full. Then he turns away to a tall, languid rather passive lady, who is talking slowly by his side.

"Is Miss Darrell really his cousin? Really? How extremely handsome she is, and how perfectly infatuated Sir Victor seems. Poor Sir Victor! What a pity there is insanity in the family—insanity is such a very shocking thing. How pretty Miss Stuart is looking this evening. She has heard—is it true—can Mr. Stuart inform her—are all American girls handsome?"

And Charley—as Captain Hammond has done—bows, and looks, and replies:

"I used to think so, Lady Gwendoline. I have seen English girls since, and think differently."

Oh, the imbecile falsehoods of society! He is thinking, as he says it, how pallid and faded poor Lady Gwendoline is looking, in her dingy green satin and white Brussels lace overdress, her emeralds and bright golden hair—most beautiful and most expensive shade to be had in London. He is thinking how the Blanc de Perle and rouge vegetal is showing on her three-and-thirty-year-old face, and what his life would be like if he listened to his father and married her. He shudders inwardly and gives it up—"that way madness lies," and while there is a pistol left, wherewith to blow his brains out, he can still hope to escape a worse fate.

But Lady Gwendoline, freighted with eleven seasons' experience, and growing seedy and desperate, clings to him as the drowning cling to straws. She is the daughter of a peer, but there are five younger sisters, all plain and all portionless. Her elder sister, who chaperones her to-night, is the wife of a rich and retired manufacturer, Lady Portia Hampton. The rich and retired manufacturer has purchased Drexel Court, and it is Lady Portia's painful duty to try and marry her sisters off.

The ball is a great success for Miss Edith Darrell. The men rave about her; the women may sneer, but they must do it covertly; her beauty and her grace, her elegance and high breeding, not the most envious dare dispute. Music swells and floats deliciously—scores are suitors for her hand in the dance. The flush deepens on her dusk cheeks, the streaming light in her starry eyes—she is dangerously brilliant to-night. Sir Victor follows in her train whenever his duties allow him; when he dances with others his eyes follow his heart, and go after her. There is but one in all those thronged rooms for him—one who is his idol—his darling—the pride, the joy, the desire of his life.

"My dear, I am proud of you to-night," Lady Helena whispers once. "You surpass yourself—you are lovely beyond compare. You do us all credit."

And Edith Darrell's haughty eyes look up for a moment and they are flashing through tears. She lifts the lady's hand with exquisite grace, and kisses it. Then smiles chase the tears, and she is gone on the arm of some devoted cavalier. Once—only once, she dances with Charley. She has striven to avoid him—no, not that either—it is he who has avoided her. She has seen him—let her be surrounded by scores, she has seen him whispering with Lady Gwendoline, dancing with Lady Gwendoline, fanning Lady Gwendoline, flirting with Lady Gwendoline. It is Lady Gwendoline he leads to supper, and it is after supper, with the enchanting strains of a Strauss waltz filling the air, that he comes up and asks her for that dance.

"I am sure I deserve it for my humility," he says plaintively. "I have stood in the background, humbly and afar off, and given you up to my betters. Surely, after all the bitter pills I have been swallowing, I deserve one sugar-plum."

She laughs—glances at Sir Victor, making his way toward her, takes his arm rather hurriedly, and moves off.

"Is Lady Gwendoline a pill, or a sugar-plum?" she asks. "You certainly seem to have had an overdose of her."

"I owe Lady Gwendoline my deepest thanks," he answered gravely. "Her efforts to keep me amused this evening, have been worthy of a better cause. If the deepest gratitude of a too-trusting heart," says Charley, laying his hand on the left side of his white waistcoat, "be any reward for such service, it is hers."

They float away. To Edith it is the one dance of the night. She hardly knows whether she whirls in air or on the waxed floor; she only knows that it is like heaven, that the music is celestial, and that it is Charley's arm that is clasping her close. Will she ever waltz with him again, she wonders, and she feels, feels in her inmost heart, that she is sinning against her affianced husband in waltzing with him now. But it is so delicious—what a pity most of the delicious things of earth should be wrong. If it could only last forever—forever! And while she thinks it, it stops.

"O Charley! that was a waltz!" she says, leaning on him heavily, and panting; "no one else has my step as you have it."

"Let us trust that Sir Victor will learn it," he responds coolly; "here he comes now. It was a charming waltz, Dithy, but charming things must end. Your lawful proprietor approaches; to your lawful proprietor I resign you."

He was perfectly unflushed, perfectly unexcited. He bows, smiles, yields her to Sir Victor, and saunters away. Five seconds later he is bending over Lady Gwendoline's chair, whispering in the pink, patrician ear resting against the glistening, golden chignon. Edith looks once—in her heart she hates Lady Gwendoline—looks once, and looks no more.

And as the serene June morning dawns, and larks and thrushes pipe in the trees, Lady Helena's dear five hundred friends, sleepy and pallid, get into their carriages and go home.



CHAPTER XVI.

"O MY COUSIN SHALLOW-HEARTED!"

The middle of the day is past before one by one they straggle down. Breakfast awaits each newcomer, hot and tempting. Trix eats hers with a relish. Trix possesses one of the chief elements of perpetual human happiness—an appetite that never fails, a digestion that, in her own metaphorical American language, "never goes back on her." But Edith looks fagged and spiritless. If people are to be supernaturally brilliant and bright, dashing and fascinating all night long, people must expect to pay the penalty next day, when lassitude and reaction set in.

"My poor Edie!" Mr. Charles Stuart remarks, compassionately, glancing at the wan cheeks and lustreless eyes, as he lights his after-breakfast cigar, "you do look most awfully used up. What a pity for their peace of mind, some of your frantic adorers of last night can't see you now. Let me recommend you to go back to bed and try an S. and B."

