If her destiny had been different—if she had died ripe in years, after a life spent in calm matronly happiness, with all that she loved best round her, would she have been nursed so tenderly or mourned so bitterly by the nearest and dearest of them all as she was by her tempter to sin? I think not. I believe that in all the world there never was a greater sorrow than that which Mohun endured as he saw his treasure slowly escaping him; never a desolation more complete and crushing than that which fell upon him as he stood by her corpse, with dry eyes, folded arms, and a heavy, frowning brow. It was not only that he felt her place could never be filled again—many feel that, and find it turn out so—but a part of his being was gone: all that was soft, and kind, and tender in his nature died with Caroline Mannering. He never could get rid of a certain chivalry which was inherent in him, so sometimes he would do a generous thing; but he did it so harshly as to deprive the act of the semblance of good-nature. I think he very seldom again felt sympathy or compassion for any living creature. Perhaps he thought the world had behaved hardly to his dead love, and so never forgave it. She passed away very stilly and painlessly. She was leaning on his breast when he saw death come into her eyes: he shivered then all over, as if a cold wind had struck him suddenly, but spoke no word. She understood him, though. Her last motion was to draw his cheek down to hers with her thin, shadowy arm, and her last breath went up to the God who would judge them both in an unselfish prayer.

"She was rightly served," says Cornelia; "such women ought to be miserable."

O rigid mother of the Gracchi! how we all respect you, tronante in the comfortable cathedra of virtue inexpugnable, perhaps unassailed. Your dictum must stand for the present. The court is with you. But I believe other balances will weigh the strength of temptation, the weakness of human endurance, the sincerity of repentance, and the extent of suffered retribution, when the Father of all that have lived and erred since the world began shall make up His jewels. In that day, I think, the light of many orthodox virgins and dignified matrons will pale before the softer lustre of Magdalene the Saint.

Mohun remained in the Austrian service some time after Caroline Mannering's death, and, by dint of good service and interest, rose rapidly; but, about eight years before I saw him, a distant relation left him the estate in the west of Ireland, where he had resided ever since, making occasional visits to the Continent, and beating up his old quarters, but rarely coming to England.

He did not mix much with the county society, such as it was; and his visitors were chiefly friends from England who had not forgotten him yet, or the military quartered in his neighborhood.

It was a dreary, desolate old house where he lived—massive, square, and gray. There were wooded banks and hollows just round it; but farther afield the chill, bare moorland stretched away toward the sea, broken here and there by sullen sedgy tarns.

Here he spent his monotonous existence, riding hard and drinking obstinately, but never, even in the latter case, rising into conviviality. A long, bushy beard, and portentous mustache, grizzled, though he was scarcely past middle age, which could not conceal a deep sabre-scar, gave him a grim, sinister expression; and his voice had that brief imperious accent which is peculiar to men for many years used to give the word of command.

That worn, haggard face told a real tale. The furrows there had been plowed by an enduring remorse, very different from that comfortable, half-complacent regret which some feel at the retrospect of their youthful fredaines.

They shake their solemn old heads as they hold themselves up to us as a warning; they sermonize with edifying gravity on the impropriety of such misdemeanors; but we can trace through all this an under-current of satisfaction tenderly fatuitous, as they go back to the days of their gipsyhood, when Plancus was consul.

I have been amused with watching these eminent but somewhat sensual Christians on such occasions, and seeing the dull eyes begin to glisten, and the lips wrinkle themselves into a fat, unpleasant smile. They have prospered since, and certainly it would be most absurd to torment themselves now about the souls and bodies which they once sacrificed to a whim. Over those ruins and relics the River of Oblivion has rolled long ago—let them sleep on there and take their rest.

Have we not the bright example of the prototype of this class—the pious AEneas? How creditable was his behavior when he looked back over the black water on the trail of flame stretching from the funeral pyre where Dido lay burning!

"He knew," says his admiring biographer, "what the madness of women could do;" but the breeze was getting up astern, and favoring gods beckoned him on to Italy and fortune; so he sighed twice or thrice—perhaps he wept, for the amiable hero's tears were always ready on the shortest notice—and then, like the captain of the Hesperus, "steered for the open sea."

Did he feel a pang of remorse or shame at that meeting in the twilight of Hades, when he called vainly on Elissa, and the dead queen, from where she stood by the side of Sychaeus, who had forgiven her all, turned on him the disgust and horror of her imperial eyes? Who can tell? The greatest and best of men have their moments of weakness. If so, be sure he was soon comforted as he reviewed the shadowy procession of his posterity of kings. The episode of Byrsa would scarcely trouble his conjugal happiness, or make him more indulgent to the mildest flirtation of Lavinia.

I fancy that poor princess—after listening to a long, intensely proper discourse from her immaculate husband, or when the young Iulus had been unusually disagreeable—gazing wistfully in the direction where, against the sky-line, rose the clump of plane-trees, under which hot-headed, warm-hearted Turnus was resting after his brief life of storms. Then she would think of that unhappy mother who, with every impulse of a willful nature, loved her child so dearly, till she would begin to doubt—it was very wrong of her—if Amata or the match-making gods were most right after all.

The neighboring peasantry regarded Mohun with mingled dislike and terror—a feeling which was increased tenfold by an event which occurred about three years before my visit, in the height of the agrarian troubles. I can not do better than give it, as near as I can, in the words of one who was an actor in the scene.



CHAPTER XVII.

"Now what wouldst thou do, good my squire, That rides beside my rein, Wert thou Glenallan's earl to-day, And I were Roland Cheyne?

* * * * *

My horse should ride through their ranks sae rude, As he would through the moorland fern, And ne'er let the gentle Norman bluid Grow cauld for the Highland kerne."

It was in the beginning of December, 184-(said Fred. Carew); we were sitting down to dinner after a capital day's cock-shooting—besides myself there were Lord Clontarf, Mohun, and Kate, my wife—when we were disturbed by a perfect hail of knocks at the hall door. Old Dan Tucker, or the Spectre Horseman, never clamored more loudly for admittance. Fritz, Mohun's old Austrian servant, went down to see what was up, and, on opening the door, was instantly borne down by the tumultuous rush of Michael Kelly, gentleman, agent to half a dozen estates, and attorney at law. In the two last capacities be had given, it seems, great umbrage to the neighboring peasantry, and they had caught him that night as he returned home, intending to put him to death with that ingenuity of torture for which the fine, warm-hearted fellows are justly celebrated.

They did not wish to hurry over the entertainment, so confined him in an upper chamber, while they called their friends and neighbors to rejoice with them, carousing meantime jovially below. The victim contrived to let himself down from the window, and ran for his life to the nearest house, which, unluckily, happened to be the Lodge. Two boys, however, saw and recognized him as he entered the demesne, and raised a whoop, to show that they knew where the fox had gone to ground.

This we made out from a string of incoherent interjections; and then he lay panting and contorting himself in an agony of fear.

Mohun sat on the hall table, swinging his foot and regarding the spectacle with the indolent curiosity that one might exhibit toward the gambols of some ugly new importation of the Zoological Society. When the story was told he pointed coolly to the door.

The shriek that the miserable creature set up on seeing that gesture I shall never forget.

"Do you think I shall turn my house into a refuge for destitute attorneys?" Ralph said, answering my look of inquiry. "If there were no other reason, I would not risk it, with your wife under my roof. A night-attack in the West is no child's play."

Kate had come out, and was leaning over the gallery. She heard the last words, and spoke, flushing scarlet with anger.

"If I thought that my presence prevented an act of common humanity, I would leave your house this instant, Colonel Mohun."

Ralph smiled slightly as he bent his head in courteous acknowledgment of her interruption.

"Don't be indignant, Mrs. Carew. If you have a fancy for such an excitement, I shall be too happy to indulge you. It is settled, then? We back the attorney. Don't lie there, sir, looking so like a whipped hound. You hear? You are safe for the present." He had hardly finished, when there came a rustling of feet outside, then hurried whispers, then a knock, and a summons.

"We'd like to spake wid the curnel, av ye plase."

"I am here; what do ye want?" Mohun growled.

"We want the 'torney. We know he's widin."

"Then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. It's not my fancy to give him up. I wouldn't turn out a badger to you, let alone a man."

You see, he took the high moral ground now.

"Then we'll have him out in spite of yez," two or three voices cried out together.

"Try it," Ralph said. "Meantime I am going to dine; good-night."

