"I suppose there is no doubt of your accuracy with regard to the name of Meynell, now?"

"Not the least. Good afternoon. Ah, there's our young friend Hawkehurst!" exclaimed the Captain, in his "society" voice, as he looked out into the hall, where Valentine was parting with Diana.

He came and greeted his young friend, and they left the house together.

This was the occasion upon which Valentine was startled by hearing the name "Meynell" pronounced by the lips of Philip Sheldon.



CHAPTER IV.

CAPTAIN PAGET IS PATERNAL.

Horatio Paget left the Lawn after the foregoing interview, fully convinced that Mr. Sheldon was only desirous to throw him off the scent, in order to follow up the chase alone, for his sole profit and advantage.

"My last letter conveyed some intelligence that altered his whole plan of action," thought the Captain; "that is perfectly clear. He was somewhat wanting in tact when he recalled me so suddenly. But I suppose he thought it would be easy to throw dust in my poor old eyes. What was the intelligence that made him change his mind? That is the grand question." Captain Paget dined alone at a West-End restaurant that evening. He dined well, for he had in hand certain moneys advanced by his patron, and he was not disposed to be parsimonious. He sat for some time in meditative mood over his pint bottle of Chambertin, and the subject of his meditation was Philip Sheldon.

"Yes," he murmured at last, "that is it. The charm is in the name of Meynell. Why else should he question me about the orthography of that name? I sent him information about Matthew Haygarth in the wife's letters, and he took no special notice of that information. It was only when the name of Meynell cropped up that he changed his tactics and tried to throw me over. It seems to me that he must have some knowledge of this Meynell branch, and therefore thinks himself strong enough to act alone, and to throw me over the bridge. To throw me over," the Captain repeated to himself slowly. "Well, we'll see about that. We'll see; yes, we'll see."

At noon on the following day Captain Paget presented himself again at the Bayswater villa, where his daughter ate the bread of dependence. He appeared this time in a purely paternal character. He came to call upon his only child. Before paying this visit the Captain had improved the shining hour by a careful study of the current and two or three back volumes of the Post-Office and Trade Directories; but all his researches in those interesting volumes had failed to reveal to him the existence of any metropolitan Meynells.

"The Meynells whom Sheldon knows may be in the heart of the country," he said to himself, after these futile labours.

It was a fine autumnal morning, and as Miss Paget was at home and disengaged, her affectionate father suggested that she should take a walk with him in Kensington Gardens. Such a promenade had very little attraction for the young lady; but she had a vague idea that she owed a kind of duty to her father not remitted by his neglect of all duties to her; so she assented with a smile, and went out with him, looking very handsome and stylish in her simple but fashionable attire, no part of which had been provided by the parent she accompanied.

The Captain surveyed her with some sense of family pride. "Upon my word, my dear, you do me credit!" he exclaimed, with a somewhat patronising kindness of tone and manner; "indeed any man might be proud of such a daughter. You are every inch a Paget."

"I hope not, papa," said the girl involuntarily; but the Captain's more delicate instincts had been considerably blunted in the press and jostle of life, and he did not feel the sting of this remark.

"Well, perhaps you are right, my love," he replied blandly; "the Pagets are an unlucky family. Like those Grecian people, the Atri—, what's-his-name—the man who was killed in his bath, you know. His wife, or the other young person who had come to visit his daughters, made the water too hot, you know—and that kind of thing. I am not quite clear about the story, but it's one of those farragos of rubbish they make young men learn at public schools. Yes, my dear, I really am amazingly pleased by your improved appearance. Those Sheldon people dress you very nicely; and I consider your residence in that family a very agreeable arrangement for all parties. You confer a favour on the girl by your society, and so on, and the mother provides you with a comfortable home; All I wonder is that your good looks haven't made their mark before this with some of Sheldon's rich stockbroking fellows."

"We see very little of the stockbroking fellows, as you call them, at the Lawn, papa."

"Indeed! I thought Sheldon kept a great deal of company."

"O no. He gives a dinner now and then, a gentleman's dinner usually; and poor Mrs. Sheldon is very anxious that it should all go off well, as she says; but I don't think he is a person who cares much for society."

"Really, now?"

"His mind seems completely occupied by his business, you see, papa. That horrible pursuit of gain seems to require all his thoughts, and all his time. He is always reading commercial papers, the Money Market and On Change, and the Stockbrokers' Vade Mecum, and publications of that kind. When he is not reading he is thinking; and by his manner one would fancy his thoughts were always gloomy and unpleasant. What a miserable, hateful, unholy life to lead! I would not be that man for all the money in the Bank of England. But it is a kind of treachery to tell these things. Mr. Sheldon is very good to me. He lets me sit at his table and share the comforts of his home, and I must be very ungrateful to speak against him. I do not mean to speak against him, you see, papa—I only mean that a life devoted to money-making is in itself hateful."

"My dear child, you may be assured that anything you say to me will go no further," said the Captain, with dignity; "and in whom should you confide, if not in your father? I have a profound respect for Sheldon and his family—yes, my love, a profound respect; and I think that girl Sarah—no, I mean Charlotte—a very charming young person. I need scarcely tell you that the smallest details of your life in that family possess a keen interest for me. I am not without a father's feelings, Diana, though circumstances have never permitted me to perform a father's duties."

And here the solitary tear which the accomplished Horatio could produce at will trembled in his eye. This one tear was always at his command. For the life of him he could not have produced a second; but the single drop never failed him, and he found one tear as effective as a dozen, in giving point and finish to a pathetic speech.

Diana looked at him, and wondered, and doubted. Alas, she knew him only too well! Any other creature in this wide world he might deceive, but not her. She had lived with him; she had tasted the bitterness of dependence upon him—ten times more bitter than dependence on strangers. She had shown him her threadbare garments day after day, and had pleaded for a little money, to be put off with a lying excuse. She could not forget this. She had forgiven him long ago, being of too generous a nature to brood upon past injuries. But she could not forget what manner of man he was, and thank him for pretty speeches which she knew to be meaningless.

They talked a little more of Mr. Sheldon and his family, but Diana did not again permit herself to be betrayed into any vehement expressions of her opinions. She answered all her father's questions without restraint, for they were very commonplace questions, of a kind that might be answered without any breach of faith.

"Amongst the Sheldons' acquaintances did you ever hear of any people called Meynell?" Captain Paget asked at length.

"Yes," Diana replied, after a moment's thought; "the name is certainly very familiar to me;" and then, after a pause, she exclaimed, "Why, the Meynells were relations of Charlotte's! Yes, her grandmother was a Miss Meynell; I perfectly remember hearing Mrs. Sheldon talk about the Meynells. But I do not think there are any descendants of that family now living. Why do you ask the question, papa? What interest have you in the Meynells?"

"Well, my dear, I have my reasons, but they in no manner concern Mr. Sheldon or his family; and I must beg you to be careful not to mention the subject in your conversation with those worthy people. I want to know all about this Meynell family. I have come across some people of that name, and I want to ascertain the precise relationship existing between these people and the Sheldons. But the Sheldons must know nothing of this inquiry for the present. The people I speak of are poor and proud, and they would perish rather than press a relationship upon a rich man, unless fully justified by the closeness of family ties. I am sure you understand all this, Diana?"

"Not very clearly, papa."

"Well, my dear, it is a delicate position, and perhaps somewhat difficult for the comprehension of a third party. All you need understand is the one fact, that any information respecting the Meynell family will be vitally interesting to my friends, and, through them, serviceable to me. There is, in fact, a legacy which these friends of mine could claim, under a certain will, if once assured as to the degree of their relationship to your friend Charlotte's kindred on the Meynell side of the house. To give them the means of securing this legacy would be to help the ends of justice; and I am sure, Diana, you would wish to do that."

"Of course, papa, if I can do so without any breach of faith with my employers. Can you promise me that no harm will result to the Sheldons, above all to Charlotte Halliday, from any information I may procure for you respecting the Meynell family?"

"Certainly, Diana, I can promise you that. I repeat most solemnly, that by obtaining such information for me you will be aiding the cause of justice."

If Horatio Paget might ever be betrayed into the inconsistency of a truthful assertion, it seemed to his daughter that it was likely to be in this moment. His words sounded like truth; and, on reflection, Diana failed to perceive that she could by any possibility inflict wrong on her friends by obliging her father in this small affair.

"Let me think the matter over, papa," she said.

"Nonsense, Diana; what thinking over can be wanted about such a trifle? I never before asked you a favour. Surely you cannot refuse to grant so simple a request, after the trouble I have taken to explain my reasons for making it."

There was some further discussion, which ended in Miss Paget consenting to oblige her father.

"And you will manage matters with tact?" urged the Captain, at parting.

"There is no especial tact required, papa," replied Diana; "the matter is easy enough. Mrs. Sheldon is very fond of talking about her own affairs. I have only to ask her some leading question about the Meynells, and she will run on for an hour, telling me the minutest details of family history connected with them. I dare say I have heard the whole story before, and have not heeded it: I often find my thoughts wandering when Mrs. Sheldon is talking."

