"My stars, Levison!" began Mr. Meredith, who was a whipper-in of the ministry, "what a row there is about you! Why, you look as well as ever you were."

"A great deal better to-day," coughed Sir Francis.

"To think that you should have chosen the present moment for skulking! Here have I been dancing attendance at your door, day after day, in a state of incipient fever, enough to put me into a real one, and could neither get admitted nor a letter taken up. I should have blown the house up to-day and got in amidst the flying debris. By the way, are you and my lady two just now?"

"Two?" growled Sir Francis.

"She was stepping into her carriage yesterday when they turned me from the door, and I made inquiry of her. Her ladyship's answer was, that she knew nothing either of Francis or his illness."

"Her ladyship is subject to flights of distemper," chafed Sir Francis. "What desperate need have you of me, just now? Headthelot's away and there's nothing doing."

"Nothing doing up here; a deal too much doing somewhere else. Attley's seat's in the market."

"Well?"

"And you ought to have been down there about it three or four days ago. Of course you must step into it."

"Of course I shan't," returned Sir Francis. "To represent West Lynne will not suit me."

"Not suit you? West Lynne! Why, of all places, it is most suitable. It's close to your own property."

"If you call ten miles close. I shall not put up for West Lynne, Meredith."

"Headthelot came up this morning," said Mr. Meredith.

The information somewhat aroused Sir Francis. "Headthelot? What brings him back?"

"You. I tell you, Levison, there's a hot row. Headthelot expected you would be at West Lynne days past, and he has come up in an awful rage. Every additional vote we can count in the House is worth its weight in gold; and you, he says are allowing West Lynne to slip through your fingers! You must start for it at once Levison."

Sir Francis mused. Had the alternative been given him, he would have preferred to represent a certain warm place underground, rather than West Lynne. But, to quit Headthelot, and the snug post he anticipated, would be ruin irretrievable; nothing short of outlawry, or the queen's prison. It was awfully necessary to get his threatened person into parliament, and he began to turn over in his mind whether he could bring himself to make further acquaintance with West Lynne. "The thing must have blown over for good by this time," was the result of his cogitations, unconsciously speaking aloud.

"I can understand your reluctance to appear at West Lynne," cried Mr. Meredith; "the scene, unless I mistake, of that notorious affair of yours. But private feelings must give way to public interests, and the best thing you can do is to start. Headthelot is angry enough as it is. He says, had you been down at first, as you ought to have been, you would have slipped in without opposition, but now there will be a contest."

Sir Francis looked up sharply. "A contest? Who is going to stand the funds?"

"Pshaw! As if we should let funds be any barrier! Have you heard who is in the field?"

"No," was the apathetic answer.

"Carlyle."

"Carlyle!" uttered Sir Francis, startled. "Oh, by George, though! I can't stand against him."

"Well, there's the alternative. If you can't, Thornton will."

"I should run no chance. West Lynne would not elect me in preference to him. I'm not sure, indeed, that West Lynne would have me in any case."

"Nonsense! You know our interest there. Government put in Attley, and it can put you in. Yes, or no, Levison?"

"Yes," answered Sir Francis.

An hour's time, and Sir Francis Levison went forth. On his way to be conveyed to West Lynne? Not yet. He turned his steps to Scotland Yard. In considerably less than an hour the following telegram, marked "Secret," went down from the head office to the superintendent of police at West Lynne.

"Is Otway Bethel at West Lynne? If not; where is he? And when will he be returning to it?"

It elicited a prompt answer.

"Otway Bethel is not at West Lynne. Supposed to be in Norway. Movements uncertain."



CHAPTER XXXV.

A MISHAP TO THE BLUE SPECTACLES.

Mr. Carlyle and Barbara were seated at breakfast, when, somewhat to their surprise, Mr. Dill was shown in. Following close upon his heels came Justice Hare; and close upon his heels came Squire Pinner; while bringing up the rear was Colonel Bethel. All the four had come up separately, not together, and all four were out of breath, as if it had been a race which should arrive soonest.

Quite impossible was it for Mr. Carlyle, at first, to understand the news they brought. All were talking at once, in the utmost excitement; and the fury of Justice Hare alone was sufficient to produce temporary deafness. Mr. Carlyle caught a word of the case presently.

"A second man? Opposition? Well, let him come on," he good-humoredly cried. "We shall have the satisfaction of ascertaining who wins in the end."

"But you have not heard who it is, Mr. Archibald," cried Old Dill, "It—"

"Stand a contest with him?" raved Justice Hare. "He—"

"The fellow wants hanging," interjected Colonel Bethel.

"Couldn't he be ducked?" suggested Squire Pinner.

Now all these sentences were ranted out together, and their respective utterers were fain to stop till the noise subsided a little. Barbara could only look from one to the other in astonishment.

"Who is this formidable opponent?" asked Mr. Carlyle.

There was a pause. Not one of them but had the delicacy to shrink from naming that man to Mr. Carlyle. The information came at last from Old Dill, who dropped his voice while he spoke it.

"Mr. Archibald, the candidate who has come forward, is that man Levison."

"Of course, Carlyle, you'll go into it now, neck and crop," cried Justice Hare.

Mr. Carlyle was silent.

"You won't let the beast frighten you from the contest!" uttered Colonel Bethel in a loud tone.

"There's a meeting at the Buck's Head at ten," said Mr. Carlyle, not replying to the immediate question. "I will be with you there."

"Did you not say, Mr. Dill, that was where the scoundrel Levison is—at the Buck's Head?"

"He was there," answered Mr. Dill. "I expect he is ousted by this time. I asked the landlord what he thought of himself, for taking in such a character, and what he supposed the justice would say to him. He vowed with tears in his eyes that the fellow should not be there another hour, and that he should never have entered it, had he known who he was."

A little more conversation, and the visitors filed off. Mr. Carlyle sat down calmly to finish his breakfast. Barbara approached him.

"Archibald, you will not suffer this man's insolent doings to deter you from your plans—you will not withdraw?" she whispered.

"I think not, Barbara. He has thrust himself offensively upon me in this measure; I believe my better plan will be to take no more heed of him than I should of the dirt under my feet."

"Right—right," she answered, a proud flush deepening the rose on her cheeks.

Mr. Carlyle was walking into West Lynne. There were the placards, sure enough, side by side with his own, bearing the name of that wicked coward who had done him the greatest injury one man can do to another. Verily, he must possess a face of brass to venture there.

"Archibald, have you heard the disgraceful news?"

The speaker was Miss Carlyle, who had come down upon her brother like a ship with all sails set. Her cheeks wore a flush; her eyes glistened; her tall form was drawn up to its most haughty height.

"I have heard it, Cornelia, and, had I not, the walls would have enlightened me."

"Is he out of his mind?"

"Out of his reckoning, I fancy," replied Mr. Carlyle.

"You will carry on the contest now," she continued, her countenance flashing. "I was averse to it before, but I now withdraw all my objection. You will be no brother of mine if you yield the field to him."

"I do not intend to yield it."

"Good. You bear on upon your course, and let him crawl on upon his. Take no more heed of him than if he were a viper. Archibald, you must canvass now."

"No," said Mr. Carlyle, "I shall be elected without canvass. You'll see, Cornelia."

"There will be plenty canvassing for you, if you don't condescend to take the trouble, my indifferent brother. I'll give a thousand pounds myself, for ale, to the electors."

"Take care," laughed Mr. Carlyle. "Keep your thousand pounds in your pocket, Cornelia. I have no mind to be unseated, on the plea of 'bribery and corruption.' Here's Sir John Dobede galloping in, with a face as red as the sun in a fog."

"Well, it may be he has heard the news. I can tell you, Archibald, West Lynne is in a state of excitement that has not been its lot for many a day."

Miss Carlyle was right. Excitement and indignation had taken possession of West Lynne. How the people rallied around Mr. Carlyle! Town and country were alike up in arms. But government interest was rife at West Lynne, and, whatever the private and public feeling might be, collectively or individually, many votes should be recorded for Sir Francis Levison.

One of the first to become cognizant of the affair was Lord Mount Severn. He was at his club one evening in London, poring over an evening paper, when the names "Carlyle," "West Lynne," caught his view. Knowing that Mr. Carlyle had been named as the probable member, and heartily wishing that he might become such, the earl naturally read the paragraph.

He read it, and read it again; he rubbed his eyes, he rubbed his glasses, he pinched himself, to see whether he was awake or dreaming. For believe what that paper asserted—that Sir Francis Levison had entered the lists in opposition to Mr. Carlyle, and was at West Lynne, busily canvassing—he could not.

"Do you know anything of this infamous assertion?" he inquired of an intimate friend—"infamous, whether true or false."

"It's true, I heard of it an hour ago. Plenty of cheek that Levison must have."

"Cheek!" repeated the dismayed earl, feeling as if every part of him, body and mind, were outraged by the news, "don't speak of it in that way. The hound deserves to be gibbeted."

He threw aside the paper, quitted the club, returned home for a carpet bag, and went shrieking and whistling down to West Lynne, taking his son with him. Or, if he did not whistle and shriek the engine did. Fully determined was the earl of Mount Severn to show his opinion of the affair.

On these fine spring mornings, their breakfast over, Lady Isabel was in the habit of going into the grounds with the children. They were on the lawn before the house, when two gentlemen came walking up the avenue; or, rather, one gentleman, and a handsome young stripling growing into another. Lady Isabel thought she should have dropped, for she stood face to face with Lord Mount Severn. The earl stopped to salute the children, and raised his hat to the strange lady.

"It is my governess, Madame Vine," said Lucy.

A silent courtesy from Madame Vine. She turned away her head and gasped for breath.

"Is your papa at home, Lucy?" cried the earl.

"Yes; I think he is at breakfast. I'm so glad you are come!"

Lord Mount Severn walked on, holding William by the hand, who had eagerly offered to "take him" to papa. Lord Vane bent over Lucy to kiss her. A little while, a very few more years, and my young lady would not hold up her rosy lips so boldly.

"You have grown a dearer girl than ever, Lucy. Have you forgotten our compact?"

"No," laughed she.

"And you will not forget it?"

"Never," said the child, shaking her head. "You shall see if I do."

"Lucy is to be my wife," cried he, turning to Madame Vine. "It is a bargain, and we have both promised. I mean to wait for her till she is old enough. I like her better than anybody else in the world."

"And I like him," spoke up Miss Lucy. "And it's all true."