"An 'S. and B.'?" Edith repeats vaguely.

"Soda and Brandy. It's the thing, depend upon it, for such a case as yours. I've been seedy myself before now, and know what I'm talking about. I'll mix it for you, if you like."

There is a copy of Tennyson, in blue and gold, beside Miss Darrell, and Miss Darrell's reply is to fling it at Mr. Stuart's head. It is a last effort of expiring nature; she sinks back exhausted among her cushions. Charley departs to enjoy his Manila out under the waving trees, and Sir Victor, looking fresh and recuperated, strolls in and bends over her.

"My dear Edith," he says, "how pale you are this morning—how tired you look. If one ball is going to exhaust you like this, how will you stand the wear and tear of London seasons in the blissful time to come?"

She does not blush—she turns a trifle impatiently away from him and looks out. She can see Charley and Hammond smoking sociably together in the sunny distance.

"I will grow used to it, I dare say. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'"

"Have you had breakfast?"

"I made an effort and failed. I watched Trix eat hers, however, and that refreshed me quite as well. It was invigorating only to look at her."

He smiles and bends lower, drawing one long brown silken tress of hair fondly through his fingers, feeling as though he would like to stoop and kiss the pale, weary face. But Trix is over yonder, pretending to read, and kissing is not to be thought of.

"I am going over to Catheron Royals," he whispered; "suppose you come—the walk will do you good. I am giving orders about the fitting up of the old place. Did I tell you the workmen came yesterday?"

"Yes; you told me."

"Shall I ring for your hat and parasol? Do come, Edith."

"Excuse me, Sir Victor," Edith answers, with an impatient motion, "I feel too tired—too lazy, which ever you like—to stir. Some other day I will go with pleasure—just now I feel like lying here and doing the dolce far niente. Don't let me detain you, however."

He turns to leave her with a disappointed face. Edith closes her eyes and takes an easier position among the pillows. The door closes behind him; Trix flings down her book and bursts forth:

"Of all the heartless, cold-blooded animals it has ever been my good fortune to meet, commend me to Edith Darrell!"

The dark eyes unclose and look up at her.

"My dear Trix! what's the matter with you now? What new enormity have I committed?"

"Oh, nothing new—nothing new at all," is Trixy's scornful response; "it is quite in keeping with the rest of your conduct. To be purely and entirely selfish is the normal state of the future Lady Catheron! Poor Sir Victor! who has won you. Poor Charley! who has lost you. I hardly know which I pity most."

"I don't see that you need waste your precious pity on either," answered Edith, perfectly unmoved by Miss Stuart's vituperation; "keep it for me. I shall make Sir Victor a very good wife as wives go, and for Charley—well, Lady Gwendoline is left to console him."

"Yes, of course, there is Lady Gwendoline. O Edith! Edith! what are you made of? Flesh and blood like other people, or waxwork, with a stone for a heart? How can you sell yourself, as you are going to do? Sir Victor Catheron is no more to you than his hall-porter, and yet you persist in marrying him. You love my brother and yet you hand him over to Lady Gwendoline. Come, Edith, be honest for once; you love Charley, don't you?"

"It is rather late in the day for such tender confessions as that," Edith replies, with a reckless sort of laugh; "but yes—if the declaration does you any good, Trix—I love Charley."

"And you give him up! Miss Darrell, I give you up as a conundrum I can't solve. Rank and title are all very well—nobody thinks more of them than I do; but if I loved a man," cried Trix, with kindling eyes and glowing cheeks, "I'd marry him! Yes; I would, though he were a beggar."

Edith looked up at her kindly, with a smothered sigh.

"I believe you, Trix; but then you are different from me." She half-raised herself, looking dreamily out on the sunlit prospect of lawn, and coppice, and woodland. "Here it is: I love Charley, but I love myself better. O Trix, child, don't let us talk about it; I am tired, and my head aches." She pushed back the heavy, dark hair wearily off her temples with both hands. "I am what you call me, a selfish wretch—a heartless little brute—and I am going to marry Sir Victor Catheron. Pity him, if you like, poor fellow! for he loves me with his whole heart, and he is a brave and loyal gentleman. But don't pity your brother, my dear; believe me, he doesn't need it. He's a good fellow, Charley, and he likes me, but he won't break his heart or commit suicide while he has a cigar left."

"Here he comes!" exclaimed Trix, "and I believe he has heard us."

"Let him come," Edith returns, lying listlessly back among her cushions once more. "It doesn't matter if he has. It will be no news to him."

"It is a pity you should miss each other, though," Trix says sarcastically, as she turns to go; "such thorough philosophers both; I believe you were made for each other, and, as far as easy-going selfishness is concerned, there is little to choose between you. It's a thousand pities Sir Victor can't hear all this."

"He might if he liked," is Edith's answer. "I shouldn't care. Charley!" as Charley comes in and Trix goes out, "have you been eavesdropping? Don't deny it, sir, if you have!"

Charley takes a position in an easy-chair some yards distant, and looks at her lying there, languid and lovely.

"I have been eavesdropping—I never deny my small vices. Hammond left me to go to the stables, and, strolling under the window, I overheard you and Trix. Open confession is beneficial, no doubt; but, my dear cousin, you really shouldn't make it in so audible a tone. It might have been Sir Victor instead of me."

She says nothing. The sombre look he has learned to know is in her dusk eyes, on her dark, colorless face.

"Poor Sir Victor!" he goes on; "he loves you—not a doubt of that, Dithy—to the depths of idiocy, where you know so well how to cast your victims; but hard hit as he is, I wonder what he would say if he heard all this!"