A voice that had not spoken yet was heard, with a shrill, gibing accent. "Ah! thin the best of appetites to ye, curnel, and make haste over yer dinner. It's Pierce Delaney that'll give ye yer supper." Then they went off.

"The said Delaney is a huge quarryman," Ralph observed. "He represents the physical element of terror hereabouts, as I believe I do the moral. We shall have warm work before morning. He does not like me. Fritz, send Connell up; he is below somewhere."

The keeper came, looking very much surprised. He had been in the stables, and had only just heard of the disturbance.

"Get the rifles and guns ready, with bullets and buckshot," his master said. "We are to be attacked, it seems."

The man's bold face fell blankly.

"By the powers, yer honor, I haven't the value of an ounce of poudther in the house. I meant to get some the morrow morning, afore ye were up."

Mohun shrugged his shoulders, whistling softly.

"Man proposes," he said. "It's almost a pity we found so many cocks in the lower copse this afternoon. I have fifteen charges or so in my pistol-case. We must make that do, loading the rifles light." Then he went to a window, whence he could see down the road; the moon was shining brightly.

"I thought so; they have got scouts posted already. The barbarians know something of skirmishing, after all. Maddox, come here." (The groom was a strong English boy, very much afraid of his master, but of nothing else on earth.) "Saddle Sunbeam, and go out by the back gates, keeping well under the shadow of the trees. When you clear them, ride straight at the rails at the end of the paddock. You'll get over with a scramble, I think. Keep fast hold of his head—you mustn't fall. Then make the best of your way to A——, and tell Colonel Harding, with my compliments, that I shall be glad if he will send over a troop as quickly as possible. They ought to be here in two hours. And, mind, don't spare the horse going, but bring him back easy. You will be of no use here, and I won't have him lamed if I can help it. You'll have to risk a bullet or two as you get into the road; but they can't shoot. It's odds against their hitting you. Now go."

The groom pulled his forelock as if the most ordinary commission had been given him, and vanished.

"Connell," Ralph went on, "go and saw the ladders that are in the yard half through. They will hardly try the barred windows; but it looks more workmanlike to take all precautions. Then come back, and help Fritz to pile chairs and furniture all up the staircase, and about the hall near it. Line the gallery with mattresses, two deep, leaving spaces to fire through. Light all the lamps, and get more candles to fix about; we shall not see very clearly after the smoke of the first dozen shots. When you have finished, come to me. Now, shall we go back to dinner?"

I am not ashamed to own I had little appetite; nevertheless, I sat down. Kate had gone to her room. If her courage was failing, she did not wish to show it.

Suddenly our host got up and went to the window. His practiced ear had caught the tread of the horse which Maddox was taking out as quietly as possible. We watched him stealing along under the trees till their shelter failed him. Then he put Sunbeam to speed, and rode boldly at the rails. A yell went up from the road, and we saw dark figures running; then came a shot, just as the horse was rising at the fence, he hit it hard, and the splinters flew up white in the moonlight, but he was over. We held our breath, while several flashes told of dropping shots after the fugitive. They did not stop him, though; and, to our great relief, we heard the wild rush of the frightened horse subside into a long stretching gallop, and the wind brought back a cheery hollo—"Forr'ard, forr'ard away!"

"So far so good," said Ralph Mohun, as he sat down again, and went in steadily at a woodcock. "Don't hurry yourselves, gentlemen. We have three quarters of an hour yet; they will take that time to muster. Clontarf, some Hock?"

The boy to whom he spoke held out his glass with a pleasant smile. The coming peril had not altered a tint on his fresh, beardless cheeks—rosy and clear as a page's in one of Boucher's pictures.

A good contrast he made with the miserable attorney, who had followed us uninvited (it seemed he only felt safe in our presence), and who was crouching in a corner, his lank hair plastered round his livid convulsed face with the sweat of mortal fear.

It struck Mohun, I think. He laid his hand on Clontarf's shoulder, and spoke with a kindliness of voice and manner most unusual with him—

"We'll quell the savage mountaineer, As their Tinchell cows the game: They come as fleet as forest deer; We'll drive them back as tame."

Even at that anxious moment I could not help laughing at the idea of Ralph quoting poetry—of that grim Saul among the prophets.

I went in to keep up Kate's spirits. She bore up gallantly, poor child, and I left her tolerably calm. She believed in me as a "plunger" to an enormous extent, and in Mohun still more. When I returned my companions were in the gallery. This ran round two sides of the hall, which went up to the roof. The only access to the upper part of the house was by a stone staircase of a single flight. The kitchen and offices were on the ground floor, otherwise it was uninhabited.

Ralph had his pistols by him, and his cavalry sword, long and heavy, but admirably poised, lay within his reach.

"I have settled it," he said. "You and Connell are to take the guns. Smooth-bores are quickest loaded, and will do for this short distance. Clontarf, who is not quite so sure with the trigger, is to have the post of honor, and guard the staircase with his sabre. Throw another bucket of water over it, Connell—is it thoroughly drenched? And draw the windows up" (these did not reach to within ten feet of the floor); "we shall be stifled else. But there will be a thorough draft when the door's down, that's our comfort. One word with you, Carew."

He drew me aside, and spoke almost in a whisper, while his face was very grave and stern.

"You will do me this justice, whatever happens. Unless it had been forced upon me, I would not have risked a hair of your wife's head to save all the attorneys that are patronized by the father of lies. But, mark, me! if it comes to the worst, keep a bullet for her. Don't leave her to the mercy of those savage devils. I know them. She had better die ten times over than full into their brutal hands. You must use your own discretion, though. I shall not be able to advise you then. Not a man of them will be in this gallery till I am past praying for. Nevertheless, I hope and believe all will be right. Don't trouble yourself to reload; Fritz will do that for you. I have given him his orders. Aim very coolly, too; we must not waste a bullet. You can choose your own sword; there are several behind you. Ah! I hear them coming up. Now, men, to your posts."

There was the tramp of many feet, and the surging of a crowd about and against the hall door. Then a harsh, loud voice spoke:

"Onst for all, will ye give him up, or shall we take him, and serve the rest of yez as bad? Ye've got women there, too—"

I will not add the rest of the threat for very shame. I know it made me more wolfish than ever I thought it possible to feel, for I am a good-natured man in the main. Mohun, who is not, bit his mustache furiously, and his voice shook a little as he answered,

"Do you ever say a prayer, Pierce Delaney? You need one now. If you live to see to-morrow's sunset, I wish my right hand may wither at the wrist."

A shrill howl pealed out from the assailants, and then the stout oak door cracked and quivered under the strokes of a heavy battering-beam; in a hundred seconds the hinges yielded, and it came clattering in; over it leaped three wild figures, bearing torches and pikes, but their chief, Delaney, was not one of them.

"The left-hand man is yours, Carew; Connell, take the middle one," said Ralph, as coolly as if we had sprung a pack of grouse. While he spoke his pistol cracked, and the right-hand intruder dropped across the threshold without a cry or a stagger, shot right through the brain. The keeper and I were nearly as fortunate. Then there was a pause; then a rush from without, an irregular discharge of musketry, and the clear part of the hall was crowded with enemies.

I can't tell exactly what ensued. I know they retreated several times, for the barricade was impassable; and while their shots fell harmlessly on the mattresses, every one of ours told—nothing makes a man shoot straight like being short of powder—but they came on again, each time with added ferocity.

I heard Mohun mutter more than once, in a dissatisfied tone, "Why does not that scoundrel show himself? I can't make out Delaney." All at once I heard a stifled cry on my right, and, to my horror, I saw Clontarf dragged over the balustrade in the gripe of a giant, whom I guessed at once to be the man we had looked for so long. Under cover of the smoke, he had swung himself up by the balustrade of the staircase, and, grasping the poor boy's collar as he looked out incautiously from his shelter, dropped back into the hall, carrying his victim with him.

With a roar of exultation the wild beasts closed round their prey. Before I had time to think what could be done, I heard, close to my ear, a blasphemy so awful that it made me start even at that critical moment: it was Ralph's voice, but I hardly knew it—hoarse and guttural, and indistinct with passion. Without hesitating an instant, he swung himself over the balustrade, and lighted on his feet in the midst of the crowd. They were half drunk with whisky, and maddened by the smell of blood; but—so great was the terror of Mohun's name—all recoiled when they saw him thus face to face, his sword bare and his eyes blazing. That momentary panic saved Clontarf. In a second Ralph had thrown him under the arch of a deep doorway, and placed himself between the senseless body and its assailants. Two or three shots were fired at him without effect; it was difficult to take aim in such a tossing chaos; then one man, Delaney, sprung out at him with a clubbed musket. "At last!" we heard Mohun say, laughing low and savagely in his beard as he stepped one pace forward to meet his enemy. A blow that looked as if it might have felled Behemoth was warded dexterously by the sabre, and, by a quick turn of the wrist, its edge laid the Rapparee's face open in a bright scarlet gash, extending from eyebrow to chin.