Lucy was a child—it may almost be said an infant—and the viscount was not of an age to render important such avowed passions. Nevertheless, the words did thrill through the veins of the hearer. She spoke, she thought, not as Madame Vine would have spoken and thought, but as the unhappy mother, the ill-fated Lady Isabel.

"You must not say these things to Lucy. It could never be."

Lord Vane laughed.

"Why?" asked he.

"Your father and mother would not approve."

"My father would—I know he would. He likes Lucy. As to my mother—oh, well, she can't expect to be master and mistress too. You be off for a minute, Lucy; I want to say some thing to Madame Vine. Has Carlyle shot that fellow?" he continued, as Lucy sprung away. "My father is so stiff, especially when he's put up, that he would not sully his lips with the name, or make a single inquiry when we arrived; neither would he let me, and I walked up here with my tongue burning."

She would have responded, what fellow? But she suspected too well, and the words died away on her unwilling lips.

"That brute, Levison. If Carlyle riddled his body with shots for this move, and then kicked him till he died, he'd only get his deserts, and the world would applaud. He oppose Carlyle! I wish I had been a man a few years ago, he'd have got a shot through his heart then. I say," dropping his voice, "did you know Lady Isabel?"

"Yes—no—yes."

She was at a loss what to say—almost as unconscious what she did say.

"She was Lucy's mother, you know, and I loved her. I think that's why I love Lucy, for she is the very image of her. Where did you know her? Here?"

"I knew her by hearsay," murmured Lady Isabel, arousing to recollection.

"Oh, hearsay! Has Carlyle shot the beast, or is he on his legs yet? By Jove! To think that he should sneak himself up, in this way, at West Lynne!"

"You must apply elsewhere for information," she gasped. "I know nothing of these things."

She turned away with a beating heart, and took Lucy's hand, and departed. Lord Vane set off on a run toward the house, his heels flying behind him.

And now the contest began in earnest—that is, the canvass. Sir Francis Levison, his agent, and a friend from town, who, as it turned out, instead of being some great gun of the government, was a private chum of the baronet's by name Drake, sneaked about the town like dogs with their tails burnt, for they were entirely alive to the color in which they were held, their only attendants being a few young gentlemen and ladies in rags, who commonly brought up the rear. The other party presented a stately crowd—county gentry, magistrates, Lord Mount Severn. Sometimes Mr. Carlyle would be with them, arm-and-arm with the latter. If the contesting groups came within view of each other, and were likely to meet, the brave Sir Francis would disappear down an entry, behind a hedge, any place convenient; with all his "face of brass," he could not meet Mr. Carlyle and that condemning jury around him.

One afternoon it pleased Mrs. Carlyle to summon Lucy and the governess to accompany her into West Lynne. She was going shopping. Lady Isabel had a dread and horror of appearing in there while that man was in town, but she could not help herself. There was no pleading illness, for she was quite well; there must be no saying, "I will not go," for she was only a dependant. They started, and had walked as far as Mrs. Hare's gate, when Miss Carlyle turned out of it.

"Your mamma's not well, Barbara."

"Is she not?" cried Barbara, with quick concern. "I must go and see her."

"She has had one of those ridiculous dreams again," pursued Miss Carlyle, ignoring the presence of the governess and Lucy. "I was sure of it by her very look when I got in, shivering and shaking, and glancing fearfully around, as if she feared a dozen spectres were about to burst out of the walls. So I taxed her with it, and she could make no denial. Richard is in some jeopardy, she protests, or will be. And there she is, shaking still, although I told her that people who put faith in dreams were only fit for a lunatic asylum."

Barbara looked distressed. She did not believe in dreams any more than Miss Carlyle, but she could not forget how strangely peril to Richard had supervened upon some of these dreams.

"I will go in now and see mamma," she said. "If you are returning home, Cornelia, Madame Vine can walk with you, and wait for me there."

"Let me go in with you, mamma!" pleaded Lucy.

Barbara mechanically took the child's hand. The gates closed on them, and Miss Carlyle and Lady Isabel proceeded in the direction of the town. But not far had they gone when, in turning a corner, the wind, which was high, blew away with the veil of Lady Isabel, and, in raising her hand in trepidation to save it before it was finally gone, she contrived to knock off her blue spectacles. They fell to the ground, and were broken.

"How did you manage that?" uttered Miss Carlyle.

How, indeed? She bent her face on the ground, looking at the damage. What should she do? The veil was over the hedge, the spectacles were broken—how could she dare show her naked face? That face was rosy just then, as in former days, the eyes were bright, and Miss Carlyle caught their expression, and stared in very amazement.

"Good heavens above," she uttered, "what an extraordinary likeness!" And Lady Isabel's heart turned faint and sick within her.

Well it might. And, to make matters worse, bearing down right upon them, but a few paces distant, came Sir Francis Levison.

Would he recognize her?

Standing blowing in the wind at the turning of the road were Miss Carlyle and Lady Isabel Vane. The latter, confused and perplexed, was picking up the remnant of her damaged spectacles; the former, little less perplexed, gazed at the face which struck upon her memory as being so familiar. Her attention, however, was called off the face to the apparition of Sir Francis Levison.

He was close upon them, Mr. Drake and the other comrade being with him, and some tagrag in attendance, as usual. It was the first time he and Miss Carlyle had met face to face. She bent her condemning brow, haughty in its bitter scorn, full upon him, for it was not in the nature of Miss Carlyle to conceal her sentiments, especially when they were rather of the strongest. Sir Francis, when he arrived opposite, raised his hat to her. Whether it was done in courtesy, in confused unconsciousness, or in mockery, cannot be told. Miss Carlyle assumed it to have been the latter, and her lips, in their anger grew almost as pale as those of the unhappy woman who was cowering behind her.

"Did you intend that insult for me, Francis Levison?"

"As you please to take it," returned he, calling up insolence to his aid.

"You dare to lift off your hat to me! Have you forgotten that I am Miss Carlyle?"

"It would be difficult for you to be forgotten, once seen."

Now this answer was given in mockery; his tone and manner were redolent of it, insolently so. The two gentlemen looked on in discomfort, wondering what it meant; Lady Isabel hid her face as best she could, terrified to death lest his eyes should fall on it: while the spectators, several of whom had collected now, listened with interest, especially some farm laborers of Squire Pinner's who had happened to be passing.

"You contemptible worm!" cried Miss Carlyle, "do you think you can outrage me with impunity as you, by your presence in it, are outraging West Lynne? Out upon you for a bold, bad man!"

Now Miss Corny, in so speaking, had certainly no thought of present and immediate punishment for the gentleman; but it appeared that the mob around had. The motion was commented by those stout-shouldered laborers. Whether excited thereto by the words of Miss Carlyle—who, whatever may have been her faults of manner, held the respect of the neighborhood, and was looked up to only in a less degree than her brother; whether Squire Pinner, their master, had let drop, in their hearing, a word of the ducking he had hinted at, when at East Lynne, or whether their own feelings alone spurred them on, was best known to the men themselves. Certain it is, that the ominous sound of "Duck him," was breathed forth by a voice, and it was caught up and echoed around.

"Duck him! Duck him! The pond be close at hand. Let's give him a taste of his deservings! What do he the scum, turn himself up at West Lynne for, bearding Mr. Carlyle? What have he done with Lady Isabel? Him put up for others at West Lynne! West Lynne's respectable, it don't want him; it have got a better man; it won't have a villain. Now, lads!"

His face turned white, and he trembled in his shoes—worthless men are frequently cowards. Lady Isabel trembled in hers; and well she might, hearing that one allusion. They set upon him, twenty pairs of hands at least, strong, rough, determined hands; not to speak of the tagrag's help, who went in with cuffs, and kicks, and pokes, and taunts, and cheers, and a demoniac dance.

They dragged him through a gap in the hedge, a gap that no baby could have got through in a cool moment; but most of us know the difference between coolness and excitement. The hedge was extensively damaged, but Justice Hare, to whom it belonged, would forgive that. Mr. Drake and the lawyer—for the other was a lawyer—were utterly powerless to stop the catastrophe. "If they didn't mind their own business, and keep themselves clear, they'd get served the same," was the promise held out in reply to their remonstrances; and the lawyer, who was short and fat, and could not have knocked a man down, had it been to save his life, backed out of the melee, and contented himself with issuing forth confused threatenings of the terrors of the law. Miss Carlyle stood her ground majestically, and looked on with a grim countenance. Had she interfered for his protection, she could not have been heard; and if she could have been, there's no knowing whether she would have done it.

On, to the brink of the pond—a green, dank, dark, slimy sour, stinking pond. His coat-tails were gone by this time, and sundry rents and damages appeared in—in another useful garment. One pulled him, another pushed him, a third shook him by the collar, half a dozen buffeted him, and all abused him.

"In with him, boys!"

"Mercy! Mercy!" shrieked the victim, his knees bending and his teeth chattering—"a little mercy for the love of Heaven!"

"Heaven! Much he knows of Heaven!"

A souse, a splash, a wild cry, a gurgle, and Sir Francis Levison was floundering in the water, its green poison, not to mention its adders and thads and frogs, going down his throat by bucketfuls. A hoarse, derisive laugh, and a hip, hip, hurrah! broke from the actors; while the juvenile ragtag, in wild delight, joined their hands round the pool, and danced the demon's dance, like so many red Indians. They had never had such a play acted for them before.

Out of the pea-soup before he was quite dead, quite senseless. Of all drowned rats, he looked the worst, as he stood there with his white, rueful face, his shivery limbs, and his dilapidated garments, shaking the wet off him. The laborers, their duty done, walked coolly away; the tagrag withdrew to a safe distance, waiting for what might come next; and Miss Carlyle moved away also. Not more shivery was that wretched man than Lady Isabel, as she walked by her side. A sorry figure to cut, that, for her once chosen cavalier. What did she think of his beauty now? I know what she thought of her past folly.

Miss Carlyle never spoke a word. She sailed on, with her head up, though it was turned occasionally to look at the face of Madame Vine, at the deep distressing blush which this gaze called into her cheeks. "It's very odd," thought Miss Corny. "The likeness, especially in the eyes, is—Where are you going, madame?"

They were passing a spectacle shop, and Madame Vine had halted at the door, one foot on its step. "I must have my glasses to be mended, if you please."