Three days after this Captain Paget called on Mr. Sheldon in the City, when he received a very handsome recompense for his labours at Ullerton, and became repossessed of the extracts he had made from Matthew Haygarth's letters, but not of the same Mr. Haygarth's autograph letter: that document Mr. Sheldon confessed to having mislaid.

"He has mislaid the original letter, and he has had ample leisure for copying my extracts; and he thinks I am such a consummate fool as not to see all that," thought Horatio, as he left the stockbroker's office, enriched but not satisfied.

In the course of the same day he received a long letter from Diana containing the whole history of the Meynells, as known to Mrs. Sheldon. Once set talking, Georgy had told all she could tell, delighted to find herself listened to with obvious interest by her companion.

"I trust that you have not deceived me, my dear father," Diana concluded, after setting forth the Meynell history. "The dear good soul was so candid and confiding, and seemed so pleased by the interest I showed in her family affairs, that I should feel myself the vilest of wretches if any harm could result to her, or those she loves, from the information thus obtained."

The information was very complete. Mrs. Sheldon had a kindly and amiable nature, but she was not one of those sensitive souls who instinctively shrink from a story of bitter shame or profound sorrow as from a cureless wound. She told Diana, with many lamentations, and much second-hand morality, the sad history of Susan Meynell's elopement, and of the return, fourteen years afterwards, of the weary wanderer. Even the poor little trunk, with the name of the Rouen trunk-maker, Mrs. Sheldon dwelt upon with graphic insistence. A certain womanly delicacy had prevented her ever telling this story in the presence of her brother-in-law, George Sheldon, whose hard worldly manner in no way invited any sentimental revelation. Thus it happened that George had never heard the name of Meynell in connection with his friend Tom Halliday's family, or had heard it so seldom as to have entirely forgotten it. To Horatio his daughter's letter was priceless. It placed him at once in as good a position as Philip Sheldon, or as George Sheldon and his coadjutor, Valentine Hawkehurst. There were thus three different interests involved in the inheritance of the Reverend John Haygarth.

Captain Paget sat late by a comfortable fire, in his own bedchamber, that night, enjoying an excellent cigar, and meditating the following jottings from a pedigree:—

CHARLOTTE MEYNELL, married JAMES HALLIDAY. THOMAS HALLIDAY, only son of above, married GEORGINA, now Mrs. SHELDON; had issue, CHARLOTTE HALLIDAY.

SUSAN MEYNELL, only and elder sister of the above-named Charlotte, ran away from her home, in Yorkshire, with a Mr. Kingdon, brother to Lord Darnsville. Fate unknown during fourteen years of her life. Died in London, 1835. Buried under her maiden name; but no positive evidence to show that she was unmarried.



CHAPTER V.

THE CAPTAIN'S COADJUTOR.

Once in possession of the connection between the intestate John Haygarth and the Halliday family, Captain Paget's course was an easy one. He understood now why his investigations had been so suddenly brought to a standstill. Philip Sheldon had discovered the unexpected connection, and was eager to put a stop to researches that might lead to a like discovery on the part of his coadjutor.

"And Sheldon expects to prove his stepdaughter's claim to this fortune?" thought the Captain. "He will affect ignorance of the whole transaction until his plans are ripe, and then spring them suddenly upon his brother George. I wonder if there is anything to be made out of George by letting him into the secret of his brother's interference? No; I think not. George is as poor as a church mouse, and Philip must always be the more profitable acquaintance."

On the broad basis afforded by Diana's letter Captain Paget was able to build up the whole scheme of the Haygarthian succession. The pedigree of the Meynells was sufficiently simple, if their legitimate descent from Matthew Haygarth could be fairly proved. Charlotte Halliday was heiress-at-law to the fortune of John Haygarth, always provided that her great-aunt Susan died without legitimate issue.

Here was the one chance which appeared to the adventurous mind of Horatio Paget worth some trouble in the way of research. Fourteen years of Susan Meynell's life had been spent away from all who knew her. It was certainly possible that in that time she might have formed some legitimate alliance.

This was the problem which Horatio set himself to solve. Your adventurer is, of all manner of men, the most sanguine. Sir Walter Raleigh sees visions of gold and glory where grave statesman see only a fool's paradise of dreams and fancies. To the hopeful mind of the Captain these fourteen unrecorded years of Susan Meynell's life seemed a very Golconda.

He did not, however, rest satisfied with the information afforded by Diana's letter.

"I will have the story of these Meynells at first-hand as well as at second-hand," he said to himself; and he lost no time in presenting himself again at the Villa—this time as a visitor to Mrs. Sheldon.

With Georgy he had been always a favourite. His little stories of the great world—the Prince and Perdita, Brummel and Sheridan—though by no means novel to those acquainted with that glorious period of British history, were very agreeable to Georgy. The Captain's florid flatteries pleased her; and she contrasted the ceremonious manners of that gentleman with the curt business-like style of her husband, very much to the Captain's advantage. He came to thank her for her goodness to his child, and this occasion gave him ample opportunity for sentiment. He had asked to see Mrs. Sheldon alone, as his daughter's presence would have been some hindrance to the carrying out of his design.

"There are things I have to say which I should scarcely care to utter before my daughter, you see, my dear Mrs. Sheldon," he said, with pathetic earnestness. "I should not wish to remind the dear child of her desolate position; and I need scarcely tell you that position is very desolate. A father who, at his best, cannot provide a fitting home for a delicately nurtured girl, and who at any moment may be snatched away, is but a poor protector. And were it not for your friendship, I know not what my child's fate might be. The dangers and temptations that beset a handsome young woman are very terrible, my dear Mrs. Sheldon."

This was intended to lead up to the subject of Susan Meynell, but Georgy did not rise to the bait. She only shook her head plaintively in assent to the Captain's proposition.

"Yes, madam; beauty, unallied with strength of mind and high principles, is apt to be a fatal dower. In every family there are sad histories," murmured the sentimental Horatio.

Even this remark did not produce the required result; so the Captain drew upon his invention for a specimen history from the annals of his own house, which was a colourable imitation of Susan Meynell's story.

"And what was the end of this lovely Belinda Paget's career, my dear Mrs. Sheldon?" he concluded. "The gentleman was a man of high rank, but a scoundrel and a dastard. Sophia's brother, a cornet in the First Life Guards, called him out, and there was a meeting on Wimbledon Common, in which Lavinia's seducer was mortally wounded. There was a trial, and the young captain of Hussars, Amelia's brother, was sentenced to transportation for life. I need scarcely tell you that the sentence was never carried out. The young man fell gloriously at Waterloo, at the head of his own regiment, the Scotch Fusiliers, and Lavinia—I beg pardon, Amelia; nay, what am I saying? the girl's name was Belinda—embraced the Roman Catholic faith, and expired from the effects of stigmata inflicted by her own hands in a paroxysm of remorse for her brother's untimely death at the hands of her seducer."

This lively little impromptu sketch had the desired effect. Melted by the woes of Belinda, or Sophia, or Amelia, or Lavinia Paget, Mrs. Sheldon was moved to relate a sad event in her husband's family; and encouraged by the almost tearful sympathy of the Captain, she again repeated every detail of Susan Meynell's life, as known to her kindred. And as this recital had flowed spontaneously from the good soul's lips, she would he scarcely likely to allude to it afterwards in conversation with Mr. Sheldon; more especially as that gentleman was not in the habit of wasting much of his valuable time in small-talk with the members of his own household.

Captain Paget had duly calculated this, and every other hazard that menaced the intricate path he had mapped out for himself.

Satisfied by Mrs. Sheldon's repetition of Susan Meynell's story, and possessed of all the information he could hope to obtain from that quarter, Horatio set himself to consider what steps must next be taken. Much serious reflection convinced even his sanguine mind that the enterprise was a difficult one, and could scarcely be carried through successfully without help from some skilled genealogist.

"George Sheldon has given his lifetime to this sort of thing, and is a skilled lawyer to boot," Captain Paget said to himself. "If I hope to go in against him, I must have someone at my elbow as well versed in this sort of business as he is."

Having once admitted this necessity, the Captain set himself to consider where he was to find the right person. A very brief meditation settled this question. One among the numerous business transactions of Captain Paget's life had brought him in contact with a very respectable little French gentleman called Fleurus, who had begun his career as a notary, but, finding that profession unprofitable, had become a hunter of pedigrees and heirs-at-law—for the most part to insignificant legacies, unclaimed stock, and all other jetsam and flotsam thrown up on the shadowy shores of the Court of Chancery. M. Fleurus had not often been so fortunate as to put his industrious fingers into any large pie, but he had contrived to make a good deal of money out of small affairs, and had found his clients grateful.

"The man of men," thought Horatio Paget; and he betook himself to the office of M. Fleurus early next day, provided with all documents relating to the Haygarthian succession.

His interview with the little Frenchman was long and satisfactory. On certain conditions as to future reward, said reward to be contingent on success, M. Fleurus was ready to devote himself heart and soul to the interests of Captain Paget.