"You might tell him, Charley," Edith says. "I shouldn't mind much, and he might jilt me—who can tell? I think it would do us both good. You could say, 'Look here: don't marry Edith Darrell, Sir Victor; she isn't worthy of you or any good man. She is full of pride, vanity, ambition, selfishness, ill-temper, cynicism, and all uncharitableness. She is blase at nineteen—think what she will be at nine-and-twenty. She doesn't love you—I know her well enough to be sure she never will, partly because a heart was left out in her hard anatomy, partly because—because all the liking she ever had to give, went long ago to somebody else.' Charley, I think he would give me up, and I'd respect him for it, if he knew that. Tell him, if you have the courage, and when he casts me off, come to me and make me marry you. You can do it, you know; and when the honeymoon is over—when poverty stalks in at the door and love flies out of the window—when we hate each other as only ill-assorted wives and husbands ever hate—let the thought that we have done the 'All for love, and the world well lost' business, to the bitter end, console us."

She laughs recklessly; she feels reckless enough to say anything, do anything, this morning. Love, ambition, rank, wealth—what empty baubles they all look, seen through tired eyes the day after a ball!

He sits silent, watching her thoughtfully.

"I don't understand you, Edith," he says. "I feel like asking you the same question Trix did. Why do you marry Sir Victor?"

"Why do I marry him?" she repeated. "Well—a little because of his handsome face and stately bearing, and the triumph of carrying off a prize, for which your Lady Gwendoline and half a score more have battled. A little because he pleads so eloquently, and loves me as no other mortal man did, or ever will; and oh! Charley, a great deal because he is Sir Victor Catheron of Catheron Royals, with a rent-roll of twenty thousand a year, and more, and a name that is older than Magna Charta. If there be any virtue in truth, there—you have it, plain, unvarnished. I like him—who could help it; but love him—no!" She clasped her hands above her head, and gazed dreamily out at the sparkling sunlit scene. "I shall be very fond of him, very proud of him, when I am his wife—that I know. He will enter Parliament, and make speeches, and write political pamphlets, and redress the wrongs of the people. He's the sort of man politicians are made of—the sort of man a wife can be proud of. And on my wedding day, or perhaps a day or two before, you and I shall shake hands, sir, and see each other no more."

"No more?" he repeats.

"Well, for a year or two at least, until all the folly of the past can be remembered only as a thing to be laughed at. Or until there is a tall, handsome Mrs. Stuart, or, more likely, a Lady Gwendoline Stuart. And Charley," speaking hurriedly now, and not meeting the deep gray eyes she knows are fixed upon her, "the locket with my picture and the letters—you won't want them then—suppose you let me have them back."

"I won't want them then, certainly," Charley responds, "if by 'then' you mean when I am the husband of the tall, fascinating Mrs. Stuart or Lady Gwendoline. But as I have not that happiness yet, suppose you allow me to retain them until I have. Sir Victor will never know, and he would not mind much if he did. We are cousins, are we not? and what more natural than that cousins once removed should keep each other's pictures? By the bye, I see you still wear that little trumpery pearl and turquoise brooch I gave you, with my photo at the back. Give it to me, Edie; turquoise does not become your brown skin, my dear, and I'll give you a ruby pin with Sir Victor's instead. Perhaps, as turquoise does become her, Lady Gwendoline will accept this as love's first timid offering. The rubies will do twice as well for you."

He stretched out his hand to unfasten it. She sprang back, her cheeks flushing at his touch.

"You shall not have it! Neither Lady Gwendoline nor any one else shall wear it, and, married or single, I shall keep it to my dying day if I choose. Charley—what do you mean, sir! How dare you? Let me go!"

For he had risen suddenly and caught her in his arms, looking steadily down into her dark eyes, with a gaze she would not meet. Whilst he held her, whilst he looked at her, he was her master, and he knew it.

"Charley, let me go!" she pleaded. "If any one came in; the servants, or—or—Sir Victor."

He laughed contemptuously, and held her still.

"Yes, Edith; suppose Sir Victor came in and saw his bride-elect with a sacrilegious arm about her waist? Suppose I told him the truth—that you are mine, not his: mine by the love that alone makes marriage holy; his for his title and his rent-roll—bought and sold. By Heaven! I half wish he would!"

Was this Charley—Charley Stuart?

She caught her breath—her pride and her insolence dropping from her—only a girl in the grasp of the man she loves. In that moment, if he had willed it, he could have made her forego her plight, and pledge herself to be his wholly, and he knew it.

"Edith," he said, "as I stand and look at you, in your beauty and your selfishness, I hardly know whether I love or despise you most. I could make you marry me—make you, mind—but you are not worth it. Go!" He opened his arms contemptuously and released her. "You'll not be a bad wife for Sir Victor, I dare say, as fashionable wives go. You'll be that ornament of society, a married flirt, but you'll never run away with his dearest friend, and make a case for the D. C. 'All for love and the world well lost,' is no motto of yours, my handsome cousin. A week ago I envied Sir Victor with all my heart—to-day I pity him with all my soul!"

He turned to go, for once in his life, thoroughly aroused, passionate love; passionate rage at war within him. She had sunk back upon the sofa, her face hidden in her hands, humbled, as in all her proud life she had never been humbled before. Her silence, her humility touched him. He heard a stifled sob, and all his hot anger died out in pained remorse.

"Oh, forgive me, Edith!" he said, "forgive me. It may be cruel, but I had to speak. It is the first, it will be the last time. I am selfish, too, or I would never have pained you—better never hear the truth than that the hearing should make you miserable. Don't cry, Edith; I can't bear it. Forgive me, my cousin—they are the last tears I will ever make you shed."

The words he meant to soothe her, hurt more deeply than the words he meant to wound. "They are the last tears I will ever make you shed!" An eternal farewell was in the words. She heard the door open, heard it close, and knew that her love and her life had parted in that instant forever.