Miss Carlyle followed her in. She pointed out what she wanted done to the old glasses, and said she would buy a pair of new ones to wear while the job was about. The man had no blue ones, no green; plenty of white. One ugly, old pair of green things he had, with tortoise-shell rims, left by some stranger, ages and ages ago, to be mended, and never called for again. This very pair of ugly old green things was chosen by Lady Isabel. She put them on, there and then, Miss Carlyle's eyes searching her face inquisitively all the time.

"Why do you wear glasses?" began Miss Corny, abruptly as soon as they were indoors.

Another deep flush, and an imperceptible hesitation.

"My eyes are not strong."

"They look as strong as eyes can look. But why wear colored glasses? White ones would answer every purpose, I should suppose."

"I am accustomed to colored ones. I should not like white ones now."

Miss Corny paused.

"What is your Christian name, madame?" began she, again.

"Jane," replied madame, popping out an unflinching story in her alarm.

"Here! Here! What's up? What's this?"

It was a crowd in the street, and rather a noisy one. Miss Corny flew to the window, Lady Isabel in her wake. Two crowds, it may almost be said; for, from the opposite way, the scarlet-and-purple party—as Mr. Carlyle's was called, in allusion to his colors—came in view. Quite a collection of gentlemen—Mr. Carlyle and Lord Mount Severn heading them.

What could it mean, the mob they were encountering? The yellow party, doubtless, but in a disreputable condition. Who or what was that object in advance of it, supported between Drake and the lawyer, and looking like a drowned rat, hair hanging, legs tottering, cheeks shaking, and clothes in tatters, while the mob, behind, had swollen to the length of the street, and was keeping up a perpetual fire of derisive shouts, groans, and hisses. The scarlet-and-purple halted in consternation, and Lord Mount Severn, whose sight was not as good as it had been twenty years back, stuck his pendent eye glasses astride on the bridge of his nose.

Sir Francis Levison? Could it be? Yes, it actually was! What on earth had put him into that state? Mr. Carlyle's lip curled; he continued his way and drew the peer with him.

"What the deuce is a-gate now?" called out the followers of Mr. Carlyle. "That's Levison! Has he been in a railway smash, and got drenched by the engine?"

"He has been ducked!" grinned the yellows, in answer. "They have been and ducked him in the rush pool on Mr. Justice Hare's land."

The soaked and miserable man increased his speed as much as his cold and trembling legs would allow him; he would have borne on without legs at all, rather than remain under the enemy's gaze. The enemy loftily continued their way, their heads in the air, and scorning further notice, all, save young Lord Vane. He hovered round the ranks of the unwashed, and looked vastly inclined to enter upon an Indian jig, on his own account.

"What a thundering ass I was to try it on at West Lynne!" was the enraged comment of the sufferer.

Miss Carlyle laid her hand upon the shrinking arm of her pale companion.

"You see him—my brother Archibald?"

"I see him," faltered Lady Isabel.

"And you see him, that pitiful outcast, who is too contemptible to live? Look at the two, and contrast them. Look well."

"Yes!" was the gaping answer.

"The woman who called him, that noble man, husband, quitted him for the other! Did she come to repentance, think you?"

You may wonder that the submerged gentleman should be walking through the streets, on his way to his quarters, the Raven Inn—for he had been ejected from the Buck's Head—but he could not help himself. As he was dripping and swearing on the brink of the pond, wondering how he should get to the Raven, an empty fly drove past, and Mr. Drake immediately stopped it; but when the driver saw that he was expected to convey not only a passenger, but a tolerable quantity of water as well, and that the passenger, moreover, was Sir Francis Levison, he refused the job. His fly was fresh lined with red velvet, and he "weren't a going to have it spoilt," he called out, as he whipped his horse and drove away, leaving the three in wrathful despair. Sir Francis wanted another conveyance procured; his friends urged that if he waited for that he might catch his death, and that the shortest way would be to hasten to the inn on foot. He objected. But his jaws were chattering, his limbs were quaking, so they seized him between them, and made off, but never bargained for the meeting of Mr. Carlyle and his party. Francis Levison would have stopped in the pond, of his own accord, head downward, rather than faced them.

Miss Carlyle went that day to dine at East Lynne, walking back with Mrs. Carlyle, Madame Vine and Lucy. Lord Vane found them out, and returned at the same time; of course East Lynne was the headquarters of himself and his father. He was in the seventh heaven, and had been ever since the encounter with the yellows.

"You'd have gone into laughing convulsions, Lucy had you seen the drowned cur. I'd give all my tin for six months to come to have a photograph of him as he looked then!"

Lucy laughed in glee; she was unconscious, poor child, how deeply the "drowned cur" had injured her.

When Miss Carlyle was in her dressing-room taking her things off—the room where once had slept Richard Hare—she rang for Joyce. These two rooms were still kept for Miss Carlyle—for she did sometimes visit them for a few days—and were distinguished by her name—"Miss Carlyle's rooms."

"A fine row we have had in the town, Joyce, this afternoon."

"I have heard of it, ma'am. Served him right, if they had let him drown! Bill White, Squire Pinner's plowman, called in here and told us the news. He'd have burst with it, if he hadn't, I expect; I never saw a chap so excited. Peter cried."

"Cried?" echoed Miss Carlyle.

"Well, ma'am, you know he was very fond of Lady Isabel, was Peter, and somehow his feelings overcame him. He said he had not heard anything to please him so much for many a day; and with that he burst out crying, and gave Bill White half a crown out of his pocket. Bill White said it was he who held one leg when they soused him in. Afy saw it—if you'll excuse me mentioning her name to you, ma'am, for I know you don't think well of her—and when she got in here, she fell into hysterics."

"How did she see it?" snapped Miss Carlyle, her equanimity upset by the sound of the name. "I didn't see her, and I was present."

"She was coming here with a message from Mrs. Latimer to the governess."

"What did she go into hysterics for?" again snapped Miss Carlyle.

"It upset her so, she said," returned Joyce.

"It wouldn't have done her harm had they ducked her too," was the angry response.

Joyce was silent. To contradict Miss Corny brought triumph to nobody. And she was conscious, in her innermost heart, that Afy merited a little wholesome correction, not perhaps to the extent of a ducking.

"Joyce," resumed Miss Carlyle, abruptly changing the subject, "who does the governess put you in mind of?"

"Ma'am?" repeated Joyce, in some surprise, as it appeared. "The governess? Do you mean Madame Vine?"

"Do I mean you, or do I mean me? Are we governesses?" irascibly cried Miss Corny. "Who should I mean, but Madame Vine?"

She turned herself round from the looking-glass, and gazed full in Joyce's face, waiting for the answer. Joyce lowered her voice as she gave it.

"There are times when she puts me in mind of my late lady both in her face and manner. But I have never said so, ma'am; for you know Lady Isabel's name must be an interdicted one in this house."

"Have you seen her without her glasses?"

"No; never," said Joyce.

"I did to-day," returned Miss Carlyle. "And I can tell you, Joyce, that I was confounded at the likeness. It is an extraordinary likeness. One would think it was a ghost of Lady Isabel Vane come into the world again."

That evening after dinner, Miss Carlyle and Lord Mount Severn sat side by side on the same sofa, coffee cups in hand. Miss Carlyle turned to the earl.

"Was it a positively ascertained fact that Lady Isabel died?"

The earl stared with all his might; he thought it the strangest question that ever was asked him. "I scarcely understand you, Miss Carlyle. Died? Certainly she died."

"When the result of the accident was communicated to you, you made inquiry yourself into its truth, its details, I believe?"

"It was my duty to do so. There was no one else to undertake it."

"Did you ascertain positively, beyond all doubt, that she did die?"

"Of a surety I did. She died in the course of the same night. Terribly injured she was."

A pause. Miss Carlyle was ruminating. But she returned to the charge, as if difficult to be convinced.

"You deem that there could be no possibility of an error? You are sure that she is dead?"

"I am as sure that she is dead as that we are living," decisively replied the earl: and he spoke but according to his belief. "Wherefore should you be inquiring this?"

"A thought came over me—only to-day—to wonder whether she was really dead."

"Had any error occurred at that time, any false report of her death, I should soon have found it out by her drawing the annuity I settled upon her. It has never been drawn since. Besides, she would have written to me, as agreed upon. No, poor thing, she is gone beyond all doubt, and has taken her sins with her."

Convincing proofs; and Miss Carlyle lent her ear to them.

The following morning while Madame Vine was at breakfast, Mr. Carlyle entered.

"Do you admit intruders here Madame Vine?" cried he, with his sweet smile, and attractive manner.

She arose; her face burning, her heart throbbing.

"Keep your seat, pray; I have but a moment to stay," said Mr. Carlyle. "I have come to ask you how William seems?"

"There was no difference," she murmured, and then she took courage and spoke more openly. "I understood you to say the other night, sir, that he should have further advice."

"Ay; I wish him to go over to Lynneborough, to Dr. Martin; the drive, I think, will do him good," replied Mr. Carlyle. "And I would like you to accompany him, if you do not mind the trouble. You can have the pony carriage, it will be better to go in that than boxed up in the railway carriage. You can remind Dr. Martin that the child's constitution is precisely what his mother's was," continued Mr. Carlyle, a tinge lightening his face. "It may be a guide to his treatment; he said himself it was, when he attended him for an illness a year or two ago."

"Yes, sir."

He crossed the hall on his entrance to the breakfast-room. She tore upstairs to her chamber, and sank down in an agony of tears and despair. Oh, to love him as she did now! To yearn after his affection with this passionate, jealous longing, and to know that they were separated for ever and ever; that she was worse to him than nothing!

Softly, my lady. This is not bearing your cross.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

APPEARANCE OF A RUSSIAN BEAR AT WEST LYNNE.

Mr. Carlyle harangued the populace from the balcony of the Buck's Head, a substantial old House, renowned in the days of posting, now past and gone. Its balcony was an old-fashioned, roomy balcony, painted green, where there was plenty of space for his friends to congregate. He was a persuasive orator, winning his way to ears and hearts; but had he spoken with plums in his mouth, and a stammer on his tongue, and a break-down at every sentence, the uproarious applause and shouts would be equally rife. Mr. Carlyle was intensely popular in West Lynne, setting aside his candidateship and his oratory; and West Lynne made common cause against Sir Francis Levison.