"To begin: we must find legal evidence of this Matthew Haygarth's marriage to the mother of this child C., who came afterwards to marry the man Meynell; and after we will go to Susan Meynell. Her box came from Rouen—that we know. Where her box came from she is likely to have come from. So it is at Rouen, or near Rouen, we must look for her. Let me see: she die in 1835! that is long time. To look for the particulars of her life is like to dive into the ocean for to find the lost cargo of a ship that is gone down to the bottom, no one knows where. But to a man really expert in these things there is nothing of impossible. I will find you your Susan Meynell in less than six months; the evidence of her marriage; if she was married; her children, if she had children."

In less than six months—the margin seemed a wide one to the impatient Horatio. But he knew that such an investigation must needs be slow, and he left the matters in the hands of his new ally with a sense that he had done the best thing that could be done. Then followed for Horatio Paget two months of patient attendance upon fortune. He was not idle during this time; for Mr. Sheldon, who seemed particularly anxious to conciliate him, threw waifs and strays of business into his way. Before the middle of November M. Fleurus had found the register of Matthew Haygarth's marriage, as George Sheldon had found it before him, working in the same groove, and with the same order of intelligence. After this important step M. Fleurus departed for his native shores, where he had other business besides the Meynell affair to claim his attention. Meanwhile the astute Horatio kept a close eye upon his young friend Valentine. He knew from Diana that the young man had been in Yorkshire; and he guessed the motive of his visit to Newhall, not for a moment supposing that his presence in that farmhouse could have been accidental. The one turn of affairs that utterly and completely mystified him was Mr. Sheldon's sanction of the engagement between Valentine and Charlotte. This was a mystery for which he could for some time find no solution.

"Sheldon will try to establish his stepdaughter's claim to the fortune; that is clear. But why does he allow her to throw herself away on a penniless adventurer like Hawkehurst? If she were to marry him before recovering the Haygarth estate, she would recover it as his wife, and the fortune would be thrown unprotected into his hands."

More deliberate reflection cast a faint light upon Philip Sheldon's motives for so quixotic a course.

"The girl had fallen in love with Val. It was too late to prevent that. She is of age, and can marry whom she pleases. By showing himself opposed to her engagement with Val, he might have hurried her into rebellion, and an immediate marriage. By affecting to consent to the engagement, he would, on the contrary, gain time, and the advantage of all those chances that are involved in the lapse of time."

Within a few days of Christmas came the following letter from M. Fleurus:—

From Jacques Rousseau Fleurus to Horatio Paget.

Hotel de la Pucelle, place Jeanne d'Arc, Rouen, 21st December, 186—.

MONSIEUR,—After exertions incalculable, after labours herculean, I come to learn something of your Susan Meynell,—more, I come to learn of her marriage. But I will begin at the beginning of things. The labours, the time, the efforts, the courage, the patience, the—I will say it without to blush—the genius which this enterprise has cost me, I will not enlarge upon. There are things which cannot tell themselves. To commence, I will tell you how I went to Rouen, how I advertised in the journals of Rouen, and asked among the people of Rouen—at shops, at hotels, by the help of my allies, the police, by means which you, in your inexperience of this science of research, could not even figure to yourself—always seeking the trace of this woman Meynell. It was all pain lost. Of this woman Meynell in Rouen there was no trace.

In the end I enraged myself. "Imbecile!" I said to myself, "why seek in this dull commercial city, among this heavy people, for that which thou shouldst seek only in the centre of all things? As the rivers go to the ocean, so flow all the streams of human life to the one great central ocean of humanity—PARIS! It is there the Alpha and the Omega—there the mighty heart through which the blood of all the body must be pumped, and is pumping always," I say to myself, unconsciously rising to the sublimity of my great countryman, Hugo, in whose verse I find an echo of my own soul, and whose compositions I flatter myself I could have surpassed, if I had devoted to the Muses the time and the powers which I have squandered on a vilain metier, that demands the genius of a Talleyrand, and rewards with the crust of an artisan.

In Paris, then, I will seek the woman Meynell, and to Paris I go. In my place an inexperienced person would advertise in the most considerable papers; would invite Susan Meynell to hear of something to her advantage; and would bring together a crowd of false Susan Meynells, greedy to obtain the benefice. Me, I do nothing in this style there. On the contrary, in the most obscure little journals of Paris I publish a modest little advertisement as from the brother of Susan Meynell, who implores his sister to visit him on his deathbed.

Here are follies, you will say. Since Susan Meynell is dead it is thirty years, and her brother is dead also. Ah, how you are dull, you insulars, and how impossible for your foggy island to produce a Fouche, a Canler, a genius of police, a Columbus of the subterranean darknesses of your city.

The brother, dying, advertises for the sister, dead; and who will answer that letter, think you? Some good Christian soul who has pity for the sick man, and who will not permit him to languish in waiting the sister who will come to him never. For us of the Roman Catholic religion the duty of charity is paramount. You of the Anglican faith—bah, how you are cold, how you are hard, how you are unpitiable!

My notice appears once, my notice appears twice, three times, four times, many times. I occupy myself about my other business, and I wait. I do not wait unusefully. In effect, a letter arrives at last at the address of the dying, from a lady who knew Susan Meynell before her marriage with M. Lenoble.

Think you not that to me this was a moment of triumph? Before her marriage with M. Lenoble! Those words appear under my eyes in the writing of the unknown lady. "It is found!" I cry to myself; and then I hasten myself to reply to the unknown lady. Will she permit me to see her?

With all politeness I make the request; with all politeness it is answered. The lady calls herself Mademoiselle Servin. She resides in the street Grande-Mademoiselle, at the corner of the Place Lauzun. It is of all the streets of Paris the most miserable. One side is already removed. In face of the windows of those houses that still stand they are making a new Boulevard. Behind they are pulling down edifices of all kinds in the formation of a new square. At the side there is a yawning chasm between two tall houses, through which they pierce a new street. One sees the interior of many rooms rising one above another for seven stories. Here the gay hangings of an apartment of little master; there the still gaudier decoration of a boudoir of these ladies. High above these luxurious salons—ah, but how much more near to the skies!—one sees the poor grey paper, blackened and smoky, of a garret of sempstress, or workman, and the hearths black, deserted. These interiors thus exposed tighten me the heart. It is the autopsy of the domestic hearth.

I find the Mademoiselle Servin an old lady, grey and wan. The house where she now resides is the house which she has inhabited five-and-thirty years. They talk of pulling it down, and to her the idea of leaving it is exquisite pain. She is alone, a teacher of music. She has seen proprietors come and go. The pension has changed mistresses many times. Students of law and of medicine have come and passed like the shadows of a magic lantern; but this poor soul has remained still in her little room on the fourth, and has kept always her little old piano.

It was here she knew Susan Meynell, and a young Frenchman who became in love with her, for she was beautiful like the angels, this lady said to me.

Until we meet for all details. Enough that I come to discover where the marriage took place, that I come to obtain a copy of the register, and that I do all things in rule. Enough that the marriage is a good marriage—a regular marriage, and that I have placed myself already in communication with the heir of that marriage, who resides within some few leagues of this city.

My labours, my successes I will not describe. It must that they will be recompensed in the future. I have dispensed much money during these transactions.

Agree, monsieur, that I am your devoted servitor,

JACQUES ROUSSEAU FLEURUS.

* * * * *

It was in consequence of the receipt of this missive that the Captain trusted himself to the winds and waves in the cheerless December weather. He was well pleased to find that M. Fleurus had made discoveries so important; but he had no idea of letting that astute practitioner absorb all the power into his own hands.

"I must see Susan Meynell's heir," he said to himself; "I must give him clearly to understand that to me he owes the discovery of his claims, and that in this affair the Frenchman Fleurus is no more than a paid agent."



Book the Fourth.



GUSTAVE IN ENGLAND.



CHAPTER I.

HALCYON DAYS.

Once having offered up the fondest desires of her own heart on the shrine of duty, Diana Paget was not a person to repent herself of the pious sacrifice. After that Christmas night on which she had knelt at Charlotte's feet to confess her sad secret, and to resign all claim to the man she had loved so foolishly, so tenderly, with such a romantic and unselfish devotion, Miss Paget put away all thought of the past from her heart and mind. Heart and mind seemed empty and joyless without those loved tenants, though the tenants had been only fair wraiths of dreams that were dead. There was a sense of something missing in her life—a blank, dull calm, which was at first very painful. But for Charlotte's sake she was careful to hide all outward token of despondency, and the foolish grief, put down by so strong a hand, was ere long well-nigh stifled.

Those dark days which succeeded Christmas were a period of halcyon peace for Valentine and Charlotte. The accepted lover came to the villa when he pleased, but was still careful not to encroach on the license allowed him. Once a week he permitted himself the delight of five-o'clock tea in Mrs. Sheldon's drawing-room, on which occasions he brought Charlotte all the news of his small literary world, and a good deal of useful information out of the books he had been reading. When Mr. Sheldon pleased to invite him to dinner on Sunday he gladly accepted the invitation, and this Sunday dinner became in due course an established institution.

"You may as well make this your home on a Sunday," said Mr. Sheldon one day, with careless cordiality; "I dare say you find Sunday dull in your lodgings."