CHAPTER XVII.

"FOREVER AND EVER."

Two weeks later, as June's golden days were drawing to a close, five of Lady Helena's guests departed from Powyss Place. One remained behind. The Stuart family, with the devoted Captain Hammond in Trixy's train, went up to London; Miss Edith Darrell stayed behind.

Since the memorable day following the ball, the bride-elect of Sir Victor Catheron had dwelt in a sort of earthly purgatory, had lived stretched on a sort of daily rack. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight." She had given up Charley—had cast him off, had bartered herself in cold blood—for a title and an income. And now that he held her at her true value, that his love had died a natural death in contempt and scorn, her whole heart, her whole soul craved him with a sick longing that was like death. It was her daily torture and penance to see him, to speak to him, and note the cold scorn of his gray, tranquil eyes. Jealousy had been added to her other torments; he was ever by Lady Gwendoline's side of late—ever at Drexel Court. His father had set his heart upon the match; she was graceful and high-bred; it would end in a marriage, no doubt. There were times when she woke from her jealous anger to rage at herself.

"What a dog in the manger I grow," she said, with a bitter laugh. "I won't have him myself, and I cannot bear that any one else should have him. If he would only go away—if he only would—I cannot endure this much longer."

Truly she could not. She was losing flesh and color, waxing wan as a shadow. Sir Victor was full of concern, full of wonder and alarm. Lady Helena said little, but (being a woman) her sharp old eyes saw all.

"The sooner my guests go, the better," she thought; "the sooner she sees the last of this young man, the sooner health and strength will return."

Perhaps Charley saw too—the gray, tranquil eyes were very penetrating. It was he, at all events, who urged the exodus to London.

"Let us see a little London life in the season, governor," he said. "Lady Portia Hampton, and that lot, are going. They'll introduce us to some nice people—so will Hammond. Rustic lanes and hawthorn ledges are all very pretty, but there's a possibility of their palling on depraved New York minds. I pine for stone and mortar, and the fog and smoke of London."

Whatever he may have felt, he bore it easily to all outward seeming, as the men who feel deepest mostly do. He could not be said to actually avoid her, but certainly since that afternoon in the drawing-room, they had never been for five seconds alone.

Mr. Stuart, senior, had agreed, with almost feverish eagerness, to the proposed change. Life had been very pleasant in Cheshire, with picnics, water-parties down the Dee, drives to show-places, lawn billiards, and croquet, but a month of it was enough. Sir Victor was immersed in his building projects and his lady-love; Lady Helena, ever since the coming and going of the lady in black, had not been the same. Powyss place was a pleasant house, but enough was enough. They were ready to say good-by and be off to "fresh fields and pastures new."

"And, my dear child," said Lady Helena to Edith, when the departure was fixed, "I think you had much better remain behind."

There was an emphasis in her tone, a meaning glance in her eye, that brought the conscious blood to the girl's cheek. Her eyes fell—her lips quivered for an instant—she made no reply.

"Certainly Edith will remain," Sir Victor interposed impetuously. "As if we could survive down here without her! And, of course, just at present it is impossible for me to leave. They don't need her half as much as we do—Miss Stuart has Hammond, Prince Charley has Gwendoline Drexel; Edith would only be in the way!"

"It is settled, then?" said Lady Helena again, watching Edith with a curiously intent look. "You remain?"

"I will remain," Edith answered, very lowly and without lifting her eyes.

"My own idea is," went on the young baronet confidentially, to his lady love, "that they are glad to be gone. Something seems to be the matter with Stuart pere—under a cloud, rather, just at present. Has it struck you, Dithy?"

He had caught the way of calling her by the pet name Trix and Charley used. She lifted her eyes abstractedly now, as he asked the question.

"Mr. Stuart? What did you say, Sir Victor? Oh—under a cloud. Well, yes, I have noticed it. I think it is something connected with his business in New York. In papa's last letter he alluded to it."

"In papa's last letter," Mr. Frederick Darrell had said this:

"One of their great financial crises, they tell me, is approaching in New York, involving many failures and immense loss. One of the most deeply involved, it is whispered, will be James Stuart. I have heard he is threatened with ruin. Let us hope, however, this may be exaggerated. Once I fancied it would be a fine thing, a brilliant match, if my Edith married James Stuart's son. How much better Providence has arranged it! Once more, my dearest daughter, I congratulate you on the brilliant vista opening before you. Your step-mother, who desires her best love, never wearies of spreading the wonderful news that our little Edie is so soon to be the bride of a great English baronet."

Miss Darrell's straight black brows met in one frowning line as she perused this parental and pious epistle. The next instant it was torn into minute atoms, and scattered to the four winds of heaven.

There seemed to be some foundation for the news. Letters without end kept coming for Mr. Stuart; little boys bearing the ominous orange envelopes of the telegraph company, came almost daily to Powyss Place. After these letters and cable messages the gloom on Mr. Stuart's face deepened and darkened. He lost sleep, he lost appetite; some great and secret fear seemed preying upon him. What was it? His family noticed it, and inquired about his health. He rebuffed them impatiently; he was quite well—he wanted to be let alone—why the unmentionable-to-ears-polite need they badger him with questions? They held their peace and let him alone. That it in any way concerned commercial failure they never dreamed; to them the wealth of the husband and father was something illimitable—a golden river flowing from a golden ocean. That ruin could approach them never entered their wildest dreams.

He had gone to Edith one day and offered her a thousand-dollar check.

"For your trousseau, my dear," he had said. "It isn't what I expected to give you—what I would give you, if—" He gulped and paused. "Things have changed with me lately. You will accept this, Edie—it will at least buy your wedding-dress."