Sir Francis Levison harangued the mob from the Raven, but in a more ignoble manner. For the Raven possessed no balcony, and he was fain to let himself down with a stride and a jump from the first floor window on the top of the bow-window of the parlor, and stand there. The Raven, though a comfortable, old established, and respectable inn, could boast only of casements for its upper windows, and they are not convenient to deliver speeches from. He was wont, therefore to take his seat on the bow-window, and, that was not altogether convenient either, for it was but narrow, and he hardly dared move an arm or a leg for fear of pitching over on the upturned faces. Mr. Drake let himself down also, to support him on one side, and the first day, the lawyer supported him on the other. For the first day only; for that worthy, being not as high as Sir Francis Levison's or Mr. Drake's shoulder, and about five times their breadth, had those two been rolled into one, experienced a slight difficulty in getting back again. It was accomplished at last, Sir Francis pulling him up, and Mr. Drake hoisting him from behind, just as a ladder was being brought out to the rescue amidst shouts of laughter. The stout man wiped the perspiration from his face when he was landed in safety, and recorded a mental vow never to descend from a window again. After that the candidate and his friend shared the shelf between them. The lawyer's name was Rubiny, ill-naturedly supposed to be a corruption of Reuben.

They stood there one afternoon, Sir Francis' eloquence in full play, but he was a shocking speaker, and the crowd, laughing, hissing, groaning and applauding, blocking up the road. Sir Francis could not complain of one thing—that he got no audience; for it was the pleasure of West Lynne extensively to support him in that respect—a few to cheer, a great many to jeer and hiss. Remarkably dense was the mob on this afternoon, for Mr. Carlyle had just concluded his address from the Buck's Head, and the crowd who had been listening to him came rushing up to swell the ranks of the other crowd. They were elbowing, and pushing, and treading on each other's heels, when an open barouche drove suddenly up to scatter them. Its horses wore scarlet and purple rosettes; and one lady, a very pretty one, sat inside of it—Mrs. Carlyle.

But the crowd could not be so easily scattered; it was too thick; the carriage could advance but at a snail's pace, and now and then came to a standstill also, till the confusion should be subsided; for where was the use of wasting words? He did not bow to Barbara; he remembered the result of his having done so to Miss Carlyle, and the little interlude of the pond had washed most of his impudence out of him. He remained at his post, not looking at Barbara, not looking at anything in particular, waiting till the interruption should have passed.

Barbara, under cover of her dainty lace parasol, turned her eyes upon him. At that very moment he raised his right hand, slightly shook his head back, and tossed his hair off his brow. His hand, ungloved, was white and delicate as a lady's, and his rich diamond ring gleamed in the sun. The pink flush on Barbara's cheek deepened to a crimson damask, and her brow contracted with a remembrance of pain.

"The very action Richard described! The action he was always using at East Lynne! I believe from my heart that the man is Thorn; that Richard was laboring under some mistake when he said he knew Sir Francis Levison."

She let her hands fall upon her knee as she spoke, heedless of the candidate, heedless of the crowd, heedless of all save her own troubled thoughts. A hundred respected salutations were offered her; she answered them mechanically; a shout was raised, "Long live Carlyle! Carlyle forever!" Barbara bowed her pretty head on either side, and the carriage at length got on.

The parting of the crowd brought Mr. Dill, who had come to listen for once to the speech of the second man, and Mr. Ebenezer James close to each other. Mr. Ebenezer James was one who, for the last twelve or fifteen years, had been trying his hand at many trades. And had not come out particularly well at any. A rolling stone gathers no moss. First, he had been clerk to Mr. Carlyle; next, he had been seduced into joining the corps of the Theatre Royal at Lynneborough; then he turned auctioneer; then travelling in the oil and color line; then a parson, the urgent pastor of some new sect; then omnibus driver; then collector of the water rate; and now he was clerk again, not in Mr. Carlyle's office, but in that of Ball & Treadman, other solicitors of West Lynne. A good-humored, good-natured, free-of-mannered, idle chap was Mr. Ebenezer James, and that was the worst that could be urged against him, save that he was sometimes out at pocket and out at elbows. His father was a respectable man, and had made money in trade, but he had married a second wife, had a second family, and his eldest son did not come in for much of the paternal money, though he did for a large share of the paternal anger.

"Well, Ebenezer, and how goes the world with you?" cried Mr. Dill by way of salutation.

"Jogging on. It never gets to a trot."

"Didn't I see you turning into your father's house yesterday?"

"I pretty soon turned out of it again. I'm like the monkey when I venture there—get more kicks than halfpence. Hush, old gentleman! We interrupt the eloquence."

Of course "the eloquence" applied to Sir Francis Levison, and they set themselves to listen—Mr. Dill with a serious face, Mr. Ebenezer with a grinning one. But soon a jostle and movement carried them to the outside of the crowd, out of sight of the speaker, though not entirely out of hearing. By these means they had a view of the street, and discerned something advancing to them, which they took for a Russian bear on its hind legs.

"I'll—be—blest," uttered Mr. Ebenezer James, after a prolonged pause of staring consternation, "if I don't believe its Bethel!"

"Bethel!" repeated Mr. Dill, gazing at the approaching figure. "What has he been doing to himself?"

Mr. Otway Bethel it was, just arrived from foreign parts in his travelling costume—something shaggy, terminating all over with tails. A wild object he looked; and Mr. Dill rather backed as he drew near, as if fearing he was a real animal which might bite him.

"What's your name?" cried he.

"It used to be Bethel," replied the wild man, holding out his hand to Mr. Dill. "So you are in the world, James, and kicking yet?"

"And hope to kick in it for some time to come," replied Mr. James. "Where did you hail from last? A settlement at the North Pole?"

"Didn't get quite as far. What's the row here?"

"When did you arrive, Mr. Otway?" inquired old Dill.

"Now. Four o'clock train. I say, what's up?"

"An election; that's all," said Mr. Ebenezer. "Attley went and kicked the bucket."

"I don't ask about the election; I heard all that at the railway station," returned Otway Bethel, impatiently. "What's this?" waving his hand at the crowd.

"One of the candidates wasting breath and words—Levison."

"I say," repeated Otway Bethel, looking at Mr. Dill, "wasn't it rather—rather of the ratherest, for him to oppose Carlyle?"

"Infamous! Contemptible!" was the old gentleman's excited answer. "But he'll get his deserts yet, Mr. Otway; they have already begun. He was treated to a ducking yesterday in Justice Hare's green pond."

"And he did look a miserable devil when he came out, trailing through the streets," added Mr. Ebenezer, while Otway Bethel burst into a laugh. "He was smothered into some hot blankets at the Raven, and a pint of burnt brandy put into him. He seems all right to-day."

"Will he go in and win?"

"Chut! Win against Carlyle! He has not the ghost of a chance; and government—if it is the government who put him on—must be a pack of fools; they can't know the influence of Carlyle. Bethel, is that style of costume the fashion where you come from?"

"For slender pockets. I'll sell 'em to you now, James, at half price. Let's get a look at this Levison, though. I have never seen the fellow."

Another interruption of the crowd, even as he spoke, caused by the railway van bringing up some luggage. They contrived, in the confusion, to push themselves to the front, not far from Sir Francis. Otway Bethel stared at him in unqualified amazement.

"Why, what brings him here? What is he doing?"

"Who?"

He pointed his finger. "The one with the white handkerchief in his hand."

"That is Sir Francis."

"No!" uttered Bethel, a whole world of astounded meaning in his tone. "By Jove! He Sir Francis Levison?"

At that moment their eyes met, Francis Levison's and Otway Bethel's. Otway Bethel raised his shaggy hat in salutation, and Sir Francis appeared completely scared. Only for an instant did he lose his presence of mind. The next, his eyeglass was stuck in his eye and turned on Mr. Bethel, with a hard, haughty stare; as much as to say, who are you, fellow, that you should take such a liberty? But his cheeks and lips were growing as white as marble.

"Do you know Levison, Mr. Otway?" inquired old Dill.

"A little. Once."

"When he was not Levison, but somebody else," laughed Mr. Ebenezer James. "Eh, Bethel?"

Bethel turned as reproving a stare on Mr. Ebenezer as the baronet had just turned on him. "What do you mean, pray? Mind your own business."

A nod to old Dill, and he turned off and disappeared, taking no further notice of James. The old gentleman questioned the latter.

"What was that little bit of by-play, Mr. Ebenezer?"

"Nothing much," laughed Mr. Ebenezer. "Only he," nodding towards Sir Francis, "was not always the great man he is now."

"Ah!"

"I have held my tongue about it, for it's no affair of mine, but I don't mind letting you into the secret. Would you believe that that grand baronet there, would-be member for West Lynne, used, years ago, to dodge about Abbey Wood, mad after Afy Hallijohn? He didn't call himself Levison then."

Mr. Dill felt as if a hundred pins and needles were pricking at his memory, for there rose up in it certain doubts and troubles touching Richard Hare and one Thorn. He laid his eager hand upon the other's arm. "Ebenezer James, what did he call himself?"

"Thorn. A dandy, then, as he is now. He used to come galloping down the Swainson road at dusk, tie his horse in the woods, and monopolize Miss Afy."

"How do you know this?"

"Because I've seen it a dozen times. I was spooney after Afy myself in those days, and went down there a good deal in an evening. If it hadn't been for him, and—perhaps that murdering villain, Dick Hare, Afy would have listened to me. Not that she cared for Dick; but, you see, they were gentlemen. I am thankful to the stars, now, for my luck in escaping her. With her for a wife, I should have been in a pickle always; as it is, I do get out of it once in a while."

"Did you know then that he was Francis Levison?"

"Not I. He called himself Thorn, I tell you. When he came down to offer himself for member, and oppose Carlyle, I was thunderstruck—like Bethel was a minute ago. Ho ho, said I, so Thorn's defunct, and Levison has risen."

"What had Otway Bethel to do with him?"

"Nothing—that I know of. Only Bethel was fond of the woods also—after other game than Afy, though—and may have seen Thorn often. You saw that he recognized him."

"Thorn—Levison, I mean—did not appear to like the recognition," said Mr. Dill.

"Who would, in his position?" laughed Ebenezer James. "I don't like to be reminded of many a wild scrape of my past life, in my poor station; and what would it be for Levison, were it to come out that he once called himself Thorn, and came running after Miss Afy Hallijohn?"

"Why did he call himself Thorn? Why disguise his own name?"

"Not knowing, can't say. Is his name Levison, or is it Thorn?"

"Nonsense, Mr. Ebenezer!"