"Yes, papa," cried Charlotte, "he does find it very dull—dreadfully dull—don't you, Valentine?"

And she regarded him with that pretty, tender, almost motherly look, which young ladies who are engaged are apt to bestow on their affianced lovers.

Miss Halliday was very grateful to her stepfather for his kindness to her landless adorer, and showed her appreciation of his conduct in many pretty little caressing ways, which would have been infinitely bewitching to a person of sentiment.

Unfortunately Mr. Sheldon was not sentimental, and any exhibition of feeling appeared to have an irritating effect upon his nerves. There were times when he shrank from some little sudden caress of Charlotte's as from the sting of an adder. Aversion, surprise, fear—what was it that showed in the expression of his face at these moments? Whatever that strange look was, it departed too quickly for analysis; and the stockbroker thanked his stepdaughter for her little affectionate demonstration with his wonted smile—the smile he smiled on Change, the smile which was sometimes on his lips when his mind was a nest of scorpions.

To Valentine, in these rosy hours, life seemed full of hope and brightness. He transferred his goods and chattels from Omega Street, Chelsea, to the pleasant lodging in the Edgware Road, where he was nearer Charlotte, and out of the way of his late patron Captain Paget, in the event of that gentleman's return from the Continent.

Fortune favoured him. The gaiety of heart which came with his happiness lent a grace to his pen. Pleasant thoughts and fancies bedecked his pages. He saw everything in the rosy light of love and beauty, and there was a buoyant freshness in all he wrote. The Pegasus might be but a common hackney, but the hack was young and fresh, and galloped gaily as he scented the dewy morning air. It is not every poet whose Pegasus clears at a bound a space as wide as all that waste of land and sea the watchman views from his tall tower on the rock.

Mr. Hawkehurst's papers on Lauzun, Brummel, Sardanapalus, Rabelais, Lord Chesterfield, Erasmus, Beau Nash, Apelles, Galileo, and Philip of Orleans, were in demand, and the reading public wondered at this prodigy of book-making. He had begun to save money, and had opened a deposit account at the Unitas Bank. How he gloated over the deposit receipts in the stillness of the night, when he added a fresh one to his store! When he had three, for sums amounting in all to forty pounds, he took them to Charlotte, and she looked at them, and he looked at them, as if the poor little bits of printed paper had been specimens of virgin ore from some gold mine newly discovered by Mr. Hawkehurst. And then these foolish lovers kissed each other, as William Lee and his wife may have embraced after the penniless young student had perfected his invention of the stocking-frame.

"Forty pounds!" exclaimed Miss Halliday, "all won by your pen, and your poor fingers, and your poor, poor head! How it must ache after a long day's work! How clever you must be, Valentine!"

"Yes, dear; amazingly clever. Clever enough to know that you are the dearest girl in Christendom."

"Don't talk nonsense, sir! You are not clever enough to have the privilege of doing that yet awhile. I mean, how learned you must be to know such lots of things, all about Erasmus, and Galileo, and—"

"No, my darling, not Erasmus and Galileo. I knew all about Erasmus last week; but I am working at my paper on Galileo now, an exhaustive review of all the books that were ever written on the subject, in ten pages. I don't ask other people to remember what I write, you know, my dear, and I don't pledge myself to remember it. That sort of thing won't keep. There is a kind of sediment, no doubt, in one's note-book; but the effervescence of that vintage goes off rather quickly."

"I only know that you are a very clever person, and that one obtains an immensity of information from your writings," said Charlotte.

"Yes, dearest, there is a kind of wine that must be made into negus for such pretty little topers as you—the 'Wine of Cyprus,' as Mrs. Browning called it. It is better for pretty girls to have the negus than to have nothing, or only weak home-brewed stuff that results in head-ache. My dearest, Fate has been very good to me, and I love my profession of letters. I am sure that of all educational processes there is none better than book-making; and the man who begins by making books must be a dolt, dunce, and dunderhead, if he do not end by writing them. So you may yet hope to see the morning that shall make your Valentine famous—for a fortnight. What man can hope to be famous for more than a fortnight in such a railroad age as this?"

During this halcyon period, in which Mr. Hawkehurst cultivated alternately the society of the Muses and his mistress, he saw little or nothing of George Sheldon. He had washed his hands of all share in the work of establishing Charlotte Halliday's claim to the Reverend John Haygarth's thousands. Indeed, since that interview in which Philip Sheldon had made so light of his stepdaughter's chances, and ratified his consent to her marriage with so humble a literary adventurer as himself, Mr. Hawkehurst had come to consider the Haygarthian inheritance as altogether a visionary business. If it were certain, or even probable, that Charlotte was to inherit a hundred thousand pounds, was it likely that Mr. Sheldon would encourage such an alliance? This question Mr. Hawkehurst always answered in the negative; and as days and weeks went by, and he heard no more of the Haygarth fortune, the idea of Charlotte's wealth became more and more shadowy.

If there were anything doing in this matter, the two brothers were now working together, and George had no further need of Valentine's help.

The two brothers were not working entirely together. Philip Sheldon had taken the matter into his own strong hand, and George found it very difficult to hold an inch of ground against that formidable antagonist. The papers and information which George had boasted of to Valentine, and the possession whereof was, as he asserted, the very keystone of the arch, proved to be of such small account that he ultimately consented to hand them over to his brother on the payment of expenses out of pocket, and a bonus of one hundred and fifty pounds, together with a written undertaking from Miss Halliday to pay him the fifth share of any fortune recovered by means of those papers.

This undertaking had been executed in the easiest manner.

"My brother has taken it into his wise head that there is some unclaimed stock standing in your grandfather's name which you are entitled to, Lotta," Mr. Sheldon said one morning; "and he wants to recover the amount for you, on condition of receiving a clear fifth when the sum is recovered. Have you any objection to sign such an undertaking?"

"Dear papa, how can I object?" cried Charlotte gaily. "Why, stocks are money, are they not? How fortunate we are, and how rich we are getting!"

"We!"

"Valentine and I," murmured the girl, blushing. "I cannot help thinking of him when any windfall of good fortune comes to me. What do you think, papa? He has saved forty pounds in little more than three months—all earned by his pen!

"Behold The arch-enchanter's wand! Itself a nothing; But taking sorcery from the master-hand To paralyze the Caesars, and to strike The loud earth breathless!"

And Miss Halliday spouted the glowing lines of the noble dramatist with charming enthusiasm. She signed the required undertaking without looking at it, and it was duly witnessed by her stepfather.

"In your talk with your mother and Valentine, I should advise you to be as silent about this small business as about your own little fortune," Mr. Sheldon remarked presently.

"Mustn't I tell Valentine?" cried Charlotte, making a wry face; "I should so like to tell him—just about these stocks. I daresay he knows what stocks are; and it would be such cheering news for him, after he has worked his poor brain so for that forty pounds. I don't so much care about telling poor mamma; for she does exclaim and wonder so about things, that it is quite fatiguing to hear her. But please let me tell Valentine?"

Miss Halliday pursed-up her lips and offered her stepfather one of those kisses which she had of late been prompted to bestow on him out of the gratitude of a heart overflowing with girlish joy. He took the kiss as he might have taken a dose of medicine, but did not grant the request preferred by it.

"If you want to be a fool, you can tell your lover of this windfall; but if you wish to prove yourself a sensible girl, you will hold your tongue. He has saved forty pounds by hard work in the last three months, you say: do you think he would have saved forty pence if he had known that you had five thousand pounds at his disposal? I know that class of men; look at Goldsmith, the man who wrote the "Vicar of Wakefield," and "Rasselas," and "Clarissa Harlowe," and so on. I have read somewhere that he never wrote except under coercion—that is to say, want of money."

Charlotte acknowledged the wisdom of this argument, and submitted. She was not what was called a strong-minded woman; and, indeed, strength of mind is not a plant indigenous to the female nature, but an exceptional growth developed by exceptional circumstances. In Charlotte's life there had been nothing exceptional, and she was in all things soft and womanly, ready to acknowledge, and to be guided by, the wisdom of her seniors. So Valentine heard nothing of the undertaking executed by his lady-love.

After this, Mr. Sheldon took counsel's opinion, and set to work in real earnest to recover the estate of the deceased John Haygarth from the yawning jaws of that tame but all-devouring monster, the Crown. The work was slow, and the dry as dust details thereof need not be recorded here. It had but just begun when Horatio Paget suddenly returned from his Continental expedition, and established himself once more in the Omega Street lodgings.



CHAPTER II.

CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY.

Captain Paget's return was made known to the Sheldon circle by a letter from the returning wanderer to his daughter. The Captain was laid up with rheumatic gout, and wrote quite piteously to implore a visit from Diana. Miss Paget, always constant to the idea of a duty to be performed on her side, even to this pere prodigue, obeyed the summons promptly, with the full approval of Georgy, always good-natured after her own fussy manner.