She had shrunk back, and refused—not proudly, or angrily—very humbly, but very firmly. From Charley's father she could never take a farthing now.

"No" she said, "I can't take it. Dear Mr. Stuart, I thank you all the same; you have given me more already than I deserve or can ever repay. I cannot take this. Sir Victor Catheron takes me as I am—poor, penniless. Lady Helena will give me a white silk dress and veil to be married in. For the rest, after my wedding-day, whatever my life may lack, it will not lack dresses."

He had replaced the check in his pocket-book, inwardly thankful, perhaps, that it had not been accepted. The day was past when a thousand dollars would have been but as a drop in the ocean to him.

The time of departure was fixed at length; and the moment it was fixed, Trix flew upstairs, and into Edith's room, with the news.

"Oh, let us be joyful," sang Miss Stuart, waltzing in psalm time up and down the room; "we're off at last, the day after to-morrow, Dithy; so go pack up at once. It's been very jolly, and all that, down here, for the past four weeks, and you've had a good time, I know; but I, for one, will be glad to hear the bustle and din of city life once more. One grows tired doing the pastoral and tooral-ooral—I mean truly rural—and craves for shops, and gaslight, and glitter, and crowds of human beings once more. Our rooms are taken at Langham's, Edie, and that blessed darling, Captain Hammond, goes with us. Lady Portia, Lady Gwendoline, and Lady Laura are coming also, and I mean to plunge headlong into the giddy whirl of dissipation, and mingle with the bloated aristocracy. Why don't you laugh? What are you looking so sulky about?"

"Am I looking sulky?" Edith said, with a faint smile. "I don't feel sulky. I sincerely hope you may enjoy yourself even more than you anticipate."

"Oh—you do!" said Trix, opening her eyes; "and how about yourself—don't you expect to enjoy yourself at all?"

"I would, no doubt, only—I am not going."

"Not going!" Thunderstruck, Trix repeats the words.

"No; it has been decided that I remain here. You won't miss me, Trix—you will have Captain Hammond."

"Captain Hammond may go hang himself. I want you, and you I mean to have. Let's sit down and reason this thing out. Now what new crotchet has got into your head? May I ask what your ladyship-elect means to do?"

"To remain quietly here until—until—you know."

"Oh, I know!" with indescribable scorn; "until you are raised to the sublime dignity of a baronet's wife. And you mean to mope away your existence down here for the next two months listening to love-making you don't care that about. Oh, no need to fire up; I know how much you care about it. And I say you shan't. Why, you are fading away to a shadow now under it. You shall come up to London with us and recuperate. Charley shall take you everywhere."

She saw her wince—yes, that was where the vital place lay. Miss Stuart ran on:

"The idea of living under the same roof for two mortal months with the young man you are going to marry! You're a great stickler for etiquette—I hope you don't call that etiquette? Nobody ever heard of such a thing. I'm not sure but that it would be immoral. Of course, there's Lady Helena to play propriety, and there's the improvements at Catheron Royals to amuse you, and there's Sir Victor's endless 'lovering' to edify you, but still I say you shall come. You started with us, and you shall stay with us—you belong to us, not to him, until the nuptial knot is tied. I wouldn't give a fig for London without you. I should die of the dismals in a week."

"What, Trix—with Captain Hammond?"

"Bother Captain Hammond! I want you. O Edie, do come!"

"I can't, Trix." She turned away with an impatient sigh. "I have promised. Sir Victor wishes it, Lady Helena wishes it. It is impossible."

"And Edith Darrell wishes it. Oh, say it out, Edith," Trix retorted bitterly. "Your faults are many, but fear of the truth used not to be among them. You have promised. Is it that they are afraid to trust you out of their sight?"

"Let me alone, Trix. I am tired and sick—I can't bear it."

She laid her face down upon her arm—tired, as she said—sick, soul and body. Every fibre of her heart was longing to go with them—to be with him while she might, treason or no to Sir Victor; but it could not be.

Trix stood and looked at her, pale with anger.

"I will let you alone, Miss Darrell. More—I will let you alone for the remainder of your life. All the past has been bad enough. Your deceit to me, your heartlessness to Charley—this is the last drop in the cup. You throw us over when we have served your turn for newer, grander friends—it is only the way of the world, and what one might expect from Miss Edith Darrell. But I didn't expect it—I didn't think ingratitude was one among your failings. I was a fool!" cried Trix, with a burst. "I always was a fool and always will be. But I'll be fooled by you no longer. Stay here, Miss Darrell, and when we say good-by day after to-morrow, it shall be good-by forever."

And then Miss Stuart, very red in the face, very flashing in the eyes, bounced out of the room, and Edith was left alone.

Only another friend lost forever. Well, she had Sir Victor Catheron left—he must suffice for all now.

All that day and most of the next she kept her room. It was no falsehood to say she was ill—she was. She lay upon her bed, her dark eyes open, her hands clasped over her head, looking blankly before her. To-morrow they must part, and after to-morrow—but her mind gave it up; she could not look beyond.

She came downstairs when to-morrow came to say farewell. The white wrapper she wore was not whiter than her face. Mr. Stuart shook hands in a nervous, hurried sort of way that had grown habitual to him of late. Mrs. Stuart kissed her fondly, Miss Stuart just touched her lips formally to her cheek, and Mr. Charles Stuart held her cold fingers for two seconds in his warm clasp, looked, with his own easy, pleasant smile, straight into her eyes, and said good-by precisely as he said it to Lady Helena. Then it was all over; they were gone; the wheels that bore them away crashed over the gravel: Edith Darrell felt as though they were crashing over her heart.

That night the Stuarts were established in elegant apartments at Langham's Hotel.