Mr. Dill, bursting with the strange news he had heard, endeavored to force his way through the crowd, that he might communicate it to Mr. Carlyle. The crowd was, however, too dense for him, and he had to wait the opportunity of escaping with what patience he might. When it came he made his way to the office, and entered Mr. Carlyle's private room. That gentleman was seated at his desk, signing letters.

"Why, Dill, you are out of breath!"

"Well I may be! Mr. Archibald, I have been listening to the most extraordinary statement. I have found out about Thorn. Who do you think he is?"

Mr. Carlyle put down his pen and looked full in the old man's face; he had never seen him so excited.

"It's that man, Levison."

"I do not understand you," said Mr. Carlyle. He did not. It was as good as Hebrew to him. "The Levison of to-day, your opponent, is the Thorn who went after Afy Hallijohn. It is so, Mr. Archibald."

"It cannot be!" slowly uttered Mr. Carlyle, thought upon thought working havoc with his brain. "Where did you hear this?"

Mr. Dill told his tale. Otway Bethel's recognition of him; Sir Francis Levison's scared paleness, for he had noticed that; Mr. Ebenezer's revelation. The point in it all, that finally settled most upon Mr. Carlyle, was the thought that if Levison were indeed the man, he could not be instrumental in bringing him to justice.

"Bethel has denied to me more than once that he knew Thorn, or was aware of such a man being in existence," observed Mr. Carlyle.

"He must have had a purpose in it, then," returned Mr. Dill. "They knew each other to-day. Levison recognized him for certain, although he carried it off with a high hand, pretending not."

"And it was not as Levison, but as Thorn, that Bethel recognized him?"

"There's little doubt of that. He did not mention the name, Thorn; but he was evidently struck with astonishment at hearing that it was Levison. If they have not some secret between them, Mr. Archibald, I'll never believe my own eyes again."

"Mrs. Hare's opinion is that Bethel had to do with the murder," said Mr. Carlyle, in a low tone.

"If that is their secret, Bethel knows the murderer, rely upon it," was the answer. "Mr. Archibald, it seems to me that now or never is the time to clear up Richard."

"Aye; but how set about it?" responded Mr. Carlyle.

Meanwhile Barbara had proceeded home in her carriage, her brain as busy as Mr. Carlyle's, perhaps more troubled. Her springing lightly and hastily out the moment it stopped, disdaining the footman's arm, her compressed lips and absent countenance, proved that her resolution was set upon some plan of action. William and Madame Vine met her in the hall.

"We have seen Dr. Martin, Mrs. Carlyle."

"And he says—"

"I cannot stay to hear now, William. I will see you later, madame."

She ran upstairs to her dressing-room, Madame Vine following her with her reproachful eyes. "Why should she care?" thought madame. "It is not her child."

Throwing her parasol on one chair, her gloves on another, down sat Barbara to her writing-table. "I will write to him; I will have him here, if it be but for an hour!" she passionately exclaimed. "This shall be, so far, cleared up. I am as sure as sure can be that it is that man. The very action Richard described! And there was the diamond ring! For better, for worse, I will send for him; but it will not be for worse if God is with us."

She dashed off a letter, getting up ere she had well begun it, to order her carriage round again. She would trust none but herself to put it in the post.

"MY DEAR MR. SMITH—We want you here. Something has arisen that it is necessary to see you upon. You can get here by Saturday. Be in these grounds, near the covered walk, that evening at dusk. Ever yours,

"B."

And the letter was addressed to Mr. Smith, of some street in Liverpool, the address furnished by Richard. Very cautions to see, was Barbara. She even put "Mr. Smith," inside the letter.

"Now stop," cried Barbara to herself, as she was folding it. "I ought to send him a five pound note, for he may not have the means to come; and I don't think I have one of that amount in the house."

She looked in her secretaire. Not a single five-pound note. Out of the room she ran, meeting Joyce, who was coming along the corridor.

"Do you happen to have a five-pound note, Joyce?"

"No, ma'am, not by me."

"I dare say Madame Vine has. I paid her last week, and there were two five-pound notes amongst it." And away went Barbara to the gray parlor.

"Could you lend me a five-pound note, Madame Vine? I have occasion to enclose one in a letter, and find I do not possess one."

Madame Vine went to her room to get it. Barbara waited. She asked William what Dr. Martin said.

"He tried my chest with—oh, I forget what they call it—and he said I must be a brave boy and take my cod-liver oil well, and port wine, and everything I liked that was good. And he said he should be at West Lynne next Wednesday afternoon; and I am to go there, and he would call in and see me."

"Where are you to meet him?"

"He said, either at papa's office or at Aunt Cornelia's, as we might decide. Madame fixed it for papa's office, for she thought he might like to see Dr. Martin. I say, mamma."

"What?" asked Barbara.

"Madame Vine has been crying ever since. Why should she?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Crying!"

"Yes but she wipes her eyes under her spectacles, and thinks I don't see her. I know I am very ill, but why should she cry for that?"

"Nonsense, William. Who told you you were very ill?"

"Nobody. I suppose I am," he thoughtfully added. "If Joyce or Lucy cried, now, there'd be some sense in it, for they have known me all my life."

"You are so apt to fancy things! You are always doing it. It is not likely that madame would be crying because you are ill."

Madame came in with the bank-note. Barbara thanked her, ran upstairs, and in another minute or two was in her carriage.

She was back again, and dressing when the gentlemen returned to dinner. Mr. Carlyle came upstairs. Barbara, like most persons who do things without reflection, having had time to cool down from her ardor, was doubting whether she had acted wisely in sending so precipitately for Richard. She carried her doubt and care to her husband, her sure refuge in perplexity.

"Archibald, I fear I have done a foolish thing."

He laughed. "I fear we all do that at times, Barbara. What is it?"

He had seated himself in one of Barbara's favorite low chairs, and she stood before him, leaning on his shoulder, her face a little behind, so that he could not see it. In her delicacy she would not look at him while she spoke what she was going to speak.

"It is something that I have had upon my mind for years, and I did not like to tell it to you."

"For years?"

"You remember that night, years ago, when Richard was at the Grove in disguise—"

"Which night, Barbara? He came more than once."

"The night—the night that Lady Isabel quitted East Lynne," she answered, not knowing how better to bring it to his recollection and she stole her hand lovingly into his, as she said it. "Richard came back after his departure, saying he had met Thorn in Bean lane. He described the peculiar motion of the hand as he threw back his hair from his brow; he spoke of the white hand and the diamond ring—how it glittered in the moonlight. Do you remember?"

"I do."

"The motion appeared perfectly familiar to me, for I had seen it repeatedly used by one then staying at East Lynne. I wondered you did not recognize it. From that night I had little doubt as to the identity of Thorn. I believed that he and Captain Levison were one."

A pause. "Why did you not tell me so, Barbara?"

"How could I speak of that man to you, at that time? Afterwards, when Richard was here, that snowy winter's day, he asserted that he knew Sir Frances Levison; that he had seen him and Thorn together; and that put me off the scent. But to-day, as I was passing the Raven, in the carriage—going very slow, on account of the crowd—he was perched out there, addressing the people, and I saw the very same action—the old action that I had used to see."

Barbara paused. Mr. Carlyle did not interrupt her.

"I feel a conviction that they are the same—that Richard must have been under some unaccountable mistake in saying that he knew Francis Levison. Besides, who but he, in evening dress, would have been likely to go through Bean lane that night? It leads to no houses, but one wishing to avoid the high road could get into it from these grounds, and so on to West Lynne. He must have gone back directly on foot to West Lynne, to get the post carriage, as was proved, and he would naturally go through Bean lane. Forgive me, Archibald, for recalling these things to you, but I feel so sure that Levison and Thorn are one."

"I know they are," he quietly said.

Barbara, in her astonishment drew back and stared him in the face—a face of severe dignity it was just then.

"Oh, Archibald! Did you know it at that time?"

"I did not know it until this afternoon. I never suspected it."

"I wonder you did not. I have wondered often."

"So do I now. Dill, Ebenezer James, and Otway Bethel—who came home to-day—were standing before the Raven, listening to his speech, when Bethel recognized him; not as Levison—he was infinitely astonished to find he was Levison. Levison, they say, was scared at the recognition, and changed color. Bethel would give no explanation, and moved away; but James told Dill that Levison was the man Thorn who used to be after Afy Hallijohn."

"How did you know?" breathlessly asked Barbara.

"Because Mr. Ebenezer was after Afy himself, and repeatedly saw Thorn in the wood. Barbara, I believe now that it was Levison who killed Hallijohn, but I should like to know what Bethel had to do with it."

Barbara clasped her hands. "How strange it is!" she exclaimed, in some excitement. "Mamma told me, yesterday, that she was convinced something or other was going to turn up relative to the murder. She had had the most distressing dream, she said, connected with Richard and Bethel, and somebody else, whom she appeared to know in the dream, but could not recognize or remember when she was awake. She was as ill as could be—she does put such faith in these wretched dreams."

"One would think you did also, Barbara, by your vehemence."

"No, no; you know better. But it is strange—you must acknowledge that it is—that, so sure as anything fresh happens touching the subject of the murder, so sure is a troubled dream the forerunner of it. Mamma does not have them at other times. Bethel denied to you that he knew Thorn."

"I know he did."

"And now it turns out that he does know him, and he is always in mamma's dreams—none more prominent in them than Bethel. But, Archibald, I am not telling you—I have sent for Richard."

"You have?"

"I felt sure that Levison was Thorn. I did not expect that others would recognize him, and I acted on the impulse of the moment and wrote to Richard, telling him to be here on Saturday evening. The letter is gone."

"Well, we must shelter him as best we can."

"Archibald—dear Archibald, what can be done to clear him?" she asked, the tears rising to her eyes.

"Being Levison, I cannot act."

"What!" she uttered. "Not act—not act for Richard!"

He bent his clear, truthful eyes upon her.

"My dearest, how can I?"

She looked a little rebellious, and the tears fell.

"You have not considered, Barbara. Any one in the world but Levison; it would look like my own revenge."

"Forgive me!" she softly whispered. "You are always right. I did not think of it in that light. But, what steps do you imagine can be taken?"

"It is a case encompassed with difficulties," mused Mr. Carlyle. "Let us wait until Richard comes."

"Do you happen to have a five-pound note in your pocket, Archibald? I had not one to send to him, and borrowed it from Madame Vine."