"And if you'd like to take your papa a bottle of Mr. Sheldon's old port, Diana, remember it's at your disposal. I'm sure I've heard people say that old port is good for the gout—or perhaps, by the bye, what I heard was that it wasn't good. I know old port and gout seem to run together in my head somehow. But if there's anything in the house your papa would like, Diana—wine, or gunpowder tea, or the eider-down coverlet off the spare bed, or the parlour croquet, to amuse him of an evening, or a new novel—surely one couldn't forfeit one's subscription by lending a book to a non-subscribing invalid?"

While Georgy was suggesting the loan of almost every portable object in the house as a specific for Captain Paget's gout, Charlotte sent for a cab and made things smooth for her friend's departure. She wrapped her warmly against the February blast, and insisted upon going out to see her seated in the cab, whereby she offered to the pedestrians of that neighbourhood a seraphic vision of loveliness with tumbled hair. Charlotte had been always delightful, but Charlotte engaged to Valentine Hawkehurst was a creature of supernal sweetness and brightness—a radiant ministering angel, hovering lightly above a world too common for her foot to rest upon.

Miss Paget found her father suffering from a by no means severe attack of a respectable family gout, a little peevish from the effects of this affliction, but not at all depressed in mind. He had, indeed, the manner of a man with whom things are going pleasantly. There was a satisfaction in his tone, a placidity in his face, except when distorted for the moment by a twinge of pain, that were new to Diana, who had not been accustomed to behold the brighter side of her father's disposition. He seemed grateful for his daughter's visit, and received her with unwonted kindness of manner.

"You have come very promptly, my dear, and I am gratified by your early compliance with my request," he said with dignified affection, after he had given his daughter the kiss of greeting. "I was a great sufferer last night, Diana, a great sufferer, a prisoner to this chair, and the woman below attempted to send me up a dinner—such a dinner! One would think a very small degree of education necessary for the stewing of a kidney, but the things that woman gave me last night were like morsels of stewed leather. I am not an epicure, Diana; but with such a constitution as mine, good cooking is a vital necessity. Life in lodgings for a man of my age is a sore trial, my dear. I wish you were well married, Diana, and could give your father a humble corner at your fireside."

Diana smiled. It was a somewhat bitter smile; and there was scorn of herself, as well as scorn of her father in that bitterness.

"I am not the sort of person to marry well, papa," she said.

"Who knows? You are handsomer than nine-tenths of the women who marry well."

"No, papa; that is your sanguine manner of looking at your own property. And even if I were married to some one to whom I might give obedience and duty, and all that kind of thing, in exchange for a comfortable home, as they say in the advertisements, would you be content with a peaceful corner by my fireside? Do you think you would never pine for clubs and gaming-tables—nay, even for creditors to—to diplomatize with, and difficulties to surmount?"

"No, my dear. I am an old man; the clubs and gaming-houses have done with me, and I with them. I went to see a man at Arthur's a few months ago. I had written to him on a little matter of business—in fact, to be candid with you, my love, for the loan of a five-pound note—and I called at the club for his reply. I caught sight of my face in a distant glass as I was waiting in the strangers' room, and I thought I was looking at a ghost. There comes a time towards the close of a long troublesome life in which a man begins to feel like a ghost. His friends are gone, and his money is gone, his health is gone, his good looks are gone; and the only mistake seems to be that the man himself should be left behind. I remember an observation of Lord Chesterfield's: 'Lord —— and I have been dead for the last two years, but we don't tell anyone so,' he said; and there are few old men who couldn't say the same. But I am not down-hearted to-day, my dear. No, the habit of hoping has never quite deserted me; and it is only now and then that I take a dismal view of life. Come, my love, lay aside your bonnet and things. Dear me! what a handsome black silk dress, and how well you look in it!"

"It is a present from Charlotte, papa. She has a very liberal allowance of pocket-money, and is generosity itself. I don't like to take so much from her, but I only wound her by a refusal."

"Of course, my dear. There is nothing so ungracious as a refusal, and no mark of high breeding so rare as the art of gracious acceptance. Any booby can give a present; but to receive a gift without churlish reticence or florid rapture is no easy accomplishment. I am always pleased to see you well-dressed, my love"—Diana winced as she remembered her shabby hat and threadbare gown at Foretdechene—"and I am especially pleased to see you elegantly attired this evening, as I expect a gentleman by-and-by."

"A gentleman, papa!" exclaimed Miss Paget, with considerable surprise; "I thought that you had sent for me because you were ill and depressed and lonely."

"Well, yes, Diana, I certainly am ill; and I suppose it is scarcely unnatural that a father should wish to see his only daughter."

Diana was silent. A father's wish to see his daughter was indeed natural and common; but that Captain Paget, who in no period of his daughter's life had evinced for her the common affection of paternity, should be seized all of a sudden with a yearning for her society, was somewhat singular. But Diana's nature had been ennobled and fortified by the mental struggle and the impalpable sacrifice of the last few months, and she was in nowise disposed to repel any affectionate feeling of her father's even at this eleventh hour.

"He tells us the eleventh hour is not too late," she thought. "If it is not too late in the sight of that Divine Judge, shall it be thought too late by an erring creature like me?"

After a few minutes of thoughtful silence, she knelt down by her father's chair and kissed him.

"My dear father," she murmured softly, "believe me, I am very pleased to think you should wish to see me. I will come to you whenever you like to send for me. I am glad not to be a burden to you; but I should wish to be a comfort when I can."

The Captain shed his stock tear. It signified something nearer akin to real emotion than usual.

"My dear girl," he said, "this is very pleasing, very pleasing indeed. The day may come—I cannot just now say when—and events may arise—which—the nature of which I am not yet in a position to indicate to you—but the barren fig-tree may not be always fruitless. In its old age the withered trunk may put forth fresh branches. We will say no more of this, my love; and I will only remark that you may not go unrequited for any affection bestowed on your poor old father."

Diana smiled, and this time it was a pensive rather than a bitter smile. She had often heard her father talk like this before. She had often heard these oracular hints of some grand event looming mighty in the immediate future; but she had never seen the vague prophecy accomplished. Always a schemer, and always alternating between the boastful confidence of hope and the peevish bewailings of despair, the Captain had built his castle to-day to sit among its ruins to-morrow, ever since she had known him.

So she set little value on his hopeful talk of this evening, but was content to see him in good spirits. He contemplated her admiringly as she knelt by his easy-chair, and smoothed the shining coils of her dark hair with a gentle hand, as he looked downward at the thoughtful face—proud and grave, but not ungentle.

"You are a very handsome girl, Diana," he murmured, as much to himself as to his daughter; "yes, very handsome. Egad, I had no idea how handsome!"

"What has put such a fancy into your head to-night, papa?" asked Diana, laughing. "I do not believe in the good looks you are so kind as to attribute to me. When I see my face in the glass I perceive a pale gloomy countenance that is by no means pleasing."

"You may be out of spirits when you look in the glass. I hope you are not unhappy at Bayswater."

"Why should I be unhappy, papa? No sister was ever kinder or more loving than Charlotte Halliday is to me. I should he very ungrateful to Providence as well as to her if I did not appreciate such affection. How many lonely girls, like me, go through life without picking up a sister?"

"Yes, you are right, my dear. Those Sheldon people have been very useful to you. They are not the kind of people I should have wished a daughter of mine to be live with, if I were in the position my birth entitles me to occupy; but as I am not in that position, I submit. That black silk becomes you admirably. And now, my love, be so kind as to ring the bell for lights and tea."

They had been sitting in the firelight—the mystic magical capricious firelight—which made even that tawdry lodging-house parlour seem a pleasant chamber. The tea-tray was brought, and candles. Diana seated herself at the table, and made tea with the contents of a little mahogany caddy.

"Don't pour out the tea just yet," said the Captain; "I expect a gentleman. I don't suppose he'll take tea, but it will look more civil to wait for him."

"And who is this mysterious gentleman, papa?"

"A Frenchman; a man I met while I was abroad."

"Really a gentleman?"

"Certainly, Diana," replied her father, with offended dignity.

"Do you think I should admit any person to my friendship who is not a gentleman? My business relations I am powerless to govern; but friendship is a different matter. There is no man more exclusive than Horatio Paget. M. Lenoble is a gentleman of ancient lineage and amiable character."

"And rich, I suppose, papa?" asked Diana. She thought that her father would scarcely speak of the gentleman in a tone so profoundly respectful if he were not rich.

"Yes, Diana. M. Lenoble is master of a very fair estate, and is likely to be much richer before he dies."

"And he has been kind to you, papa?"

"Yes, he has shown me hospitality during my residence in Normandy. You need not speak of him to your friends the Sheldons."

"Not even to Charlotte?"

"Not even to Charlotte. I do not care to have my affairs discussed by that class of people."

"But, dear papa, why make a mystery about so unimportant a matter.

"I do not make a mystery; but I hate gossip. Mrs. Sheldon is an incorrigible gossip, and I daresay her daughter is no better."

"Charlotte is an angel, papa."

"That is very possible. But I beg that you will refrain from discussing my friend M. Lenoble in her angelic presence."