But alas for the frailty of human hopes! "The splendid time" Trixy so confidently looked forward to never came. The very morning after their arrival came one of the boys in uniform with another sinister orange envelope for the head of the family. The head of the family chanced to be alone in his dressing-room. He took it with trembling hand and bloodshot eyes, and tore it open. A moment after there was a horrible cry like nothing human, then a heavy fall. Mrs. Stuart rushed in with a scream, and found her husband lying on the floor, the message in his hand, in a fit.

* * * * *

Captain Hammond had made an appointment with Charley to dine at St. James Street that evening. Calling upon old friends kept the gallant captain of Scotch Grays occupied all day; and as the shades of evening began to gather over the West End, he stood impatiently awaiting his arrival. Mr. Stuart was ten minutes late, and if there was one thing in this mortal life that upset the young warrior's equanimity, it was being kept ten minutes waiting for his dinner. Five minutes more! Confound the fellow—would he never come? As the impatient adjuration passed the captain's lips, Charley came in. He was rather pale. Except for that, there was no change in him. Death itself could hardly have wrought much change in Charley. He had not come to apologize; he had not come to dine. He had come to tell the captain some very bad news. There had been terrible commercial disasters of late in New York; they had involved his father. His father had embarked almost every dollar of his fortune in some bubble speculations that had gone up like a rocket and come down like a stick. He had been losing immensely for the past month. This morning he had received a cable message, telling him the crash had come. He was irretrievably, past all hope of redemption, ruined.

All this Charley told in his quietest voice, looking out through the great bay window at the bustle and whirl of fashionable London life, at the hour of seven in the evening. Captain Hammond, smoking a cigar, listened in gloomy silence, feeling particularly uncomfortable, and not knowing in the least what to say. He took out his cheroot and spoke at last.

"It's a deuced bad state of affairs, Charley. Have you thought of anything?"

"I've thought of suicide," Charley answered, "and made all the preliminary arrangements. I took out my razor-case, examined the edges, found the sharpest, and—put it carefully away again. I loaded all the chambers of my revolver, and locked it up. I sauntered by the classic banks of the Serpentine, sleeping tranquilly in the rays of the sunset (that sounds like poetry, but I don't mean poetry). Of the three I think I prefer it, and if the worst comes to the worst, it's there still, and it's pleasant and cool."

"How do your mother and sister take it?" Captain Hammond gloomily asked.

"My mother is one of those happy-go-lucky, apathetic sort of people who never break their hearts over anything. She said 'O dear me!' several times, I believe, and cried a little. Trix hasn't time to 'take it' at all. She is absorbed all day in attending her father. The fit turns out not to be dangerous at present, but he lies in a sort of stupor, a lethargy from which nothing can rouse him. Of course our first step will be to return to New York immediately. Beggars—and I take it that's about what we are at present—have no business at Langham's."

Captain Hammond opened his bearded lips as though to speak, thought better of it, replaced his cigar again between them in moody silence, and stared hard at nothing out of the window.

"I called this afternoon upon the London agent of the Cunard ships," resumed Charley, "and found that one sails in four days. Providentially two cabins remained untaken; I secured them at once. In four days, then, we sail. Meantime, old fellow, if you'll drop in and speak a word to mother and Trix, you will be doing a friendly deed. Poor souls! they are awfully cut up."

Captain Hammond started to his feet. He seized Charley's hand in a grip of iron. "Old boy!" he began—he never got further. The torrent of eloquence dried up suddenly, and a shake of the hand that made Charley wince finished the sentence.

"I shall be fully occupied in the meantime," Charley said, taking his hat and turning to go, "and they'll be a great deal alone. If I can find time I'll run down to Cheshire, and tell my cousin. As we may not meet again, I should like to say 'good-by.'" He departed.

There was no sleep that night in the Stuart apartments. Mr. Stuart was pronounced out of danger and able to travel, but he still lay in that lethargic trance—not speaking at all, and seemingly not suffering. Next day Charley started for Cheshire.

"She doesn't deserve it," his sister said bitterly; "I wouldn't go if I were you. She has her lover—her fortune. What are we or our misfortunes to her? She has neither heart, nor gratitude, nor affection. She isn't worth a thought, and never was—there!"

"I wouldn't be too hard upon her, Trix, if I were you," her brother answered coolly. "You would have taken Sir Victor yourself, you know, if you could have got him. I will go."

He went. The long, bright summer day passed; at six he was in Chester. There was some delay in procuring a conveyance to Powyss Place, and the drive was a lengthy one. Twilight had entirely fallen, and lamps glimmered in the windows of the old stone mansion as he alighted.

The servant stared, as he ushered him in, at his pale face and dusty garments.

"You will tell Miss Darrell I wish to see her at once, and alone," he said, slipping a shilling into the man's hand.

He took a seat in the familiar reception-room, and waited. Would she keep him long, he wondered—would she come to him—would she come at all? Yes, he knew she would, let him send for her, married or single, when and how he might, he knew she would come.

She entered as the thought crossed his mind, hastily, with a soft silken rustle, a waft of perfume. He rose up and looked at her; so for the space of five seconds they stood silently, face to face.

To the last hour of his life Charley Stuart remembered her, as he saw her then, and always with a sharp pang of the same pain.

She was dressed for a dinner party. She wore violet silk, trailing far behind her, violet shot with red. Her graceful shoulders rose up exquisitely out of the point lace trimmings, her arms sparkled in the lights. A necklace of amethysts set in clusters, with diamonds between, shone upon her neck; amethysts and diamonds were in her ears, and clasping the arms above the elbows. Her waving, dark hair was drawn back off her face, and crowned with an ivy wreath. The soft, abundant waxlights showered down upon her. So she stood, resplendent as a queen, radiant as a goddess. There was a look on Charley Stuart's face, a light in his gray eyes, very rare to see. He only bowed and stood aloof.