He took out his pocket book and gave it to her.

In the gray parlor, in the dark twilight of the April evening—or it was getting far into the night—were William Carlyle and Lady Isabel. It had been a warm day, but the spring evenings were still chilly, and a fire burned in the grate. There was no blaze, the red embers were smoldering and half dead, but Madame Vine did not bestir herself to heed the fire. William lay on the sofa, and she sat by, looking at him. Her glasses were off, for the tears wetted them continually; and it was not the recognition of the children she feared. He was tired with the drive to Lynneborough and back, and lay with eyes shut; she thought asleep. Presently he opened them.

"How long will it be before I die?"

The words took her utterly by surprise, and her heart went round in a whirl. "What do you mean, William? Who said anything about dying?"

"Oh, I know. I know by the fuss there is over me. You heard what Hannah said the other night."

"What? When?"

"When she brought in the tea, and I was lying on the rug. I was not asleep, though you thought I was. You told her she ought to be more cautious, for that I might not have been asleep."

"I don't remember much about it," said Lady Isabel, at her wits' ends how to remove the impression Hannah's words must have created, had he indeed heard them. "Hannah talks great nonsense sometimes."

"She said I was going on fast to the grave."

"Did she? Nobody attends to Hannah. She is only a foolish girl. We shall soon have you well, when the warm weather comes."

"Madame Vine."

"Well, my darling?"

"Where's the use of your trying to deceive me? Do you think I don't see that you are doing it? I'm not a baby; you might if it were Archibald. What is it that's the matter with me?"

"Nothing. Only you are not strong. When you get strong again, you will be as well as ever."

William shook his head in disbelief. He was precisely that sort of child from whom it is next to impossible to disguise facts; quick, thoughtful, observant, and advanced beyond his years. Had no words been dropped in his hearing, he would have suspected the evil, by the care evinced for him, but plenty of words had been dropped; hints, by which he had gathered suspicion; broad assertions, like Hannah's, which had too fully supplied it; and the boy in his inmost heart, knew as well that death was coming for him as that death itself did.

"Then, if there's nothing the matter with me, why could not Dr. Martin speak to you before me to-day? Why did he send me into the other room while he told you what he thought? Ah, Madame Vine, I am as wise as you."

"A wise little boy, but mistaken sometimes," she said from her aching heart.

"It's nothing to die, when God loves us. Lord Vane says so. He had a little brother who died."

"A sickly child, who was never likely to live, he had been pale and ailing from a baby," spoke Lady Isabel.

"Why! Did you know him?"

"I—I heard so," she replied, turning off her thoughtless avowal in the best manner she could.

"Don't you know that I am going to die?"

"No."

"Then why have you been grieving since we left Dr. Martin's? And why do you grieve at all for me? I am not your child."

The words, the scene altogether, overcame her. She knelt down by the sofa, and her tears burst forth freely. "There! You see!" cried William.

"Oh, William, I—I had a little boy of my own, and when I look at you, I think of him, and that is why I cry."

"I know. You have told us of him before. His name was William, too."

She leaned over him, her breath mingling with his; she took his little hand in hers; "William, do you know that those whom God loves best He takes first? Were you to die, you would go to Heaven, leaving all the cares and sorrows of the world behind you. It would have been happier for many of us had we died in infancy."

"Would it have been happier for you?"

"Yes," she faintly said. "I have had more than my share of sorrow. Sometimes I think that I cannot support it."

"Is it not past, then? Do you have sorrow now?"

"I have it always. I shall have it till I die. Had I died a child, William, I should have escaped it. Oh! The world is full of it! full and full."

"What sort of sorrow?"

"All sorts. Pain, sickness, care, trouble, sin, remorse, weariness," she wailed out. "I cannot enumerate the half that the world brings upon us. When you are very, very tired, William, does it not seem a luxury, a sweet happiness, to lie down at night in your little bed, waiting for the bliss of sleep?"

"Yes. And I am often tired; so tired as that."

"Then just so do we, who are tired of the world's cares, long for the grave in which we shall lie down to rest. We covet it, William; long for it; but you cannot understand that."

"We don't lie in the grave, Madame Vine."

"No, no, child. Our bodies lie there, to be raised again in beauty at the last day. We go into a blessed place of rest, where sorrow and pain cannot come. I wish—I wish," she uttered, with a bursting heart, "that you and I were both there!"

"Who says the world's so sorrowful, Madame Vine? I think it is lovely, especially when the sun's shining on a hot day, and the butterflies come out. You should see East Lynne on a summer's morning, when you are running up and down the slopes, and the trees are waving overhead, and the sky's blue, and the roses and flowers are all out. You would not call it a sad world."

"A pleasant world one might regret to leave if we were not wearied by pain and care. But, what is this world, take it at its best, in comparison with that other world, Heaven? I have heard of some people who are afraid of death; they fear they shall not go to it; but when God takes a little child there it is because He loves him. It is a land, as Mrs. Barbauld says, where the roses are without thorns, where the flowers are not mixed with brambles—"

"I have seen the flowers," interrupted William, rising in his earnestness. "They are ten times brighter than our flowers here."

"Seen the flowers! The flowers we shall see in Heaven?" she echoed.

"I have seen a picture of them. We went to Lynneborough to see Martin's picture of the Last Judgment—I don't mean Dr. Martin," said William interrupting himself.

"I know."

"There were three pictures. One was called the 'Plains of Heaven,' and I liked that best; and so we all did. Oh, you should have seen it! Did you ever see them, Madame Vine?"

"No. I have heard of them."

"There was a river, you know, and boats, beautiful gondolas they looked, taking the redeemed to the shores of Heaven. They were shadowy figures in white robes, myriads of them, for they reached all up in the air to the holy city; it seemed to be in the clouds coming down from God. The flowers grew on the banks of the river, pink, and blue, and violet, all colors they were, but so bright and beautiful; brighter than our flowers are."

"Who took you to see the pictures?"

"Papa. He took me and Lucy; and Mrs. Hare went with us, and Barbara—she was not our mamma then. But, madame"—dropping his voice—"what stupid thing do you think Lucy asked papa?"

"What did she ask him?"

"She asked whether mamma was amongst that crowd in the white robes; whether she was gone up to Heaven? Our mamma that was, you know, and lots of people could hear what she said."

Lady Isabel dropped her face upon her hands.

"What did your papa answer?" she breathed.

"I don't know. Nothing, I think; he was talking to Barbara. But it was very stupid of Lucy, because Wilson has told her over and over again that she must never talk of Lady Isabel to papa. Miss Manning told her so too. When we got home, and Wilson heard of it, she said Lucy deserved a good shaking."

"Why must not Lady Isabel be talked of to him?"

A moment after the question had left her lips, she wondered what possessed her to give utterance to it.

"I'll tell you," said William in a whisper. "She ran away from papa. Lucy talks nonsense about her having been kidnapped, but she knows nothing. I do, though they don't think it, perhaps."

"She may be among the redeemed, some time, William, and you with her."

He fell back on the sofa-pillow with a weary sigh, and lay in silence. Lady Isabel shaded her face, and remained in silence also. Soon she was aroused from it; William was in a fit of loud, sobbing tears.

"Oh, I don't want to die! I don't want to die! Why should I go and leave papa and Lucy?"

She hung over him; she clasped her arms around him; her tears, her sobs, mingling with his. She whispered to him sweet and soothing words; she placed him so that he might sob out his grief upon her bosom; and in a little while the paroxysm had passed.

"Hark!" exclaimed William. "What's that?"

A sound of talking and laughter in the hall. Mr. Carlyle, Lord Mount Severn, and his son were leaving the dining-room. They had some committee appointed that evening at West Lynne and were departing to keep it. As the hall-door closed upon them, Barbara came into the gray parlor. Up rose Madame Vine, scuffled on her spectacles, and took her seat soberly upon a chair.

"All in the dark, and your fire going out!" exclaimed Barbara, as she hastened to stir the latter and send it into a blaze. "Who's on the sofa? William, you ought to be to bed!"

"Not yet, mamma. I don't want to go yet."

"But it is quite time that you should," she returned, ringing the bell. "To sit up at night is not the way to make you strong."

William was dismissed. And then she returned to Madame Vine, and inquired what Dr. Martin had said.

"He said the lungs were undoubtedly affected; but, like all doctors, he would give no decisive opinion. I could see that he had formed one."

Mrs. Carlyle looked at her. The firelight played especially upon the spectacles, and she moved her chair into the shade.

"Dr. Martin will see him again next week; he is coming to West Lynne. I am sure, by the tone of his voice, by his evasive manner, that he anticipates the worst, although he would not say so in words."

"I will take William into West Lynne myself," observed Barbara. "The doctor will, of course, tell me. I came in to pay my debts," she added, dismissing the subject of the child, and holding out a five-pound note.

Lady Isabel mechanically stretched out her hand for it.

"Whilst we are, as may be said, upon the money topic," resumed Barbara, in a gay tone, "will you allow me to intimate that both myself and Mr. Carlyle very much disapprove of your making presents to the children. I was calculating, at a rough guess the cost of the toys and things you have bought for them, and I think it must amount to a very large portion of the salary you have received. Pray do not continue this, Madame Vine."

"I have no one else to spend my money on; I love the children," was madame's answer, somewhat sharply given, as if she were jealous of the interference between her and the children, and would resent it.

"Nay, you have yourself. And if you do not require much outlay, you have, I should suppose, a reserve fund to which to put your money. Be so kind as to take the hint, madame, otherwise I shall be compelled more peremptorily to forbid your generosity. It is very good of you, very kind; but if you do not think yourself, we must for you."

"I will buy them less," was the murmured answer. "I must give them a little token of love now and then."

"That you are welcome to do—a 'little token,' once in a way, but not the costly toys you have been purchasing. Have you ever had an acquaintance with Sir Francis Levison?" continued Mrs. Carlyle, passing with abruptness from one point to another.

An inward shiver, a burning cheek, a heartpang of wild remorse, and a faint answer. "No."

"I fancied from your manner when I was speaking of him the other day, that you knew him or had known him. No compliment, you will say, to assume an acquaintance with such a man. He is a stranger to you, then?"

Another faint reply. "Yes."

Barbara paused.

"Do you believe in fatality, Madame Vine?"

"Yes, I do," was the steady answer.