His comrades rushed over his body, furious, though somewhat disheartened at seeing their champion come to grief; but they had to deal with a blade that had kept half a dozen Hungarian swordsmen at bay, and, with point or edge, it met them every where, magically. They were drawing back, when Delaney, recovering from the first effects of his fearful wound, crawled forward, gasping out curses that seemed floating on the torrent of his rushing blood, and tried to grasp Mohun by the knees and drag him down.

Pah! it was a sight to haunt one's dreams. (You might have filled my glass, some of you, when you saw it was empty.)

Ralph looked down on him, and laughed again; his sabre whirled round once, and cleared a wide circle; then, trampling down the wounded man by main force, he drove the point through his throat, and pinned him to the floor. I tell you I heard the steel plainly as it grated on the stone. There was an awful convulsion of all the limbs, and then the huge mass lay quite still.

Then came a lull for several moments. The Irish cowered back to the door like penned sheep; their ammunition was exhausted, and none dared to cross the hideous barrier that now was between them and the terrible Cuirassier.

All this took about half the time to act that it does to tell. I was hesitating whether to descend or to stay where my duty called me—near my wife. Fritz knelt behind me, silent and motionless; he had got his orders to stay by me to the last; but the sturdy keeper rose to his feet.

"Faix," he said, "I'm but a poor hand at the swoording, but I must help my master, anyhow;" and he began to climb over the breastwork. The colonel's quick glance caught the movement, and his brief imperious tones rang over the hubbub of voices loud and clear,

"Don't stir, Connell; stay where you are. I can finish with these hounds alone."

As he spoke, he dashed in upon them with lowered head and uplifted sword.

I don't wonder that they all recoiled; his whole face and form were fearfully transfigured; every hair in his bushy beard was bristling with rage, and the incarnate devil of murder was gleaming redly in his eyes.

Just then there was a wild cry from without, answered by a shriek from my wife, who had been quiet till now. At first I thought that some fellows had scaled the window; but I soon distinguished the accents of a great joy. My poor Kate! She had roughed it in barracks too long not to know the rattle of the steel scabbards.

When the dragoons came up at a hard gallop, there was nothing left in the court-yard but the dead and dying. Mohun had followed the flyers to get a last stroke at the hindmost. We clambered down into the hall, and, just as we reached the door, we saw a miserable crippled being clinging round his knees, crying for quarter. Poor wretch! he might as well have asked it from a famished jungle-tiger. The arm that had fallen so often that night, and never in vain, came down once more; the piteous appeal ended in a death-yell, and, as we reached him, Mohun was wiping coolly his dripping sabre: it had no more work to do.

I could not help shuddering as I took his offered hand, and I saw Connell tremble for the first time as he made the sign of the cross.

The Dragoons were returning from the pursuit; they had only made two prisoners; the darkness and broken ground prevented their doing more. Ralph went up to the officer in command.

"How very good of you to come yourself, Harding, when I only asked you for a troop. Come in; you shall have some supper in half an hour, and Fritz will take care of your men. Throw all that carrion out," he went on, as we entered the hall, strewn with corpses. "We'll give them a truce to take up their dead."

Clontarf came to meet us; he had only been stunned and bruised by the fall. His pale face flushed up as he said, "I shall never forget that I have to thank you for my life."

"It's not worth mentioning," Mohun replied, carelessly. "I hope you are not much the worse for the tumble. Gad! it was a near thing, though. The quarryman's arms were a rough necklace."

At that moment they were carrying by the disfigured remains of the dead Colossus. His slayer stopped them, and bent over the hideous face with a grim satisfaction.

"My good friend Delaney," he muttered, "you will own that I have kept my word. If ever we meet again, I think I shall know you. Au revoir," and he passed on.

I need not go through the congratulatory scene, nor describe how Kate blushed as they complimented her on her nerve. Fortunately for her, she had seen nothing, though she had heard all. Just as we were sitting down to supper, which Fritz prepared with his usual stolid coolness, and when Kate was about to leave us, for she needed rest, we remarked the attorney hovering about us with an exultation on his face yet more servile and repulsive than its late abject terror.

"Mrs. Carew," said Mohun, "if you have quite done with your protege, I think we'll send him down stairs. Give him something to eat, Fritz; not with the soldiers, though; and let some one take him home as soon as it's light. If you say one word, sir, I'll have you turned out now."

Mr. Kelly crept out of the room, almost as frightened as he had been two hours before.

The supper was more cheerful than the dinner, though there was a certain constraint on the party, who were not all so seasoned as their host. He was in unusual spirits; so much so that Clontarf confided to a cornet, his particular friend, that "it was a pity the colonel could not have such a bear-fight once a fortnight, it put him into such a charming humor."

We had nearly finished when, from the road outside, there came a prolonged ear-piercing wail, that made the window-panes tremble. I have never heard any earthly sound at once so expressive of utter despair, and appealing to heaven or hell for vengeance.

We all started, and set down our glasses; but Mohun finished his slowly, savoring like a connoisseur the rich Burgundy.

"It is the wild Irish women keening over their dead," he remarked, with perfect unconcern. "They'll have more to howl for before I have done with them. I shall go round with the police to-morrow and pick up the stragglers. Your men are too good for such work, Harding. There are several too hard hit to go far, and my hand-writing is pretty legible."

The stout soldier to whom he spoke bent his head in assent, but with rather a queer expression on his honest face.

"Gad!" he said, "you do your work cleanly, Mohun."

"It is the best way, and the shortest in the end," was the reply; and so the matter dropped.

The Dragoons left us before daybreak; their protection was not needed; we were as safe as in the Tower of London. The next morning, while I was sleeping heavily, Ralph was in the saddle scouring the country, with what success the next Assizes could tell.

I go there again this winter for the cock-shooting, but I don't much think Kate will accompany me.

Now who says "a rubber?" Don't all speak at once.



CHAPTER XVIII.

"He has mounted her on a milk-white steed, Himself on a dappled gray; And a bugelet-horn hung down by his side As lightly they rode away."

It is hard to describe the terrible prestige which, after the event I have been speaking of, attached itself to Ralph Mohun. As for attempting a second attack on the fatal house, the peasantry would as soon have thought of storming the bottomless pit. They did not even try a shot at him from behind a wall; considering him perfectly invulnerable, they deemed it a pity to waste good powder and lead that might be usefully employed on an agent or process server. As his gaunt, erect figure went by, the men shrunk out of his path, and the women called their children in hastily, and shut their cabin doors; the very beggars, who are tolerably unscrupulous, gave his gate a wide berth, crossing themselves, with a muttered prayer, "God stand betwixt us and harm." If Ralph perceived this, I think he rather liked it; at all events, he made no attempt, either by softening his manner or by any act of benevolence, to win the popular favor.

Before going to the Lodge I had heard from Livingstone. He said that his cousin's affair with Charley was progressing satisfactorily (I knew what that meant), and that he was going himself to sell out. I was not surprised at this; for some time past even the light restraint of service in the Household Brigade had begun to bore him. But the intelligence conveyed in a brief note from him during my stay with Mohun startled me very much. It announced, without any preface or explanation, that he was engaged to Constance Brandon.

I had observed that lately he never mentioned or alluded to Miss Bellasys, but he had been equally silent about his present betrothed. I told my host of the news directly.

"I am very glad to hear it," he said. "I never heard any thing but good of his fiancee. She is wonderfully beautiful, too, I believe, and her blood is unexceptionable. And yet," he went on musingly, "I should hardly have fancied that she would quite suit Guy. I don't know any one who would exactly. By-the-by, was there not a strong flirtation with a Miss Bellasys?"

"Yes; so strong that I should have been less surprised to have seen her name in this letter."

"Then he has not got out of that scrape yet," Mohun observed. "That girl comes of the wrong stock to give up any thing she has fancied without a struggle. I knew her father, Dick Bellasys, well. He contrived to compress as much mischief into his five-and-thirty years, before De Launy shot him, as most strong men can manage in double the time. He was like the Visconti—never sparing man in his anger, or woman in his love."