"As you please, papa," said Diana gravely. She felt herself bound to obey her father in this small matter; but the idea of this mystery and secrecy was very unwelcome to her. It implied that her father's acquaintance with this Frenchman was only a part of some new scheme. It was no honest friendship, which the Captain might be proud to own, glad to show the world that in these days of decadence he could still point to a friend. It was only some business alliance, underhand and stealthy; a social conspiracy, that must needs be conducted in darkness.

"Why did papa summon me here if he wants his acquaintance with this man kept secret?" she asked herself; and the question seemed unanswerable.

She pictured this M. Lenoble to herself—a wizened, sallow-faced Macchiavellian individual, whose business in England must needs be connected with conspiracy, treason, commercial fraud, anything or everything stealthy and criminal.

"I wish you would let me go back to Bayswater before this gentleman comes, papa," she said presently. "I heard it strike seven just now, and I know I shall be expected early. I can come again whenever you like."

"No, no, my love; you must stop to see my friend. And now tell me a little about the Sheldons. Has anything been stirring since I saw them last?"

"Nothing whatever, papa. Charlotte is very happy; she always had a happy disposition, but she is gayer than ever since her engagement with—Valentine."

"What an absurd infatuation!" muttered the Captain.

"And he—Valentine—is very good, and works very hard at his literary profession—and loves her very dearly."

It cost her an effort to say this even now, even now when she fancied herself cured of that folly which had once been so sweet to her. To speak of him like this—to put him away out of her own life, and contemplate him as an element in the life of another—could not be done without some touch of the old anguish.

There was a loud double-knock at the street-door as she said this, and a step sounded presently in the passage; a quick, firm tread. There was nothing stealthy about that, at any rate.

"My friend Lenoble," said the Captain; and in the next instant a gentleman entered the room, a gentleman who was in every quality the opposite of the person whom Diana had expected to see.

These speculative pictures are seldom good portraits. Miss Paget had expected to find her father's ally small and shrivelled, old and ugly, dried-up and withered in the fiery atmosphere of fraud and conspiracy; in outward semblance a monkey, in soul a tiger. And instead of this obnoxious creature there burst into the room a man of four-and-thirty years of age, tall, stalwart, with a fair frank face, somewhat browned by summer suns; thick auburn hair and beard, close trimmed and cropped in the approved Gallic fashion—clear earnest blue eyes, and a mouth whose candour and sweetness a moustache could not hide. Henry of Navarre, before the white lilies of France had dazzled his eyes with their fatal splendour, before the court of the Medici had taught the Bearnois to dissemble, before the sometime Protestant champion had put on that apparel of stainless white in which he went forth to stain his soul with the sin of a diplomatic apostasy.

Such a surprise as this makes a kind of crisis in the eventless record of a woman's life. Diana found herself blushing as the stranger stood near the door awaiting her father's introduction. She was ashamed to think of the wrong her imagination had done him.

"My daughter, Diana Paget—M. Lenoble. I have been telling Diana how much I owed to your hospitality during my stay in Normandy," continued the Captain, with his grandest air, "I regret that I can only receive you in an apartment quite unworthy the seigneur of Cotenoir.—A charming place, my dear Diana, which I should much like you to see on some future occasion.—Will you take some tea, Lenoble?—Diana, a cup of tea.—The Pagets are a fallen race, you see, my dear sir, and a cup of tea in a lodging-house parlour is the best entertainment I can give to a friend. The Cromie Pagets of Hertfordshire will give you dinner in gold plate, with a footman standing behind the chair of every guest; but our branch is a younger and a poorer one, and I, among others, am paying the price of youthful follies."

Gustave Lenoble looked sympathetic, but the glance of sympathy was directed to Diana, and not to the male representative of the younger Pagets. To pity the distressed damsel was an attribute of the Lenoble mind; and Gustave had already begun to pity Miss Paget, and to wonder what her fate in life would be, with no better protector than a father who was confessedly a pauper. He saw that the young lady was very handsome, and he divined, from some indefinable expression of her face, that she was proud; and as he thought of his own daughters, and their easy life and assured future, the contrast seemed to him very cruel.

Chivalrous as the house of Lenoble might be by nature, he could scarcely have felt so keen an interest in Captain Paget's daughter at the first glance, if his sympathies had not been already enlisted for her. The noble Horatio, though slow to act a father's part, had shown himself quick to make capital out of his daughter's beauty and virtues when the occasion offered.

In his intercourse with the seigneur of Cotenoir, which had developed from a mere business acquaintance into friendship, Captain Paget had discoursed with much eloquence upon the subject of his motherless daughter; and M. Lenoble, having daughters of his own, also motherless, lent him the ear of sympathy.

"I have heard much of you, Miss Paget," said Gustave presently, "and of your devotion to your father. He has no more favourite theme than your goodness."

Diana blushed, and Diana's father blushed also. That skilled diplomatist felt the awkwardness of the situation, and was prompt to the rescue.

"Yes," he said, "my daughter has been a heroine. There are Antigones, sir, who show their heroic nature by other service than the leading to and fro of a blind father. From the earliest age my poor child has striven to stand alone; too proud, too noble to be a burden on a parent whose love would have given all, but whose means could give but little. And now she comes to me from her home among strangers, to soothe my hour of pain and infirmity. I trust your daughters may prove as worthy of your love, M. Lenoble."

"They are very dear girls," answered the Frenchman; "but for them life has been all sunshine. They have never known a sorrow except the death of their mother. It is the storm that tests the temper of the tree. I wish they might prove as noble in adversity as Miss Paget has shown herself."

This was more than Diana could bear without some kind of protest.

"You must not take papa's praises au pied de la lettre, M. Lenoble," she said; "I have been by no means brave or patient under adversity. There are troubles which one must bear. I have borne mine somehow; but I claim no praise for having submitted to the inevitable."

This was spoken with a certain noble pride which impressed Gustave more than all the father's florid eloquence had done. After this the conversation became less personal. M. Lenoble talked of England. It was not his first visit; but he had only the excursionist's knowledge of the British Isles.

"I have been to Scotland," he said. "Your Scotland is grand, mountainous—all that there is of the most savage and poetic. It is a Switzerland lined with Brittany. But that which most speaks to the heart of a stranger is the peaceful beauty of your English landscape."

"You like England, M. Lenoble?" said Diana.

"Have I not reason? My mother was English. I was only five years old when I lost her. She went out of my life like a dream; but I can still recall a faint shadow of her face—an English face—a countenance of placid sadness, very sweet and tender. But why do I talk of these things?"

On this the Frenchman's talk took a gayer turn. This M. Lenoble showed himself a lively and agreeable companion. He talked of Normandy, his daughters and their convent, his little son at Rouen, his aunt Cydalise, the quiet old lady at Beaubocage; his grandfather, his grandmother, the old servants, and everything familiar and dear to him. He told of his family history with boyish candour, untainted by egotism, and seemed much pleased by Diana's apparent interest in his unstudied talk. He was quite unconscious that the diplomatic Horatio was leading him on to talk of these things, with a view to making the conversation supremely interesting to him. That arch diplomatist knew that there is nothing a man likes better than talking of his own affairs, if he can have a decent excuse for such discourse.

The clock struck nine while Diana was listening, really interested. This glimpse of a life so far apart from her own was a relief, after the brooding introspective reveries which of late had constituted so large a portion of her existence. She started up at the sound of the clock.

"What now, Cinderella?" cried her father. "Have you stopped beyond your time, and will your fairy godmother be angry?"

"No one will be angry, papa; but I did not mean to stay so late. I am sorry your description of Normandy has been so interesting, M. Lenoble."

"Come and see Vevinord and Cotenoir, and you will judge for yourself. The town-hall of Vevinord is almost as fine as that of Louvain; and we have a church that belongs to the time of Dagobert."

"She shall see them before long," said the Captain; "I shall have business in Rouen again before the next month is out; and if my daughter is a good girl, I will take her over there with me."

Diana stared at her father in utter bewilderment. What could be the meaning of this sudden display of affection?

"I should not be free to go with you, papa, even if you were able to take me," she replied, somewhat coldly; "I have other duties."

She felt assured that there was some lurking motive, some diplomatic art at the bottom of the Captain's altered conduct, and she could not altogether repress her scorn. The astute Horatio saw that he had gone a little too far, and that his only child was not of the stuff to be moulded at will by his dexterous hands.

"You will come and see me again, Diana?" he said in a pleading tone: "I am likely to be a prisoner in this room for a week or more."

"Certainly, papa; I will come if you wish it. When shall I come?"

"Well, let me see—to-day is Thursday; can you come on Monday?"

"Yes, I will come on Monday."

A cab was procured, and Miss Paget was conducted to that vehicle by her new acquaintance, who showed a gallant anxiety for her comfort on the journey, and was extremely careful about the closing of the windows. She arrived at Bayswater before ten, but being forbidden to talk of M. Lenoble, could give but a scanty account of her evening.

"And was your papa kind, dear?" asked Charlotte, "and did he seem pleased to see you?"