"I don't," and yet the very question proved that she did not wholly disbelieve it. "No, I don't," added Barbara, stoutly, as she approached the sofa vacated by William, and sat down upon it, thus bringing herself opposite and near to Madame Vine. "Are you aware that it was Francis Levison who brought the evil to this house?"

"The evil——" stammered Madame Vine.

"Yes, it was he," she resumed, taking the hesitating answer for an admission that the governess knew nothing, or but little, of past events. "It was he who took Lady Isabel from her home—though perhaps she was as willing to go as he was to take her; I do know—"

"Oh, no, no!" broke from the unguarded lips of Madame Vine. "At least—I mean—I should think not," she added, in confusion.

"We shall never know; and of what consequence is it? One thing is certain, she went; another thing, almost equally certain, is, she did not go against her will. Did you ever hear the details?"

"N—o." Her answer would have been "Yes," but possibly the next question might have been, "From whom did you hear them?"

"He was staying at East Lynne. The man had been abroad; outlawed; dared not show his face in England; and Mr. Carlyle, in his generosity, invited him to East Lynne as a place of shelter, where he would be safe from his creditors while something was arranged. He was a connection in some way of Lady Isabel's, and they repaid Mr. Carlyle, he and she, by quitting East Lynne together."

"Why did Mr. Carlyle give that invitation?" The words were uttered in a spirit of remorseful wailing. Mrs. Carlyle believed they were a question put, and she rose up haughtily against it.

"Why did he give the invitation? Did I hear you aright, Madame Vine? Did Mr. Carlyle know he was a reprobate? And, if he had known it, was not Isabel his wife? Could he dream of danger for her? If it pleased Mr. Carlyle to fill East Lynne with bad men to-morrow, what would that be to me—to my safety, to my well-being, to my love and allegiance to my husband? What were you thinking of, madame?"

"Thinking of?" She leaned her troubled head upon her hand. Mrs. Carlyle resumed,—

"Sitting alone in the drawing-room just now, and thinking matters over, it did seem to me very like what people call a fatality. That man, I say, was the one who wrought the disgrace, the trouble to Mr. Carlyle's family; and it is he, I have every reason now to believe, who brought a nearly equal disgrace and trouble upon mine. Did you know—" Mrs. Carlyle lowered her voice—"that I have a brother in evil—in shame?"

Lady Isabel did not dare to answer that she did know it. Who had there been likely to inform her, the strange governess of the tale of Richard Hare!

"So the world calls it—shame," pursued Barbara, growing excited. "And it is shame, but not as the world thinks it. The shame lies with another, who had thrust the suffering and shame upon Richard; and that other is Francis Levison. I will tell you the tale. It is worth the telling."

She could only dispose herself to listen; but she wondered what Francis Levison had to do with Richard Hare.

"In the days long gone by, when I was little more than a child, Richard took to going after Afy Hallijohn. You have seen the cottage in the wood; she lived there with her father and Joyce. It was very foolish for him; but young men will be foolish. As many more went after her, or wanted to go after her, as she could count upon her ten fingers. Among them, chief of them, more favored even than Richard, was one called Thorn, by social position a gentleman. He was a stranger, and used to ride over in secret. The night of the murder came—the dreadful murder, when Hallijohn was shot down dead. Richard ran away; testimony was strong against him, and the coroner's jury brought in a verdict of 'Wilful Murder against Richard Hare the younger.' We never supposed but what he was guilty—of the act, mind you, not of the intention; even mamma, who so loved him, believed he had done it; but she believed it was the result of accident, not design. Oh, the trouble that has been the lot of my poor mamma!" cried Barbara, clasping her hands. "And she had no one to sympathize with her—no one, no one! I, as I tell you, was little more than a child; and papa, who might have done it, took part against Richard. It went on for three or four years, the sorrow, and there was no mitigation. At the end of that period Richard came for a few hours to West Lynne—came in secret—and we learnt for the first time that he was not guilty. The man who did the deed was Thorn; Richard was not even present. The next question was, how to find Thorn. Nobody knew anything about him—who he was, what he was, where he came from, where he went to; and thus more years passed on. Another Thorn came to West Lynne—an officer in her majesty's service; and his appearance tallied with the description Richard had given. I assumed it to be the one; Mr. Carlyle assumed it; but, before anything could be done or even thought of Captain Thorn was gone again."

Barbara paused to take breath, Madame Vine sat listless enough. What was this tale to her?

"Again years went on. The period came of Francis Levison's sojourn at East Lynne. Whilst I was there, Captain Thorn arrived once more, on a visit to the Herberts. We then strove to find out points of his antecedents, Mr. Carlyle and I, and we became nearly convinced that he was the man. I had to come here often to see Mr. Carlyle, for mamma did not dare to stir in the affair, papa was so violent against Richard. Thus I often saw Francis Levison; but he was visible to scarcely any other visitor, being at East Lynne en cachette. He intimated that he was afraid of encountering creditors. I now begin to doubt whether that was not a false plea; and I remember Mr. Carlyle said, at the time, that he had no creditors in or near West Lynne."

"Then what was his motive for shunning society—for never going out?" interrupted Lady Isabel. Too well she remembered that bygone time; Francis Levison had told that the fear of his creditors kept him up so closely; though he had once said to her they were not in the immediate neighborhood of East Lynne.

"He had a worse fear upon him than that of creditors," returned Mrs. Carlyle. "Singular to say, during this visit of Captain Thorn to the Herberts, we received an intimation from my brother that he was once more about to venture for a few hours to West Lynne. I brought the news to Mr. Carlyle. I had to see him and consult with him more frequently than ever; mamma was painfully restless and anxious, and Mr. Carlyle as eager as we were for the establishment of Richard's innocence; for Miss Carlyle and papa are related, consequently the disgrace may be said to reflect on the Carlyle name."

Back went Lady Isabel's memory and her bitter repentance. She remembered how jealously she had attributed these meetings between Mr. Carlyle and Barbara to another source. Oh! Why had she suffered her mind to be so falsely and fatally perverted?

"Richard came. It was hastily arranged that he should go privately to Mr. Carlyle's office, after the clerks had left for the night, be concealed there, and have an opportunity given him of seeing Captain Thorn. There was no difficulty, for Mr. Carlyle was transacting some matter of business for the captain, and appointed him to be at the office at eight o'clock. A memorable night, that, to Mr. Carlyle, for it was the one of his wife's elopement."

Lady Isabel looked up with a start.

"It was, indeed. She—Lady Isabel—and Mr. Carlyle were engaged to a dinner party; and Mr. Carlyle had to give it up, otherwise he could not have served Richard. He is always considerate and kind, thinking of others' welfare—never of his own gratification. Oh, it was an anxious night. Papa was out. I waited at home with mamma, doing what I could to sooth her restless suspense, for there was hazard to Richard in his night walk through West Lynne to keep the appointment; and, when it was over, he was to come home for a short interview with mamma, who had not seen him for several years."

Barbara stopped, lost in thought. Not a word spoke Madame Vine. She still wondered what this affair touching Richard Hare and Thorn could have to do with Francis Levison.

"I watched from the window and saw them come in at the garden gate—Mr. Carlyle and Richard—between nine and ten o'clock, I think it must have been then. The first words they said to me were that it was not the Captain Thorn spoken of by Richard. I felt a shock of disappointment, which was wicked enough of me, but I had been so sure he was the man; and to hear that he was not, seemed to throw us further back than ever. Mr. Carlyle, on the contrary, was glad for he had taken a liking to Captain Thorn. Well, Richard went in to mamma, and Mr. Carlyle was so kind as to accede to her request that he would remain and pace the garden with me. We were so afraid of papa's coming home; he was bitter against Richard, and would inevitably have delivered him up at once to justice. Had he come in, Mr. Carlyle was to keep him in the garden by the gate whilst I ran in to give notice and conceal Richard in the hall. Richard lingered; papa did not come; and I cannot tell how long we paced there; but I had my shawl on, and it was a lovely moonlight night."

That unhappy listener clasped her hands to pain. The matter-of-fact tone, the unconscious mention of commonplace trifles, proved that they had not been pacing about in disloyalty to her, or for their own gratification. Why had she not trusted her noble husband? Why had she listened to that false man, as he pointed them out to her walking there in the moonlight? Why had she given vent, in the chariot, to that burst of passionate tears, of angry reproach? Why, oh! why had she hastened to be revenged? But for seeing them together, she might not have done as she did.

"Richard came forth at last, and departed, to be again an exile. Mr. Carlyle also departed; and I remained at the gate, watching for papa. By and by Mr. Carlyle came back again; he had got nearly home when he remembered that he had left a parchment at our house. It seemed to be nothing but coming back; for just after he had gone a second time, Richard returned in a state of excitement, stating that he had seen Thorn—Thorn the murderer, I mean—in Bean lane. For a moment I doubted him, but not for long, and we ran after Mr. Carlyle. Richard described Thorn's appearance; his evening dress, his white hands and diamond ring; more particularly he described a peculiar motion of his hand as he threw back his hair. In that moment it flashed across me that Thorn must be Captain Levison; the description was exact. Many and many a time since have I wondered that the thought did not strike Mr. Carlyle."

Lady Isabel sat with her mouth open, as if she could not take in the sense of the words; and when it did become clear to her, she utterly rejected it.

"Francis Levison a murderer! Oh, no! bad man as he is, he is not that."

"Wait," said Mrs. Carlyle. "I did not speak of this doubt—nay, this conviction—which had come; how could I mention to Mr. Carlyle the name of the man who did him that foul wrong? And Richard has remained so long in exile, with the ban of guilt upon him. To-day as my carriage passed through West Lynne, Francis Levison was haranguing the people. I saw that very same action—the throwing back of the hair with his white hand. I saw the selfsame diamond ring; and my conviction that he was the same man became more firmly seated than ever."

"It is impossible!" murmured Lady Isabel.

"Wait, I say," said Barbara. "When Mr. Carlyle came home to dinner, I, for the first time, mentioned this to him. It was no news—the fact was not. This afternoon during that same harangue, Francis Levison was recognized by two witnesses to be the man Thorn—the man who went after Afy Hallijohn. It is horrible."

Lady Isabel sat and looked at Mrs. Carlyle. Not yet did she believe it.