I felt that he was right. I did not fancy the idea of Flora's state of mind when she heard that all her fascinations had failed, and that her rival had won the day.

"I think I must leave you sooner than I had intended," I said; "I should like to be in England to see how things are going on."

"You are right," answered Ralph, "though I shall be sorry to lose you. You have some influence with Livingstone, I know, though he is so hard to guide and self-reliant that advice is almost useless. If I had to give you a consigne, it would be—Distrust. If Miss Bellasys seems to take things pleasantly, be still more wary. I never saw a peculiarly frank, winning smile on her father's face without there being ruin to some one in the background. After all, you can do but little, I suppose. Che sara, sara." He said this drearily, and with something like a sigh.

I had some business which detained me in Dublin, and it was nearly a fortnight after I received Guy's letter before I reached London.

Early on the morning after my arrival I went down to his lodgings in Piccadilly. I found him at breakfast; after the first greetings, before I could say one word about his own affairs, he began to speak eagerly.

"What a pity you should have come too late for the catastrophe, when you had seen all the preface! Five days ago Bella and Charley made their great coup, and were married in Paris."

"And Bruce?" I said, recovering from the intelligence, which was not so unexpected, after all.

"Ah! Bruce"—Guy replied; "I should be very glad if I knew what he was doing at this moment. I have been expecting him every day; but nothing has been heard of him since he left my mother's presence in a rabid state of fury. Did I tell you it was from Kerton they fled? I thought he must have come to me for an explanation, knowing that I was an accessory before the fact. Indeed, I lent Charley the sinews of war in the shape of a blank check, which I see this morning he has filled up for a thousand—just like his modesty. Well, I hope they'll amuse themselves! Bruce has never been near me. Suicide is the most charitable suggestion I've heard yet; but coroners are silent, and the Thames, if it is conscious of that unlucky though disagreeable man, keeps his secret so far!"

Then he went on to give me more particulars of the escapade. It seems that Miss Raymond had gone out to walk alone, after luncheon, and that nothing more was heard of her till dinner-time, when a note was found on her dressing-table, addressed to her aunt, containing the intelligence of her flight with Forrester, and a little piece of ready-made penitence—the first for all whom it might concern, the second for her father.

That placid Lord Ullin received the news by telegraph when he was well into his second rubber at the "Travelers;" he put the message into his pocket without remark, and won the rubber before he rose. It has been reported that he was somewhat absent during its progress, so much so as to rough his partner's strongest suit; but this I conceive to have been an after-thought of some one's, or a canard of the club. Impavid as the Horatian model-man—(just in all his dealings, and tenacious of the odd trick)—I can not imagine the convulsion of nature which would have made him jeopardize by any sin of omission or commission the winning of the long odds.

He found Bruce that night, and told him all. He never would give an account of that interview: it must have been a curious one.

"xunomosan gar, ontes echtistoi to prin, pur kai thalassa—"

Fancy the well-iced conventionalities of the one brought in contact with the other's savage temperament, maddened by baffled desires and the sense of shameful defeat.

Before noon the next day it was announced to Lady Catharine, at Kerton Manor, that Bruce was waiting for her in the drawing-room. It was with a diffidence and sense of guilt very strange to her pure, straightforward nature that she obeyed the summons.

His back was to the door as she entered.

"I can not tell you how sorry I am," she began.

Bruce turned toward her his ghastly face, ravaged and deformed by passion and sleeplessness, like a cane-brake in the Western Indies over which a tornado has passed. He did not appear to notice her words or her offered hand, but spoke in a strange, broken voice, after clearing his parched throat once or twice, huskily:

"When did they go? At what hour?"

She told him as well as she could.

"Where have they gone to?"

"I have not the least idea. Bella gave no hint of this. Would you like to see her note?" and she held it out to him.

The name appeared to sting him like the cut of a whip, for he started convulsively as he took the scrap of paper. He read it through more than once, as if unable to comprehend it; the power of discrimination seemed blasted in his dry, red eyeballs; they could only glare.

He made it out at last, and crumpled it up in his hand, clenching it till the knuckles became dead-white under the strain.

"We were to have been married this day month," he said to himself, in a hoarse whisper; then raising his voice, "You can guess, at least, which route they have taken?"

"Indeed I can not," she answered; "I would have done any thing to prevent this; but you must see that pursuit now would be worse than useless; it could only lead to fresh evils."

Then the smouldering passion burst into a flame.

"It is false," he cried out; "you would have done nothing. It is a plot. You are all in it; you, your son, and more that I will know soon. I saw it from the first moment I set foot in this cursed house. And you think I will not be revenged? Wait—wait and see!" He spoke rapidly, but it seemed as if the words could hardly force their way through his gnashing teeth.

Good and kind-hearted as she was, there breathed no prouder woman than Lady Catharine Livingstone. Before he had ended her hand was on the bell.

"Not even your disappointment can excuse your language," she said, in her clear, vibrating tones; "our interview is ended. I have pitied you hitherto, and blamed my niece; I do neither now: she knew you better than I. Not one word more. Mr. Bruce's carriage."

Bruce glared at her savagely. He would have sold his soul, I believe, to have strangled her where she stood; but Guy's own peculiar look was in the cold, disdainful eyes, which met his without flinching or faltering. He knew that look very well, and quailed under it now, as he had done many times before.

"A last piece of advice," Lady Catharine said, as he turned to go; "you had better curb your temper if you think of seeing my son. He may scarcely be so patient with you as I have been."

If he heard it he did not notice the remark, but left the room slowly. He lifted his hand, but not his head, in a stealthy gesture of menace as he reached the door.

Lady Catharine stood for some moments after his departure as if in thought, unconsciously retaining her somewhat haughty attitude and expression. Then she went to her room, and prayed, with many tears, that Isabel Raymond might never have to repent the step she had taken so rashly. I think a presentiment of danger made her pray for Guy too. But did she ever forget him when she was on her knees?

Nevertheless, Bruce had not shown upon the scene since, so that they could not convey to him the intelligence when Isabel Forrester wrote from Paris to communicate her marriage.

Guy went to Mr. Raymond as a plenipotentiary from the recently allied powers, to obtain, if possible, fair conditions of peace. His uncle was breakfasting alone, and received him with perfect good-temper.

"My dear boy," he said, "it was a match of your poor aunt's making, not mine. If she had lived to see it broken off, I think she would have been very much provoked. (He gave a slight shudder of reminiscence here, and finished his chocolate.) But they say there is no marrying or giving in marriage where she is gone, so let us hope it will not seriously affect her now. As to me, I have never been angry since I was twenty-two. Personally, I very much prefer Forrester to Bruce as a connection. I should have allowed Bella L300 a year, and I suppose the necessary outfit and presents would have cost me about L500. I will do just the same now—neither more nor less. You can tell Charley he may draw for the last sum and for the first quarter when he pleases. They had better travel for a year or so, I think, till the people have stopped talking about them. Charley will sell out, of course?"

"His papers are sent in," Guy replied.

"Just so," Raymond went on. "If they are in a pleasant place, I may very likely go and see them this summer. Suggest Hombourg. I should like to try the waters. And tell Charley not to go about too much alone after nightfall. The deserted one is capable of laying a trap for him. I didn't like his look when I saw him last. That is all, I think. Do you go to Lady Featherstone's to-night?"

Raymond appeared at his clubs and elsewhere with a face so impenetrably cheerful and complacent that his bitterest friend dared not venture on a condolence.



CHAPTER XIX.

"Tu mihi, tu certe (memini), Graecine, negabas, Uno posse aliquem tempore amare duas."

When I had heard all this, I questioned Guy about his own affairs. He was not very communicative, though he seemed perfectly happy and hopeful as to the future. He said that his marriage was not to take place till the autumn, when Miss Brandon's brother (they were orphans) was expected to return from India. I could not help asking what Flora Bellasys thought of it.

Livingstone bit his lip and frowned slightly as he answered, "Well, there was a scene—rather a tempestuous one, to speak the truth, but we are perfectly good friends now. I wonder if she ever really expected me to marry her? She is the most amusing person alive to flirt with, but as for serious measures—" He shrugged his shoulders expressively. "Perhaps she has something to complain of; but if she has any conscience at all, she ought to recognize the lex talionis."

I was not convinced or satisfied, but it was useless to pursue the subject then.

"Will you ride to-day?" Guy asked. "There are always horses for you here. I should like to introduce you to Constance. We shall be in the Park about five."

I accepted willingly, and left him soon afterward.