"He was much kinder and more affectionate than usual, Lotta dear; so much so, that he set me wondering. Now, if I were as confiding and eager to think well of people as you are, I should be quite delighted by this change. As it is, I am only mystified. I should be very glad if my father and I could be drawn closer together; very glad if my influence could bring about an amendment in his life."

While Miss Paget was discussing her father's affectionate and novel behaviour, the noble Horatio was meditating, by his solitary hearth, upon the events of the evening.

"I'm half-inclined to think he's hit already," mused the Captain. "I must not allow myself to be deluded by manner. A Frenchman's gallantry rarely means much; but Lenoble is one of those straightforward fellows whose thoughts may be read by a child. He certainly seemed pleased with her; interested and sympathetic, and all that kind of thing. And she is an uncommonly handsome girl, and might marry any one if she had the opportunity. I had no idea she was so handsome until to-night. I suppose I never noticed her by candlelight before. By Jove! I ought to have made her an actress, or singer, or something of that kind. And so I might, if I'd known her face would light up as it does. I wish she wasn't so impracticable—always cutting in with some awkward speech, that makes me look like a fool, when, if she had an ounce of common sense, she might see that I'm trying to make her fortune. Yes, egad, and such a fortune as few girls drop into now-a-days! Some of your straitlaced church-going people would call me a neglectful father to that girl, I daresay; but I think if I succeed in making her the wife of Gustave Lenoble, I shall have done my duty in a way that very few fathers can hope to surpass. Such a high-principled fellow as Lenoble is too!—and that is a consideration."



CHAPTER III.

"WHAT DO WE HERE, MY HEART AND I?"

After that first summons to Chelsea, Diana went many times—twice and three times a week—to comfort and tend her invalid father. Captain Paget's novel regard for his only child seemed to increase with the familiarity of frequent intercourse. "I have had very great pleasure in making your acquaintance, my dear Diana," he said one day, in the course of a tete-a-tete with his daughter; "and I am charmed to find you everything that a well-born and well-bred young woman ought to be. I am sure you have excellent reason to be grateful to your cousin, Priscilla Paget, for the excellent education you received in her abode; and you have some cause to thank me for the dash and style imparted to your carriage and manner by our foreign wanderings."

The Captain said this with the air of a man who had accompanied his daughter on the grand tour solely with a view to her intellectual improvement. He really thought she had reason to be grateful to him for those accidents of his nomadic life which had secured her a good accent for French and German, and the art of putting on her shawl.

"Yes, my dear child," he continued with dignity, "it affords me real gratification to know you better. I need scarcely say that when you were the associate of my pilgrimage, you were not of an age to be available as a companion. To a man of the world like myself, a young person who has not done growing must always savour somewhat of the schoolroom and the nursery. I am not going to repeat the Byronic impertinence about bread-and-butter; but the society of a girl of the hobbledehoy age is apt to be insipid. You are now a young woman, and a young woman of whom any father might with justice be proud."

After a few such speeches as these, Diana began to think that it was just possible her father might really experience some novel feeling of regard for her. It might be true that his former coldness had been no more than a prejudice against the awkwardness of girlhood.

"I was shabby and awkward, I daresay, in those days," she thought; "and then I was always asking papa for money to buy new clothes; and that may have set him against me. And now that I am no burden upon him, and can talk to him and amuse him, he may feel more kindly disposed towards me."

There was some foundation for this idea. Captain Paget had felt himself more kindly disposed towards his only child from the moment in which she ceased to be an encumbrance upon him. Her sudden departure from Foretdechene had been taken in very good part by him.

"A very spirited thing for her to do, Val," he had said, when informed of the fact by Mr. Hawkehurst; "and by far the best thing she could do, under the circumstances."

From that time his daughter had never asked him for a sixpence, and from that time she had risen steadily in his estimation. But the feeling which he now exhibited was more than placid approval; it was an affection at once warm and exacting. The fact was, that Horatio Paget saw in his daughter the high-road to the acquirement of a handsome competence for his declining years. His affection was sincere so far as it went; a sentiment inspired by feelings purely mercenary, but not a hypocritical assumption. Diana was, therefore, so much the more likely to be softened and touched by it.

She was softened, deeply touched by this late awakening of feeling. The engagement of Valentine and Charlotte had left her own life very blank, very desolate. It was not alone the man she loved who was lost to her; Charlotte, the friend, the sister, seemed also slipping away from her. As kind, as loving, as tender as of old, this dear friend and adopted sister still might be, but no longer wholly her own. Over the hearts of the purest Eros reigns with a too despotic power, and mild affection is apt to sneak away into some corner of the temple on whose shrine Love has descended. This mild affection is but a little twinkling taper, that will burn steadily on, perhaps unseen amidst the dazzling glory of Love's supernal lamp, to be found shining benignantly when the lamp is shattered.

For Charlotte, Valentine—and for Valentine, Charlotte—made the sum-total of the universe at this time; or, at best, there was but a small balance which included all the other cares and duties, affections and pleasures, of life. Of this balance Diana had the lion's share; but she felt that things had changed since those days of romantic school-girl friendship in which Charlotte had talked of never marrying, and travelling with her dearest friend Diana amongst all the beautiful scenes they had read of, until they found the loveliest spot in the world, where they would establish themselves in an ideal cottage, and live together for the rest of their lives, cultivating their minds and their flower-garden, working berlin-wool chairs for their ideal drawing-room, and doing good to an ideal peasantry, who would be just poor enough to be interesting, and sickly enough to require frequent gifts of calf's-foot jelly and green tea.

Those foolish dreams were done with now; and that other dream, of a life to be spent with the reckless companion of her girlhood, was lost to Diana Paget. There was no point to which she could look forward in the future, no star to lure her onward upon life's journey. Her present position was sufficiently comfortable; and she told herself that she must needs be weak and wicked if she were not content with her lot. But beyond the present she dared not look, so blank was the prospect—a desert, without even the mirage; for her dreams and delusions were gone with her hope.

Possessed by such a sense of loneliness, it is scarcely strange if there seemed to her a gleam of joy, a faint glimmer of hope, in the newly awakened affection of her father. She began to believe him, and to take comfort from the thought that he was drifting to a haven where he might lie moored, with other battered old hulks of pirate and privateer, inglorious and at rest. To work for him and succour him in his declining years seemed a brighter prospect to this hopeless woman of four-and-twenty than a future of lonely independence. "It is the nature of woman to lean," says the masculine philosopher; but is it not rather her nature to support and sustain, or else why to her is entrusted the sublime responsibility of maternity? Diana was pleased to think that a remorseful reprobate might be dependent on her toil, and owe his reformation to her influence. She was indeed a new Antigone, ready to lead him in his moral blindness to an altar of atonement more pure than the ensanguined shrine of the Athenian Eumenides.

Her visits to Omega Street were not entirely devoted to tete-a-tetes with her father. By reason of those coincidences which are so common to the lives of some people, it generally happened that M. Lenoble dropped in upon his invalid friend on the very day of Miss Paget's visit. M. Lenoble was in London on business, and this business apparently necessitated frequent interviews with Captain Paget. Of course such interviews could not take place in the presence of Diana. Gustave was wont, therefore, to wait with praiseworthy patience until the conclusion of the young lady's visit; and would even, with an inconsistent gallantry, urge her to prolong her stay to its utmost limit.

"It will always be time for my affairs, Miss Paget," he urged, "and I know how your father values your society; and he well may value it. I only hope my daughters will be as good to me, if I have the gout, by-and-by."

Diana had spent nearly a dozen evenings in Omega Street, and on each of those evenings had happened to meet M. Lenoble. She liked him better on every occasion of these accidental meetings. He was indeed a person whom it was difficult for any one to dislike, and in the thirty-four years of his life had never made an enemy. She had been pleased with him on the first evening; his bright handsome face, his courteous reverence for her sex—expressed in every word, every tone, every look—his sympathy with all good thoughts, his freshness and candour, were calculated to charm the coldest and most difficult of judges. Diana liked, and even admired him, but it was from an abstract point of view. He seemed a creature as remote from her own life as a portrait of Henry of Navarre, seen and admired in some royal picture-gallery to-day, to fade out of her memory to-morrow.

There was only one point in connection with Gustave Lenoble which occupied her serious thoughts; and this was the nature of his relations with her father.

This was a subject that sorely troubled her. Hope as she might for the future, she could not shut her eyes to the past. She knew that her father had lived for years as a cheat and a trickster—now by one species of falsehood and trickery, now by another—rarely incautious, but always unscrupulous. How had this village seigneur of Normandy fallen into the Captain's toils; and what was the nature of the net that was spread for him?

The talk of business, the frequent interviews, the evident elation of her father's spirits, combined to assure her that some great scheme was in progress, some commercial enterprise, perhaps not entirely dishonest—nay even honest, when regarded from the sanguine speculator's point of view, but involving the hazard of Gustave Lenoble's fortune.