"Yes, it does appear to me as being perfectly horrible," continued Mrs. Carlyle. "He murdered Hallijohn—he, that bad man; and my poor brother has suffered the odium. When Richard met him that night in Bean lane, he was sneaking to West Lynne in search of the chaise that afterward bore away him and his companion. Papa saw them drive away. Papa stayed out late; and, in returning home, a chaise and four tore past, just as he was turning in at the gate. If that miserable Lady Isabel had but known with whom she was flying! A murderer! In addition to his other achievements. It is a mercy for her that she is no longer alive. What would her feelings be?"

What were they, then, as she sat there? A murderer? And she had——In spite of her caution, of her strife for self-command, she turned of a deadly whiteness, and a low, sharp cry of horror and despair burst from her lips.

Mrs. Carlyle was astonished. Why should her communication have produced this effect upon Madame Vine? A renewed suspicion that she knew more of Francis Levison than she would acknowledge, stole over her.

"Madame Vine, what is he to you?" she asked, bending forward.

Madame Vine, doing fierce battle with herself, recovered her outward equanimity. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Carlyle," she said, shivering; "I am apt to picture things too vividly. It is, as you say, so very horrible."

"Is he nothing to you? Don't you know him?"

"He is nothing to me—less than nothing. As to knowing him—I saw him yesterday, when they put him into the pond. A man like that! I should shudder to meet him!"

"Ay, indeed!" said Barbara, reassured. "You will understand, Madame Vine, that this history has been given to you in confidence. I look upon you as one of ourselves."

There was no answer. Madame Vine sat on, with her white face. She and it wore altogether a ghastly look.

"It tells like a fable out of a romance," resumed Mrs. Carlyle. "Well for him if the romance be not ended in the gibbet. Fancy what it would be for him—Sir Francis Levison—to be hung for murder!"

"Barbara, my dearest!"

The voice was Mr. Carlyle's, and she flew off on the wings of love. It appeared that the gentlemen had not yet departed, and now thought they would take coffee first.

She flew off to her idolized husband, leaving her who had once been idolized to her loneliness. She sank down on the sofa; she threw her arms up in her heart-sickness; she thought she would faint; she prayed to die. It was horrible, as Barbara had called it. For that man with the red stain upon his hand and soul she had flung away Archibald Carlyle.

If ever retribution came home to woman, it came home in that hour to Lady Isabel.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

MR. CARLYLE INVITED TO SOME PATE DE FOIE GRAS.

A sighing morning wind swept round the domains of East Lynne, bending the tall poplar trees in the distance, swaying the oak and elms nearer, rustling the fine old chestnuts in the park, a melancholy, sweeping, fitful wind. The weather had changed from brightness and warmth, and heavy, gathering clouds seemed to be threatening rain; so, at least, deemed one wayfarer, who was journeying on a solitary road that Saturday night.

He was on foot. A man attired in the garb of a sailor, with black, curling ringlets of hair, and black, curling whiskers; a prodigious pair of whiskers, hiding his neck above his blue, turned collar, hiding partially his face. The glazed hat, brought low upon his brows, concealed it still more; and he wore a loose, rough pea-jacket and wide rough trousers hitched up with a belt. Bearing steadily on, he struck into Bean lane, a by-way already mentioned in this history, and from thence, passing through a small, unfrequented gate, he found himself in the grounds of East Lynne.

"Let me see," mused he as he closed the gate behind him, and slipped the bolt. "The covered walk? That must be near the acacia trees. Then I must wind round to the right. I wonder if either of them will be there, waiting for me?"

Yes. Pacing the covered walk in her bonnet and mantle, as if taking an evening stroll—had any one encountered her, which was very unlikely, seeing that it was the most retired spot in the grounds—was Mrs. Carlyle.

"Oh, Richard! My poor brother!"

Locked in a yearning embrace, emotion overpowered both. Barbara sobbed like a child. A little while, and then he put her from him, to look at her.

"So Barbara, you are a wife now?"

"Oh, the happiest wife! Richard, sometimes I ask myself what I have done that God should have showered down blessings so great upon me. But for the sad trouble when I think of you, my life would be as one long summer's day. I have the sweetest baby—nearly a year old he is now; I shall have another soon, God willing. And Archibald—oh, I am so happy!"

She broke suddenly off with the name "Archibald;" not even to Richard could she speak of her intense love for, and happiness in her husband.

"How is it at the Grove?" he asked.

"Quite well; quite as usual. Mamma has been in better health lately. She does not know of this visit, but—"

"I must see her," interrupted Richard. "I did not see her the last time, you remember."

"All in good time to talk of that. How are you getting on in Liverpool? What are you doing?"

"Don't inquire too closely, Barbara. I have no regular work, but I get a job at the docks, now and then, and rub on. It is seasonable help, that, which comes to me occasionally from you. Is it from you or Carlyle?"

Barbara laughed. "How are we to distinguish? His money is mine now, and mine is his. We don't have separate purses, Richard; we send it to you jointly."

"Sometimes I have fancied it came from my mother."

Barbara shook her head. "We have never allowed mamma to know that you left London, or that we hold an address where we can write to you. It would not have done."

"Why have you summoned me here, Barbara? What has turned up?"

"Thorn has—I think. You would know him again Richard?"

"Know him!" passionately echoed Richard Hare.

"Were you aware that a contest for the membership is going on at West Lynne?"

"I saw it in the newspapers. Carlyle against Sir Francis Levison. I say, Barbara, how could he think of coming here to oppose Carlyle after his doing with Lady Isabel?"

"I don't know," said Barbara. "I wonder that he should come here for other reasons also. First of all, Richard, tell me how you came to know Sir Francis Levison. You say you did know him, and that you had seen him with Thorn."

"So I do know him," answered Richard. "And I saw him with Thorn twice."

"Know him by sight only, I presume. Let me hear how you came to know him."

"He was pointed out to me. I saw him walk arm-in-arm with a gentleman, and I showed them to the waterman at the cab-stand hard by. 'Do you know that fellow?' I asked him, indicating Thorn, for I wanted to come at who he really is—which I didn't do. 'I don't know that one,' the old chap answered, 'but the one with him is Levison the baronet. They are often together—a couple of swells they looked.'"

"And that's how you got to know Levison?"

"That was it," said Richard Hare.

"Then, Richard, you and the waterman made a mess of it between you. He pointed out the wrong one, or you did not look at the right. Thorn is Sir Francis Levison."

Richard stared at her with all his eyes.

"Nonsense, Barbara!"

"He is, I have never doubted it since the night you saw him in Bean lane. The action you described, of his pushing back his hair, his white hands, his sparkling diamond ring, could only apply in my mind to one person—Francis Levison. On Thursday I drove by the Raven, when he was speechifying to the people, and I noticed the selfsame action. In the impulse of the moment I wrote off for you, that you might come and set the doubt at rest. I need not have done it, it seems, for when Mr. Carlyle returned home that evening, and I acquainted him with what I had done, he told me that Thorn and Francis Levison are one and the same. Otway Bethel recognized him that same afternoon, and so did Ebenezer James."

"They'd both know him," eagerly cried Richard. "James I am positive would, for he was skulking down to Hallijohn's often then, and saw Thorn a dozen times. Otway Bethel must have seen him also, though he protested he had not. Barbara!"

The name was uttered in affright, and Richard plunged amidst the trees, for somebody was in sight—a tall, dark form advancing from the end of the walk. Barbara smiled. It was only Mr. Carlyle, and Richard emerged again.

"Fears still, Richard," Mr. Carlyle exclaimed, as he shook Richard cordially by the hand. "So you have changed your travelling toggery."

"I couldn't venture here again in the old suit; it had been seen, you said," returned Richard. "I bought this rig-out yesterday, second-hand. Two pounds for the lot—I think they shaved me."

"Ringlets and all?" laughed Mr. Carlyle.

"It's the old hair oiled and curled," cried Dick. "The barber charged a shilling for doing it, and cut my hair into the bargain. I told him not to spare grease, for I liked the curls to shine—sailors always do. Mr. Carlyle, Barbara says that Levison and that brute Thorn—the one's as much of a brute as the other, though—have turned out to be the same."

"They have, Richard, as it appears. Nevertheless, it may be as well for you to take a private view of Levison before anything is done—as you once did by the other Thorn. It would not do to make a stir, and then discover that there was a mistake—that he was not Thorn."

"When can I see him?" asked Richard, eagerly.

"It must be contrived somehow. Were you to hang about the doors of the Raven—this evening, even—you'd be sure to get the opportunity, for he is always passing in and out. No one will know you, or think of you, either: their heads are turned with the election."

"I shall look odd to people's eyes. You don't get many sailors in West Lynne."

"Not odd at all. We have a Russian bear here at present, and you'll be nobody beside him."

"A Russian bear!" repeated Richard, while Barbara laughed.

"Mr. Otway Bethel has returned in what is popularly supposed to be a bear's hide; hence the new name he is greeted with. Will it turn out, Richard that he had anything to do with the murder?"

Richard shook his head.

"He couldn't have, Mr. Carlyle; I have said so all along. But about Levison. If I find him to be the man Thorn, what steps can then be taken?"

"That's the difficulty," said Mr. Carlyle.

"Who will set it agoing. Who will move in it?"

"You must, Richard."

"I!" uttered Richard Hare, in consternation. "I move in it!"

"You, yourself. Who else is there? I have been thinking it well over, and can hit upon no one."

"Why, won't you take it upon yourself, Mr. Carlyle?"

"No. Being Levison," was the answer.

"Curse him!" impetuously retorted Richard. "Curse him doubly if he be the double villain. But why should you scruple Mr. Carlyle? Most men, wronged as you have been, would leap at the opportunity for revenge."

"For the crime perpetrated upon Hallijohn I would pursue him to the scaffold. For my own wrong, no. But the remaining negative has cost me something. Many a time, since this appearance of his at West Lynne, have I been obliged to lay violent control upon myself, or I should have horsewhipped him within an ace of his life."

"If you horsewhipped him to death he would only meet his deserts."

"I leave him to a higher retribution—to One who says, 'Vengeance is mine.' I believe him to be guilty of the murder but if the uplifting of my finger would send him to his disgraceful death, I would tie down my hand rather than lift it, for I could not, in my own mind, separate the man from the injury. Though I might ostensibly pursue him as the destroyer of Hallijohn, to me he would appear ever as the destroyer of another, and the world, always charitable, would congratulate Mr. Carlyle upon gratifying his revenge. I stir in it not, Richard."

"Couldn't Barbara?" pleaded Richard.

Barbara was standing with her arm entwined within her husband's, and Mr. Carlyle looked down as he answered,—