A little after the hour he had named I saw Livingstone's tall figure turn the corner of Kensington Gardens, riding on Miss Brandon's right; on her left was her uncle, Mr. Vavasour, her usual escort.

She was rarely lovely, certainly, as I was sure she would be, for Guy's taste in feminine beauty was undisputed. Her features were delicate, but very clearly cut; the nose and chin purely Grecian in their outline; the dark gray eyes met you with an earnest, true expression, as if they had nothing to conceal. Her broad Spanish hat suited her well, shading as it did cheeks slightly flushed by exercise, and shining tresses of that color which with us is nameless, and which across the Channel they call—blond cendre. Her hand was strikingly perfect, even in its gauntlet. It might have been modeled from that famous marble fragment of which the banker-poet was so proud, and which Canova kissed so often.

There is a face which always reminds me of hers, though the figure in the portrait is far more matured and developed than Constance's willowy form—the picture of Queen Joanna of Naples in the Palazzo Doria.

I have stood before it long, trying in vain to read the riddle of the haughty lineaments, and serene, untroubled eyes. Gazing at these, who could guess the story of that most guilty woman and astute conspirator—unbridled in sensuality—remorseless in statecraft—who counted her lovers by legions, and saw, unmoved, her chief favorite torn limb from limb on the rack?

But this is no singular instance. Marble and canvas are more discreet than the mask of the best trained living features. Messalina and Julia look cold and correct enough since they have been turned into stone. Only by the magic of her smile and by the glory of her golden hair do we recognize her who, if all tales are true, might have given a tongue to the walls of the Vatican. We forget the Borgia, with her laboratory of philtres and poisons—we only think that never a duke of all his royal race brought home a lovelier bride than Alfonso of Ferrara.

Perhaps it is best so. Why should a mark be set upon those whom, it may be, history has condemned unrighteously? Let us not be more uncharitable than the painter or the sculptor, but pass on without pausing to reflect—Desinit in piscem.

If one had wanted to find a fault in Constance Brandon's beauty, I suppose it would have been that her forehead was too high, and her lips too thin and decided in their expression, especially when compressed under any strong feeling. But this defect it would have been hard to discover on this first occasion of our meeting. She looked so bright and joyous, and the light from her face seemed reflected on Guy's dark features, softening their stern outline, and making them radiant with a proud happiness. She received me very cordially, and I well remember the pleasant impression left on my ear by the first sound of her voice, soft and low as Cordelia's. In these two attributes it resembled that of Flora Bellasys, yet their tones were essentially different—as different as is to the taste a draft of pure sparkling water from one of strong sweet wine. We had taken two or three turns, when a large party approached us, in the centre of whom I recognized instantly Miss Bellasys. If possible, she looked handsomer than ever as she swept by at a sharp canter, sitting square and firmly, but yielding just enough to the stride of the horse—perfectly erect, but inimitably lithe and graceful.

Nothing in her demeanor betrayed the faintest shade of emotion; but I remembered the old maxim of the fencing-school—"Watch your enemy's eyes, not his blade;" and I caught Flora's, as she raised her head after returning our salutation, before she had time to discipline them thoroughly. I saw them glitter with defiant hatred as they lighted on her rival. I saw them melt with passionate eagerness as for one brief moment they followed Guy's retreating figure and averted face. Half of Mohun's warning became superfluous after that. I was in no danger of being deceived by "Miss Bellasys taking things pleasantly."

Yet, as time wore on, the idea forced itself on me more and more that Livingstone's choice was in some respects a mistake. They were not suited to each other. Constance was as unsuspicious and as free from commonplace jealousies as the merest child; but some of her lover's proceedings did not please her, and she told him so, perhaps without attending sufficiently to the "suaviter in modo"; for, when it was a question of duty, real or fancied, to herself and to others, she was rigid as steel. Besides this, she was a strict observer of all Church canons and rituals; and more than once, when Guy had proposed some plan, a vigil, or matins, or vespers came in the way. She did all for the best, I am certain, and judged herself far more severely than she did others, but she could not guess how any thing like an admonition or a lecture grated on the proud, self-willed nature that from childhood had been unused to the slightest control. To speak the truth, too, she was not exempt from that failing which brought ruin on the brightest of the angels, and punishment eternal on the Son of the Morning; so that pride may often have checked the evidence of the deep love she really felt, and made her manner seem constrained and cold.

I only guess all this; for neither then, nor at any future time, did I ever hear from Guy the faintest whisper of accusation or complaint.

I do not think he contradicted her often; I am quite sure it never came to a quarrel or even a dispute. They were not a couple likely to indulge in the amantium irae; but sometimes, after quitting her, his brow was so ominously overcast that it would have gladdened the very heart of Flora Bellasys to have seen it. Once, I remember, after sitting some time in silence, his eyes turned toward a table, where, among other letters, lay a little triangular note unopened. He broke the seal and read it through, frowning still heavily; after a few moments of what looked like hesitation, he seemed to come to a decision, and burned it slowly at the flame of his spirit-lamp. Then he rose and shook all his mighty limbs—as the Danite Titan might have done before his locks were shorn—and sat down again with a long-drawn sigh, as of relief. I longed to interpose with a warning word, for in the handwriting I recognized the griffe of the fatal Delilah. But I knew how dangerous it was to attempt interference with Guy; and besides, this time, I felt sure he had escaped the toils. Yet my heart sank as I thought of the seductions and temptations that the future might have in store. I could hardly keep my temper that evening when I saw at the Opera Flora Bellasys—triumphant, as if she could guess what the morning's work had been—and then thought of the single, guileless heart whose happiness she was plotting to overthrow.

She and Guy met constantly, for he still went every where, often accompanied by his fiancee. They seemed to be on the most ordinary footing of old acquaintances, though it was remarked that no one could be said to have succeeded to the post of grand vizier at the Bellasys court, vacated by Livingstone. I can not trace the threads of the web of Circe. She concealed them well at the time; and since—between the knowledge of them and me is drawn the veil of a terrible remorse, which I have never tried to penetrate.

I can only tell the end, which came very speedily.



CHAPTER XX.

"'Tis good to be merry and wise; 'Tis good to be honest and true; 'Tis good to be off with the old love Before you are on with the new."

There was a sound of revelry by night in Mrs. Wallace's villa at Richmond, and fair women and brave men mustered there strong. Every one liked those parties. The hostess was young and very charming, while her husband, a bald, inoffensive, elderly man, was equally eminent in his own department of the commissariat. His wines were things to dream of in after years, when, like Curran, "confined to the Port" of a remote country inn, one sacrifices one's self heroically on the altar of the landlord for the good of the house.

The crowd was not so dense as at most London parties, and the temperature consequently something below that of a vapor-bath or of the Piombi, but the generality of the guests were either amusing, or pretty, or otherwise eligible. To be sure, it was rather an expedition and a question of passports to get down there, but the drive home through the cool dewy morning made you amends.

Constance Brandon was present. I never saw her look so lovely as on this, her last appearance on the world's stage. No one could have guessed that, five hours later, the light was to die in her eyes and the color in her cheeks, never to return to either again till she shall wake on the Resurrection morning.

Flora Bellasys was there too, in all the insolence of beauty, defying criticism, and challenging the admiration that was lavished on her. I should like to describe her dress; but I know how dangerous it is for the uninitiate to venture within the verge of those awful mysteries over which, as hierophants, Devy and Maradon-Carson preside. Conscious of my sex, I retire. Have we not read of Actaeon?

Still I may say that I have an impression of her being surrounded by a sort of cloud of pale blue tulle, over which bouquets of geranium were scattered here and there; and I remember perfectly a certain serpent of scarlet velvet and diamonds flashing amid the rolls and braids of her dark shining tresses.

The evening began with private theatricals, which were most successful. There was a soubrette—provoking enough to have set all the parti-colored world by the ears—who traced her descent from a vavasor of Duke William the Norman, and an attorney's clerk, who had evidently mistaken his profession when he took a commission in the Coldstreams.

Soon after the ball which followed had begun, Livingstone arrived. He had been dining at the mess of his old regiment. I never remember seeing him what is called the worse for liquor. His head was marble under the influence of wine and of yet stronger compounds; but the instant I met his eyes, I guessed from their unusual brilliancy, and from the slight additional flush on his brown cheeks, that the wassail had been deep.