"I have surprised you, I am sure—interrupted you, I greatly fear. You will pardon both I know, when I tell you what has brought me here."

In very few words he told her—the great tragedies of life are always easily told. They were ruined—he had engaged their passage by the next steamer—he had merely run down as they were never likely to meet again—for the sake of old times, to say good-by.

Old times! Something rose in the girl's throat, and seemed to choke her. Oh, of all the base, heartless, mercenary, ungrateful wretches on earth, was there another so heartless, so ungrateful as she! Poor—Charley poor! For one moment—one—the impulse came upon her to give up all—to go with him to beggary if need be. Only for one moment—I will do Miss Darrell's excellent worldly wisdom this justice—only one.

"I see you are dressed for a party—I will not detain you a second longer. I could not depart comfortably, considering that you came over in our care, without informing you why we leave so abruptly. You are safe. Your destiny is happily settled. I can give to your father a good account of my stewardship. You have my sincerest wishes for your health and happiness, and I am sure you will never quite forget us. Good-by, Miss Darrell." He held out his hand. "My congratulations are premature, but let me offer them now to the future Lady Catheron."

"Miss Darrell!" When, in all the years that were gone, had he ever called her that before? She arose and gave him her hand—proud, pale.

"I thank you," she said coldly. "I will send Lady Helena and Sir Victor to you at once. They will wish to see you, of course. Good-by, Mr. Stuart Let us hope things may turn out better than you think. Give my dearest love to Trix, if she will accept it. Once more, good-by."

She swept to the door in her brilliant dress, her perfumed laces, her shining jewels—the glittering fripperies for which her womanhood was to be sold. He stood quite still in the centre of the room, as she had left him, watching her. So beautiful, so cold-blooded, he was thinking; were all her kind like this? And poets sing and novelists rave of woman's love! A half smile came over his lips as he thought of it. It was very pretty to read of in books; in real life it was—like this!

She laid her hand on the silver handle of the door—then she paused—looked back, all the womanliness, all the passion of her life stirred to its depths. It was good-by forever to Charley. There was a great sob, and pride bowed and fell. She rushed back—two impetuous arms went round his neck; she drew his face down, and kissed him passionately—once—twice.

"Good-by, Charley—my darling—forever and ever!"

She threw him from her almost violently, and rushed out of the room. Whether she went to tell Lady Helena and Sir Victor of his presence he neither knew nor cared. He was in little mood to meet either of them just then.

Five minutes later, and, under the blue silvery summer night, he was whirling away back to Chester. When the midnight stars shone in the sky he was half way up to London, with Edith's farewell words in his ears, Edith's first, last kiss on his lips.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SUMMONS.

The sun was just rising over the million roofs and spires of the great city, as Charley's hansom dashed up to the door of Langham's hotel. He ran up to his father's room, and on the threshold encountered Trix, pale and worn with her night's watching, but wearing a peculiarly happy and contented little look despite it all. Charley did not stop to notice the look, he asked after his father.

"Pa's asleep," Trix replied, "so's ma. It's of no use your disturbing either of them. Pa's pretty well; stupid as you left him; doesn't care to talk, but able to eat, and sleep. The doctor says there is nothing at all to hinder his travelling to Liverpool to-day. And now, Charley," Trix concluded, looking compassionately at her brother's pale, tired face, "as you look used up after your day and night's travelling, suppose you go to bed; I'll wake you in time for breakfast, and you needn't worry about anything. Captain Hammond has been here," says Trix, blushing in the wan, morning light, "and he will attend to everything."

Charley nodded and turned to go, but his sister detained him.

"You—you saw her, I suppose?" she said hesitatingly.

"Edith do you mean?" Charley looks at her full. "Yes, I saw her. As I went down for the purpose, I was hardly likely to fail."

"And what has she to say for herself?" Trix asks bitterly.

"Very little; we were not together ten minutes in all. She was dressed for a party of some kind, and I did not detain her."

"A party?" Trix repeats; "and we like this! Did she send no message at all?"

"She sent you her dearest love."

"She may keep it—let her give it to Sir Victor Catheron. I don't want her love, or anything else belonging to her!" Trix cries, explosively. "Of all the heartless, ungrateful girls—"

Her brother stops her with a look. Those handsome gray eyes of Charley's can be very stern eyes when he likes.

"As I said before, that will do, Trix. Edith is one of the wise virgins we read of—she has chosen by long odds the better part. What could we do with her now? take her back and return her to her father and step-mother, and the dull life she hated? As for gratitude, I confess I don't see where the gratitude is to come in. We engaged her at a fixed salary: so much cleverness, French, German, and general usefulness on her part; on ours, so many hundred dollars per annum. Let me say this, Trix, once and for good: as you don't seem able to say anything pleasant of Edith, suppose you don't speak of her at all?"

And then Charley, with that resolute light in his eyes, that resolute compression of his lips, turned and walked up-stairs. It was an unusually lengthy, and unusually grave speech for him, and his volatile sister was duly impressed. She shrugged her shoulders, and went back to her pa's room.

"The amount of it is," she thought, "he is as fond of her as ever, and can't bear, as he has lost her, to hear her spoken of. The idea of his scampering down into Chester to see her once more! Ridiculous! She is heartless, and I hate her!"

And then Trixy took out her lace pocket-handkerchief, and suddenly burst out crying. O dear, it was bad enough to lose one's fortune, to have one's European tour nipped in the bud, without losing Edith, just as Edith had wound her way most closely round Trixy's warm little heart. There was but one drop of honey in all the bitter cup—a drop six feet high and stout in proportion—Captain Angus Hammond.