"It is quite as easy for my father to delude himself as it is for him to delude others. This M. Lenoble is ignorant of English commerce, no doubt, and will be ready to believe anything papa tells him. And he is so candid, so trusting, it would be very hard if he were to be a loser through his confidence in papa. His daughters, too; the hazard of his fortune is peril to their future." Such doubts and fears, gradually developed by reflection took stronger hold on Miss Paget's mind after every fresh visit to Omega Street. She saw the Frenchman's light-hearted confidence in all humanity, her father's specious manner and air of quixotic honour. His sanguine tone, his excellent spirits, filled her with intolerable alarm. Alas! when had she ever seen her father in good spirits, except when some gentlemanly villany was in progress?

Miss Paget endured this uneasiness of mind as long as she could, and then determined to warn the supposed victim. She planned the mode of her warning, and arranged for herself a diplomatic form which would reflect the least possible discredit upon her father; and having once come to this resolution, she was not slow to put it into effect.

When her father was about to send for a cab to convey her back to Bayswater, after her next visit to Omega Street, she surprised him by intercepting his order.

"There is a cab-stand in Sloane Square, papa," she said; "and if M. Lenoble will be so kind as to take me there, I—I would rather get the cab from the stand. The man charges more when he is fetched off the rank, I believe."

She could think of no better excuse for seeing Gustave alone than this most sordid pretence. She blushed as she thought how mean a sound it must have in the ears of the man for whose advantage she was plotting. Happily M. Lenoble was not among the people who see nothing but meanness in the desire to save sixpence. His aunt Cydalise had shown him the loveliness of poverty; for there are vows of holy poverty that need no spoken formula, and that are performed without the cloister.

"Poor girl!" thought M. Lenoble; "I dare say even the cost of her coach is a consideration with her; and one dare not pay the coachman."

This was how Gustave read that blush of shame which for a moment dyed Diana's cheek. Her father's was a very different reading.

"The minx sees my game, and is playing into my hands," thought he. "So demure as she is, too! I should never have supposed her capable of such a clever manoeuvre to secure ten minutes' tete-a-tete with an eligible admirer."

He bade his daughter good night with more than usual effusion. He began to think that she might prove herself worthy of him after all.

The district between Omega Street and Sloane Square is after dusk of all places the most solitary. It is the border-land of Pimlico, or, to borrow from Sidney Smith, the knuckle end of Belgravia. In these regions of desolation and smoke-blackened stucco Diana and her companion were as secure from the interruption of the jostling crowd as they might have been in the primeval forests of Central America.

Miss Paget's task was not a pleasant one. Shape her warning as she might, it must reflect some discredit upon her father. He had of late been kind to her; she felt this keenly to-night, and it seemed that the thing she was about to do was a sort of parricide. Not against her father's life was her cruel hand to be lifted; but her still more cruel tongue was to slay her father's good name.

"This M. Lenoble likes him and trusts him," she thought to herself. "What a happiness for that poor broken-down old man to have so kind a friend! And I am going to interfere in a manner that may put an end to this friendship?"

This is the shape which her thoughts assumed as she walked silently by Gustave's side, with her hand lying lightly on his arm. He spoke to her two or three times about the dulness of the neighbourhood, the coldness of the night, or some other equally thrilling subject; but, finding by her replies that she was thinking deeply, he made no further attempt at conversation.

"Poor child! she has some trouble on her mind, perhaps," he thought to himself sadly, for his sympathy with this young lady was a very profound feeling. This was the first occasion on which he had ever been alone with her, and he wondered to find what a strange emotion was developed by the novelty of the situation. He had married at twenty years of age, and had never known those brief fancies or foolish passions which waste the freshness of mind and heart. He had married a wife whom he never learned to love; but his nature was so essentially a happy one, that he had failed to discover the something wanting in his life. In all relations—as grandson, husband, father, master—he had been "all simply perfect," as Mademoiselle Cydalise pronounced him; and in a mind occupied by cares for the welfare and happiness of others, he had never found that blank which needed to be filled in order to make his own life completely happy. Only of late, in his thirty-fourth year, had he come to the knowledge of a feeling deeper than dutiful regard for an invalid wife, or affectionate solicitude for motherless children; only of late had he felt his heart stirred by a more thrilling emotion than that placid resignation to the will of Providence which had distinguished his courtship of Mademoiselle de Nerague.

They had nearly reached Sloane Square before Diana took courage to broach the subject so naturally repugnant to her. She had need to remember that the welfare of M. Lenoble and all belonging to him might be dependent on her fortitude.

"M. Lenoble," she began at last, "I am going to say something I shall find it most painful to utter, but which I feel it my duty to say to you. I can only ask you to receive it in a generous spirit."

"But, my dear Miss Paget, I pray you not to say anything that is disagreeable to you. Why should you give yourself pain?—why—"

"Because it is my duty to warn you of a danger which I know only too well, and of which you may be quite ignorant. You are my father's friend, M. Lenoble; and he has very few friends. I should be sorry if anything I were to say should rob him of your regard."

"Nothing that you say shall rob him of my friendship. But why should you persist thus to say anything that is painful? What can you tell me that I do not know, or that I cannot guess? Will you tell me that he is poor? But I know it. That he is a broken-down gentleman? And that also I know. What, then, would you tell me? That he has a daughter who is to him a treasure without price? Ah, mademoiselle, what must I be if I did not know that also?—I, who have contemplated that daughter so many times—ah, so many!—when she could not know with what sympathy my eyes watched her dutiful looks, with what profound emotion my heart interpreted her life of affectionate sacrifice."

There was a warmth, a tenderness in his tones which touched Diana's heart as it had not been touched of late. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the full meaning of those tender accents came home to her. The love that she had once dreamed of from the lips of another spoke to her to-night in the words of this stranger. The sympathy for which she had yearned long ago, in the days of her wanderings with Valentine, was given to her to-night without stint or measure. Unhappily it came too late; and it did not come from the only lips which, as it seemed to her to-night, could make sympathy precious or love divine. But to this lonely girl a good man's affection seemed a treasure for which she must needs be deeply grateful. It was something to discover that she could be loved.

"I too," she said to herself,—"I, of whose presence Valentine is scarcely conscious when he enters a room where Charlotte and I are together; I, whom he greets day after day with the same careless words, the same indifferent look; I, who might fade and waste day by day with some slow disease, until I sank into the grave, before he would be conscious of any change in my face,—is it possible that amongst the same race of beings there can be any creature so widely different from Valentine Hawkehurst as to love me?"

This was the bitter complaint of her heart as she compared the tenderness of this stranger with the indifference of the man to whom, for three long years of her girlhood, she had given every dream, every thought, every hope of her existence. She could not put him away from her heart all at once. The weak heart still fondly clung to the dear familiar image. But the more intensely she had felt the cold neglect of Valentine, the more grateful to her seemed the unsought affection of Gustave Lenoble.

"You know me as little as you know my father, M. Lenoble," she said, after a long pause, during which they had walked to the end of the long dull street, and were close to the square. "Let us go back a little way, please; I have much more to say. I wish you to be my father's friend always, but, if possible, without danger to yourself. My father is one of those sanguine people who are always ready to embark in some new enterprise, and who go on hoping and dreaming, after the failure of a dozen schemes. He has no money, that I know of, to lose himself, and that fact may make him, unconsciously, reckless of other people's money. I have heard him speak of business relations with you, M. Lenoble, and it is on that account I venture to speak so plainly. I do not want my poor father to delude you, as he has often deluded himself. If you have already permitted him to involve you in any speculation, I entreat you to try to withdraw from it—to lose a little money, if necessary, rather than to lose all. If you are not yet involved, let my warning save you from any hazard."

"My dear Miss Paget, I thank you a thousand times for your advice, your noble thoughtfulness for others. But no, there is no hazard. The business in which your father is occupied for me is not a speculation. It involves no risk beyond the expenditure of a few thousand francs, which, happily, I can afford to lose. I am not at liberty to tell you the nature of the business in question, because I have promised your father to keep that a secret. Dear young lady, you need have no fear for me. I am not a rash speculator. The first years of my life were passed in extreme poverty—the poverty that is near neighbour to starvation. That is a lesson one cannot forget. How shall I thank you for your concern for me?—so generous, so noble!"

"It was only my duty to warn you of my poor father's weakness," replied Diana. "If I needed thanks, your kindness to him is the only boon I could ask. He has bitter need of a friend."

"And he shall never lack one while I live, if only for your sake." The last half of the sentence was spoken in lower tones than the first. Diana was conscious of the lurking tenderness of those few words, and the consciousness embarrassed her. Happily they had reached the end of the quiet street by this time, and had emerged into the busier square. No more was said till they reached the cab-stand, when Diana wished her companion good night.

"I am going back to Normandy in a week, Miss Paget; shall I see you again before I leave England?"

"I really don't know; our meetings are generally accidental, you see."

"O yes, of course, always accidental," replied Gustave, smiling.

"I am sorry you are going to leave London—for papa's sake."

"And I, too, am sorry—for my own sake. But, you see, when one has daughters, and a farm, and a chateau, one must be on the spot. I came to England for one week only, and I have stayed six."

"You have found so much to amuse you in London?"

"Nay, mademoiselle, so much to interest me."

"It is almost the same thing, is it not?"

"A thousand times no! To be amused and to be interested—ah, what can be so widely different as those two conditions of mind!"