He paused for a moment to say a word or two to me, and I noticed that the first person whom his glance lighted on was, not his betrothed, but Flora Bellasys. The latter was resting after her first polka, with her usual staff of admirers round her. Guy watched the circle paying their homage, and I heard him mutter to himself the formula of the Roman arena—Morituri te salutant. Then he passed on; and, after retaining Constance for her first disengaged turn, he began talking to a lady, whom I have not noticed yet, but who merits to be sketched hastily.

Rose Thornton was not clever. She was no longer in her first youth, and had never been pretty or very attractive. Her figure was neat, and her face had a sort of nervous deprecating expression, that made you look at it a second time. Nevertheless, she was always deeply engaged, and generally to the best goers in the room. She was a good performer herself, but this would not account for it; ninety-nine girls out of every hundred are that, after two seasons' practice. Those who were in the secret did not wonder at her luck. She was the ame damnee of Flora Bellasys.

Whenever the latter ventured on any unusually daring escapade, she was always really accompanied by Miss Thornton, or supposed to be so. How the influence was originally acquired I know not; at the time I speak of she had no more volition left than a Russian Grenadier. She had some principles of action once, I suppose, and considered herself as an accountable being; but all such vanities her "dashing white sergeant" had drilled out of her long ago. Poor thing! It was no wonder that the frightened look had become habitual to her face, and that she always spoke with reserve and constraint, as if to guard against the chance-betrayal of some terrible secret. It was no sinecure, her office—alternately scapegoat and confidante. My own idea is, that having still a little feeble remnant of a conscience remaining, she suffered agonies of remorse at times in the latter capacity. Dancing was her great—almost her only pleasure, and Flora certainly provided her regularly with partners. Indeed, some one had irreverently designated Miss Thornton as The Turnpike, inasmuch as, before securing a waltz with the beauty, it was necessary to pay toll in the shape of a duty-dance with her protegee. Rose's gratitude was boundless. She never wearied in rendering small services to her patroness. She would write her notes for her, as La Raffe did for Richelieu, and fetch and carry like the best of retrievers; venturing every now and then on a timid caress, which was permitted rather than accepted with an imperial nonchalance. The only subject on which she ever expanded into eloquence was the fascinations of her friend. She spent all her weak breath in blowing that laudatory trumpet, as if she expected the defenses of the best guarded heart to fall prostrate before it, like the walls of Jericho. And yet, if all the truth were known, I think she had as much reason to complain as the dwarf in the story who swore fellowship in arms with the giant.

I was sorry to see Livingstone linger at her side, yet more sorry when, by an easy transition, he passed on to Flora's, and the circle around her, from old habit, made room for him to pass. He did not stay there long, though—only long enough to make future arrangements, I suppose—and then, for some time, I lost sight of him.

I had been driving heavily through a quadrille in the society of a very foolish virgin, whose ideas of past, present, and future seemed bounded by the last Opera, which she had and I had not seen. A horror of great dullness had fallen upon me, and I went out to restore the tone of my depressed spirits by a libation, wherein I devoted, solemnly, my late partner to the infernal gods. When I returned they were playing "The Olga," and Flora was whirling round on Guy Livingstone's arm.

Among her many perilous fascinations, have I ever mentioned her wonderful waltzing? She was as untiring as an Alme; and when once fairly launched with a steerer who could do her justice, had a sway with her—to use an Americanism—like that of a clipper three points off the wind.

As I watched her, almost reclining in her partner's powerful grasp, her lips moving incessantly, though audibly only to him, as her head leaned against his shoulder, I thought of the old Rhineland tradition of the Wilis; then the daughter of Herodias came into my mind; and then that scarcely less murderous danseuse, at whose many-twinkling feet they say the second Napoleon cast his frail life down.

If, in his assault on St. Anthony, the Evil One mingled no Terpsichorean temptation, be sure it was because the ancient man had no ear for music, I do not think that weapon was forgotten when Don Roderick, who had once been a courtly king, did battle through a long winter's night with the phantasm of fair, sinful La Cava.

The waltz was over, and I saw Guy and Flora disappear through the curtained door of the conservatory. If there was one thing Mrs. Wallace was prouder of than another, it was the arrangement of this sanctum. Very justly so; for it had witnessed the commencement and happy termination of more flirtations than half the ball-rooms in London put together. When you got into one of those nooks, contrived in artful recesses, shaded by magnolias, camellias, and the broad, thick-leaved tropical plants, lighted dimly by lamps of many-colored glass, you felt the recitation of some chapter in "the old tale so often told" a necessity of the position, not a matter of choice. Against eyes you were tolerably safe, though not against ears; but this is of very secondary importance. The man who would not assist a woman in distress (as the stage sailor has it) by adhering to the whisper appropriate to the imparting of interesting information, deserves to be—overheard.

Flora sank down on a convenient causeuse, still panting slightly—not from breathlessness, but past excitement—the ground-swell after the storm.

"Ah! what a waltz!" she said, with a sigh. "And what a pity it is so nearly the last! I shall never find any one else who will understand my step and pace so well."

"Why should it be nearly the last?" Guy asked, contemplating the varying expression of her face and the somewhat careless pose of her magnificent figure with more than admiration in his eyes.

"On se range," Flora answered, demurely. "And the first step in the right direction will be to give up one's favorite partners."

He sat down by her with a short laugh that was rather forced.

"Bah! do you think, because we are virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

"Of course I do. I could sketch your future so easily. It will be so intensely respectable. You will become a model country squire. You will hunt a good deal, but never ride any more. (You must sell the Axeine, you know.) You will go to magistrates' meetings regularly, and breed immense cattle; and you will grow very fat yourself. That's the worst of all. I don't like to fancy you stout and unwieldy, like Athelstan."

She ended, pensively. The languor of reaction seemed stealing over her, but it only made her more charming as she leaned still farther back on the soft cushions, watching the point of her tiny foot tracing the pattern of the carpet.

"What a brilliant horoscope!" said Guy; "and so benevolently sketched, too! Now your own, Improvisatrice."

"I shall marry too," she answered, gravely. "I ought to have done so long ago. Perhaps I shall make up my mind soon. Evil examples are so contagious."

"And who will draw the great prize?"

"I have not the faintest idea. I suppose some fine old English gentleman, who has a great estate."

"I only hope the said estate will be near Kerton," Livingstone suggested; and he drew closer to his companion.

"Ah! dear old Kerton," she said, sighing again, "I shall never go there any more."

"The reason?"

"Perhaps because my husband, whoever he may be, will not choose to bring me."

"Absurd!" Guy retorted, biting his lip hard. "As if that individual would have any will of his own. You want to provoke me, I see."

The answer came in so low a whisper that, though he bent his ear down, he had almost to guess at the words.

"No, I have never tried to do that, even during the last three months. I am not brave enough. Perhaps I should not come, because—I could not bear it."

They were silent. She was so near him now that her quick breath stirred his hair, and he could feel the pulse of her heart beating against his own side. The fiery Livingstone blood, heated seven-fold by wine and passion, was surging through his veins like molten iron. Memory and foresight were both swept away like withered leaves by the strength of the terrible temptation.

His arm stole round her waist, and he drew her toward him—close—closer yet; then she looked up in his face. The cloud of thoughtful gravity has passed away from hers, and the provocations of a myriad of coquettes and courtesans concentrated in her marvelous eyes.

He bent down his lofty head, and instantly their lips met, and were set together fast.

A kiss! Tibullus, Secundus, Moore, and a thousand other poets and poetasters, have rhymed on the word for centuries, decking it with the choicest and quaintest conceits. But, remember, it was with a kiss that the greatest of all criminals sealed the unpardonable sin—it was a kiss which brought on Francesca punishment so unutterably piteous that he swooned at the sight who endured to look on all other terrors of nine-circled hell.



CHAPTER XXI.

"God help thee, then! I'll see thy face no more. Like water spilled upon the plain, Not to be gathered up again, Is the old love I bore."

Before that long caress was ended, close behind them there broke forth a low, plaintive cry, such as might be wrung from the bravest of delicate women, in her extremity of pain, when stricken by a heavy brutal hand.

The hot blood ebbed back in Guy Livingstone's veins, and froze at its fountain-head. His punishment had begun already. Before her face, white as the dress she wore, was revealed through a break in the dark green foliage of the camellias, he knew that he had trifled away his life's happiness, and lost Constance Brandon.

She came forward slowly. With a valiant effort she had shaken off the first feeling of faintness that had crept over her, and there was scarcely a trace of emotion left on her features—calm and pale as the Angel of Death.

Guy had risen, and stood still, with his head bent down on his breast. For the first time in his life he was unable to raise his eyes, weighed down by the heavy sense of bitter disgrace and forfeited honor.