For Captain Angus Hammond, as though to prove that all the world, was not base and mercenary, had come nobly to the front, and proposed to Trixy. And Trixy, surprised and grateful, and liking him very much, had hesitated, and smiled, and dimpled, and blushed, and objected, and finally begun to cry, and sobbed out "yes" through her tears.

Charley slept until twelve—they were to depart for Liverpool by the two o'clock express. Then his sister, attired for travelling, awoke him, and they all breakfasted together; Mr. Stuart, too, looking very limp and miserable, and Captain Hammond, whose state would have been one of idiotic happiness, had not the thought that the ocean to-morrow would roll between him and the object of his young affections, thrown a damper upon him. He was going to Liverpool with them, however; it would be a mournful consolation to see them off. They travelled second-class. As Charley said, "they must let themselves down easily—the sooner they began the better—and third-class to start with might be coming it a little too strong. Let them have a few cushions and comforts still."

Mr. Stuart kept close to his wife. He seemed to cling to her, and depend upon her, like a child. It was wonderful, it was pitiful how utterly shattered he had become. His son looked after him with a solicitous tenderness quite new in all their experience of Charley. Captain Hammond and Trixy kept in a corner together, and talked in saccharine undertones, looking foolish, and guilty, and happy.

They reached Liverpool late in the evening, and drove to the Adelphi. At twelve next day they were to get on board the tender, and be conveyed down the Mersey to their ship.

Late that evening, after dinner, and over their cigars, Captain Hammond opened his masculine heart, and, with vast hesitation and much embarrassment, poured into Charley's ear the tale of his love.

"I ought to tell the governor, you know," the young officer said, "but he's so deucedly cut up as it is, you know, that I couldn't think of it. And it's no use fidgeting your mother—Trixy will tell her. I love your sister, Charley, and I believe I've been in love with her ever since that day in Ireland. I ain't a lady's man, and I never cared a fig for a girl before in my life; but, by George! I'm awfully fond of Trixy. I ain't an elder son, and I ain't clever, I know," cried the poor, young gentleman sadly; "but if Trix will consent, by George! I'll go with her to church to-morrow. There's my pay—my habits ain't expensive, like some fellows—we could got along on that for a while, and then I have expectations from my grandmother. I've had expectations from my grandmother for the last twelve years, sir, and every day of those twelve years she's been dying; and, by George! she ain't dead yet, you know. It's wonderful—I give you my word—it's wonderful, the way grandmothers and maiden aunts with money do hold out. As Dundreary says, 'It's something no fellow can understand.' But that ain't what I wanted to say—it's this: if you're willing, and Trix is willing, I'll get leave of absence and come over by the next ship, and we'll be married. I—I'll be the happiest fellow alive, Stuart, the day your sister becomes my wife."

You are not to suppose that Captain Hammond made this speech fluently and eloquently, as I have reported it. The words are his, but the long pauses, the stammerings, the repetitions, the hesitations I have mercifully withheld. His cigar was quite smoked out by the time he had finished, and with nervous haste he set about lighting another. For Mr. Stuart, tilted back in his chair, his shining boots on the window-sill of the drawing-room, gazing out at the gas-lit highways of Liverpool, he listened in abstracted silence. There was a long pause after the captain concluded—then Charley opened his lips and spoke:

"This is all nonsense, you know, Hammond," he said gravely, "folly—madness, on your part. A week ago, when we thought Trixy an heiress, the case looked very different, you see; then I would have shaken hands with you, and bestowed my blessing upon your virtuous endeavors. But all that is changed now. As far as I can see, we are beggars—literally beggars—without a dollar; and when we get to New York nothing will remain for Trixy and me but to roll up our sleeves and go to work. What we are to work at, Heaven knows; we have come up like the lilies of the field, who toil not, neither do they spin. It is rather late in the day to take lessons in spinning now, but you see there is no help for it. I don't say much, Hammond, but I feel this. I hold a man to be something less than a man who will go through life howling over a loss of this kind. There are worse losses than that of fortune in the world." He paused a moment, and his dreamy eyes looked far out over the crowded city street. "I always thought my father was as rich as Crow—Crae—the rich fellow, you know, they always quote in print. It seemed an impossibility that we could ever be poor. But we are, and there is an end of it. Your family are wealthy, your father has a title; do you think he would listen to this for a moment?"

"My family may go—hang!" burst forth the captain. "What the deuce have they got to do with it. If Trixy is willing—"

"Trixy will not be willing to enter any family on those terms," Trixy's brother said, in that quiet way of his, which could yet be such an obstinate way; "and what I mean to say is this: A marriage for the present is totally and absolutely out of the question. You and she may make love to your heart's content—write letters across the ocean by the bushel, be engaged as fast as you please, and remain constant at long as you like. But marriage—no, no, no!"

That was the end of it. Charley was not to be moved—neither, indeed, on the marriage question, was Trix. "Did Angus think her a wretch—a monster—to desert her poor pa and ma just now, when they wanted her most, and go off with him? Not likely. He might take back his ring if he liked—she would not hold him to his engagement—she was ready and willing to set him free—"

"So Jamie, an' ye dinna wait Ye canna marry me,"

sang Charley, as Trix broke down here and sobbed. Then with a half smile on his face he went out of the room, and Trixy's tears were dried on Angus Hammond's faithful breast.

Next day, a gray overcast, gloomy day, the ship sailed. Captain Hammond went with them on board, returning in the tender. Trix, leaning on her father's arm, crying behind her veil; Charley, by his mother's side, stood on deck while the tender steamed back to the dock. And there under the gray sky, with the bleak wind blowing, and the ship tossing on the ugly short chop of the river, they took their parting look at the English shore, with but one friendly face to watch them away, and that the ginger-whiskered face of Captain Hammond.