But the bright flush on Flora's cheek spoke more of exultation than of shame; the bouquet which she raised to her lips only half concealed a smile of triumph. She wreathed her slender neck haughtily while she met her rival's glance without flinching. She thought that, if she had played for a heavy stake—no less than the jeopardy of her fair fame—this time, at least, the game was her own.

Constance spoke first, in a voice perfectly measured and composed. There was not a false note in the soft, musical tones. After once conquering her emotion, she would have dropped dead at Flora's feet sooner than betray how she was wounded.

"When you have taken Miss Bellasys back, will you come to me for a moment, Mr. Livingstone? I will wait for you here."

Flora rose before Guy could answer. "Don't trouble yourself," she said, gayly. "Here is my partner for the polka looking anxiously for me. I am ready, Captain Ravenswood."

She turned, before reaching the door, to fire a last shot.

"It is the next galop I am to keep for you, is it not?"

This was to Guy; but there was no answer. He stood in precisely the same attitude, without a muscle of his face stirring or an eyelash quivering.

In all the Rifle Brigade there was not a more reckless dare-devil than Harry Ravenswood, nor one who adhered more devoutly to the convenient creed, "All is fair in war or love." But he saw that something had happened quite out of his line; and he did not venture on a single allusion to it as he led his partner back to the dancing-room, with a perplexed expression on his cheery face, which amused Flora intensely when she remarked it. When the subject came on for discussion afterward in the smoking-room at his club, he thus expressed himself, in language terse and elegantly allegorical.

"You see, Livingstone is a very heavy weight; a good deal better than most in the ring. When I saw him so floored as not to be able to come to time, I knew there had been some hard hitting going on thereabouts, so I kept clear."

The two who were left alone in the conservatory remained silent for a few seconds. Then Guy roused himself, and offered his arm to his companion with an impulse of courtesy that was simply mechanical. She took it without remark, and they passed out through the door which led into the garden.

There Constance left his side; and, for the first time, their eyes met as they stood face to face under the bright moon. Guy read his sentence instantly—a sentence from which there was no appeal. The very hopelessness of his situation restored its elasticity to the somewhat sullen pride which was the mainspring of his character. He stood, waiting for her to speak; and his eyes were not cast down now, but riveted on her face—gloomily defiant.

"I hope you will believe," Miss Brandon said, "that it was quite involuntarily I became a spy on your actions. I did not overhear one word; and my partner had that moment left me, when I saw—" Not all her self-command could check the shudder that ran through every limb, and the choking in her throat that would interrupt her.

"I have very little to add," she went on, more steadily. "After what I witnessed, I need hardly say that we only meet again as the merest strangers. You might think meanly of me, indeed, if I ever allowed your lips to touch my cheek or my hand again. Remember, I told you from the first we were not suited to each other; perhaps I deserve all I have met with for allowing myself to be overruled. You can not contradict a word of this, or say that it is unjust or severe."

Did she pause in the expectation or the hope of an excuse, or an appeal from her hearer? Only the hoarse answer came,

"I have forfeited the right to defend myself or to gainsay you."

"You would find it difficult to do either," Constance rejoined, rather more haughtily; perhaps she was disappointed in the tone of his reply. "One word more: if my name is ever called in question, I am sure no one will defend it more readily than yourself. My voice will never be heard against you; and if, hereafter, you shall desire my forgiveness more than you now do; remember, I have given it unasked and freely."

Guy's tone was pregnant with cold, cruel irony as he answered,

"I congratulate you on your position, Miss Brandon; it is quite unassailable. You are in the right now, as you always have been. You were right, of course, in always doling out the tokens of your love in such scanty measure as your pride and your priests would allow. They ought to canonize you—those holy men! I doubt if they have another disciple so superior to all human weaknesses. It must be very gratifying to so eminent a Christian to be able to forgive plenarily, without danger of the favor being returned. I have nothing to urge against your decision—that we part forever. You will have no difficulty in forgetting me, whom you ought never to have stooped to. Yet I will give you one caution. I am not romantic, as you know, and I generally mean what I say. If you should think hereafter of bestowing yourself on some worthier object, hesitate a little for his sake, or wait till I am dead; otherwise, the day that makes his happiness certain may bring him very near his grave."

His voice had changed during the last words into a growl of savage menace, and his forehead was black and furrowed with passion.

It might have been his own excited fancy, or the passing just then of a light cloud over the moon; but, for an instant, he thought he saw her steady lip quiver and tremble. If so, be very sure it was not fear which caused the emotion, though even that the circumstances might have excused; rather, I think, it was a pang of self-reproach—a consciousness of having acted unwisely, though for the best; perhaps, too, the stubbornness of the heart she had ruled once—so strong and proud even in its abasement—was congenial to her own besetting sin: she liked the fierce threat better than the cool sarcasm. At any rate, she answered more gently than she had yet spoken.

"I believe you. But you know me better than to think a threat would influence me. Yet you need not fear my ever again trusting this world with my happiness. You will be very sorry hereafter for some things you have said to-night. Ask yourself—if I had loved you, as you seem to have expected, better than my own soul, would the result have been different? It is too late now to say any thing but—farewell. Will you not say it, as I do, kindly, or at least not in anger—Guy?"

She paused between the two last words, and their imploring accent was almost piteous. There must have been a strange fascination about Livingstone, for, saint as she was, no other living creature would have won such a concession from the Christian charity of Constance Brandon.

Had Guy spoken then, as he ought to have done, I believe all might have been amended; but an angry devil was busy within him, and would not let go his prey; he stood with his black brows downcast, and with folded arms, never seeming to notice the slender fingers that sought to touch his hand. True it is that nothing makes a man so unforgiving as the consciousness of having inflicted a bitter wrong. He heard a sigh, heavy and despairing as Francesca's when her dying prayer was spurned, a light shadow flitted across the streak of moonlit grass, and, when he raised his head, he was left alone, like Alp on the sea-shore, to judge the battle between a remorseful conscience and a hardened heart.

Livingstone was seen no more that night; Constance glided in alone, and her absence had been scarcely noticed. During the short time that she remained, no one could have guessed from her face that her heart was broken, any more than did Napoleon that the aid-de-camp who brought the news of Lannes' victory had been almost cut in two by a grape-shot.

I speak it diffidently, with the fear of the divine voice of the people before my eyes, as is but fitting in these equalizing days, when territories, the title to which is possession immemorial, are being plucked away acre by acre, and hereditary privileges mined one by one; but it seems to me, in this, perhaps, solitary attribute, "the brave old houses" still keep their pre-eminence.

They are not better, nor wiser in their generation (forbid it, Manchester!), nor even more daring in confronting danger than the thousands whose grandsires are creations of a powerful fancy or of a complaisant king-at-arms. In that terrible charge which swept away the Russian cavalry at Eylau, three lengths in front of the best blood in France rode the innkeeper's son. The "First Grenadier" himself was not more splendidly reckless, though he was a La Tour d'Auvergne. But in passive uncomplaining endurance, in the power of obliterating outward tokens of suffering, physical or mental, may we not still say, Noblesse oblige?

Hundreds of similar isolated instances may be quoted from the annals of the Third Estate; but, in the class I speak of, this quality seems a sixth sense wholly independent of, and often contradicting the rest of the individual's disposition.

I remember meeting in France an old Italian refugee. He had not much principle and very little pride; he was ready quidvis facere aut pati to get a five-franc piece, which he would incontinently stake and lose at baccarat or ecarte, as he had done aforetime with a large ancestral inheritance; but his quiet fortitude under privations that were neither few nor light was worthy of Belisarius.

Very often, I am sure, his evening meal must have been eaten with the Barmecide; but his pale, handsome face, finished off so gracefully by the white, pointed beard, still met you, courteous and unruffled, the idea of an exiled doge, or a Rohan in disgrace. Once only I saw him moved—when the landlord of our inn, a vast bloated bourgeois, smote the Count familiarly on the shoulder, and bantered him pleasantly on the brilliant prospects of his eldest son. It was not unkindly meant, perhaps, but the old man shrunk away from the large fat hand as if it hurt him, and turned toward us a look piteously appealing, which was not lost on myself or Livingstone. When mine host, later in the evening, shook in his gouty slippers before an ebullition of Guy's wrath, excited by the most shadowy pretext, I wonder if he guessed at the remote cause of that outpouring of the vials? Count Massa did, for he smiled intensely, as only an Italian can smile when amply revenged.

One instance more to close a long digression. I have read of a baron in the fifteenth century who once in his life said a good thing. He was a coarse, brutal marauder, illiterate enough to have satisfied Earl Angus, and as unromantic as the Integral Calculus. He was mortally wounded in a skirmish; and when his men came back from the pursuit, he was bleeding to death, resting against a tree. When they lifted him up, they noticed his eyes fixed with a curious, complacent expression on the red stream that surged and gurgled out of his wound, just as a gourmand looks at a bumper of a rare vintage held up to the light. They heard him growl to himself, "Qu'il coule rouge et fort, le bon vieux sang de Bourgogne." And then he fell back—dead.

O Publicola Thompson! Phoesphor to the Tower Hamlets and Boanerges of the platform—will you not allow that, amid a wilderness of weeds, this one fair plant flourishes under "the cold shade?"



CHAPTER XXII.

"Shy she was, and I thought her cold; Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; Filled I was with folly and spite, When Ellen Adair was dying for me."

When I came to Livingstone's chambers on the following morning, I found him alone. His head was resting listlessly against the back of the vast easy-chair in which he was reclining, and his face, thrown out in relief against the crimson velvet, looked haggard and drawn. The calumet—not of peace—was between his lips, and the dense blue clouds were wreathing round him like a Scotch mist. On a table near lay a heap of gold and notes. He had finished the night at his club, where lansquenet had been raging till long after sunrise. Fortune had been more kind than usual, and the fruits of "passing" eight times lay before me. An open liqueur-case close at his elbow showed that play was not the only counter-excitement to which he had resorted.

I hoped to have found him in a repentant mood, but his first words undeceived me: "I start for Paris by this evening's train;" and then I remarked all about me the signs of immediate departure.

I only had a confused idea of what had happened, and was anxious to know the truth, but he was very brief in his answers: the particulars of what had passed I learned long afterward.

"Can nothing be done?" I asked, when he had finished all he chose to tell me.

"Nothing!" replied Livingstone, decisively. "If excuse or explanation had been of any use, I think I should have tried them last night. You would not advise me to humiliate myself to no purpose, I suppose?"

There is a certain scene in AEschylus which came into my mind just then.

A group of elderly men, with grave, rather vacuous faces, and grizzled beards, stand in the court-yard of an ancient palace. On one side is the peristyle, with its square stunted pillars, looking as if the weight above crushed them, though it wearies them no more than the heavens do Atlas; on the other, a gateway, vast, low-browed, shadowy with Cyclopean stones. Somewhat apart is a strange weird figure, ever and anon starting up and tossing her arms wildly as she utters some new denunciation, and then cowering down again in a despairing weariness. There are traces yet in the thin, wan face of the beauty which enslaved Loxian Apollo, and of the pride which turned his great love into a greater hate: round it hang the black elf-locks, disheveled, that have never been braided since the gripe of Telamonian Ajax ruffled them so rudely. In her great, troubled eyes you read terrible memories, and a prescience of coming death—death, most grateful to the dishonored princess, but before which the frail womanhood can not but shudder and quail. No wonder that the reverend men glance at her uneasily, scarcely mustering courage enough sometimes to answer her with a pious platitude. Alas! alas! Cassandra.

While we gaze, forth from the recesses of the gynaeceum there breaks a cry, expressing rather wrath and surprise than mere pain. Then there comes another, more plaintive—the moan of a strong man in the death-throe.

We know that voice very well; we have heard it many times, calm and regal, above the wrangle of councils and the roar of battle; often it prayed for victory or for the people's weal, but it never yet called on earth or heaven to help Agamemnon. The Chorus hear it too; but they linger and palter, while each gives his grave sentence deliberately in his proper turn. One or two advise action and interference, and stand perfectly still. At last we hear a heavy, choking groan, and a great stillness follows. We know that all is over—we know that there is a stir already down there in Hades—we seem to catch a far-off murmur raised by a thousand weak, tremulous voices—the very ghost of a wail—as the shadows of those who died gallantly in their harness before Troy gather to meet their old leader, the mightiest Atride.

In the background of all we fancy a hideous Eidolon, from whose side even the damned recoil in loathing. There is a grin on the lips yet red and wet with the traces of the unholy banquet. Thyestes exalts over the fulfillment of another chapter in the inevitable curse.

Who has not grown savage over that scene? We hate the old drivelers less when, a few minutes later, they truckle and temporize with the awful shape, who comes forth with a splash of blood on her slender wrist, and a speck or two on her white, lofty forehead.

Just so helpless and useless I felt at that moment. I was standing by while a foul wrong was being wrought. I saw nothing but ruin for Guy, and desolate misery for Constance, in the black future. Yet I could think of no argument or counsel that would in the least avail. I felt sick at heart. It was some minutes before I answered his last question. At last the words broke from me almost unconsciously: "Ah! how will you answer to God and man for last night's work?"

I forgot that I was quoting the cry of the Covenanter's widow when she knelt by her husband's corpse, and looked up into Claverhouse's face with those sad eyes that were ever dim and cloudy after the carbines flashed across them. But Guy remembered it, and answered instantly in the words of his favorite hero,

"I can answer it to man well enough, and I will take God in my own hand."

Years afterward we both recalled that fatal defiance, when the speaker lay helpless, at the mercy of the Omnipotence whose might he challenged. Just then his servant, who was busily preparing for departure, entered the room.

Willis was a slight, under-sized man, of about fifty; his complexion was muddy and indefinite; his small whiskers, of a grayish red, were trimmed and pruned as accurately as a box border-edging, and the partial absence of eyebrows and eyelashes gave his face a sort of unfinished look. The expression natural to it was, I think, a low, vicious cunning; but his features and little green eyes were so rigidly disciplined that, as a rule, neither had any characteristic save utter vacuity. In his own line he was perfect. No commission that could be intrusted to him would draw from him a remark or a look of surprise. He executed precisely what he was told, and fulfilled the minutest duties of his station irreproachably, with a noiseless, feline activity. He was like the war-horse of the Douglas:

"Though somewhat old, Swift in his paces, cool, and bold."

He held a miniature-case in his hand as he entered. "Am I to put this in, sir?" he asked, in the slow, measured voice that was habitual to him.

His master gazed sharply at him, as if trying to detect a covert sneer—it would have been safer to have stroked a rattlesnake's crest than to have trifled with Livingstone just then—but Willis's face was as innocent of any expression as a dead wall.

"Put it down, and go on with your packing; you have no time to spare." The man laid the case on a marble table near, and went out.

Guy took the miniature and regarded it steadfastly for some moments, then he looked up and caught my eye. Perhaps there was an eager appeal there (for I knew well whose likeness lay before him) which displeased and provoked his sullen temper; for he frowned darkly, and then his clenched hand fell with the crashing weight of a steam-hammer. Nothing but a heap of shivered wood, glass, and ivory remained of what had been the life-like image of Constance Brandon.

A thrill of horror shot through me icily, and a low cry burst from my lips. I felt at that moment as if the blow had fallen, not on the portrait, but on the original.

But I kept silence. The dark hour was on Saul, and I knew no spell to chase the evil spirit away.

Guy spoke at last. His manner was unusually chill and constrained.

"I expect to meet Mohun in Paris, and we shall probably go on to Vienna. I hardly like troubling you with commissions, but I must. Listen. I leave my own name—and another person's—in your keeping. I wish it to be clearly understood that the engagement was broken off by Miss Brandon, not by me. If you hear any man speak disparagingly of her in connection with what has passed, you can insult him on my behalf as grossly as you please. I will be here, as fast as steam can bring me, to back what you may have said or done. This is the only point in which I hope you will guard my honor. As for blaming me, they may say what they please. Do you quite understand? And will you promise?"

I did promise; and so, after a few more last words, we parted, more coldly than we had ever done in all the years through which we had been intimate.

Guy left England the same evening, and descended like a thunder-clap on the joyous little menage in the Rue de la Madeleine, where Forrester and his bride were still fluttering their wings in the honeymoon-shine of post-nuptial spring.

They were miraculously happy, those two. Indeed, they seemed to have only one taste between them, and that was Charley's. If he felt inclined, which was not seldom, to utter inaction, his wife encouraged him in his laziness, sitting contentedly for hours on her footstool, with her silky hair just within reach of his indolent hand. If, after dinner, he suggested the "Italiens," or the "Bouffes," it was always precisely that theatre that she had been thinking of all the morning. She was in the seventh heaven when he won a hurdle-race in the Champ de Mars.