They made excursions into the banlieue, and farther afield yet, like a couple of the Pays Latin in their first loves. The cabinets of Bercy and St. Cloud knew them; so did the arbors of Asnieres, where, in oilskin and vareuse, muster for their Sabbat the ancient mariners of the Seine. Nay, it has been whispered that more than once—close veiled and clinging tightly to her husband's arm—Isabel witnessed at Mabille and the Chaumiere the choregraphic triumphs of Frisette, Pomare, and Mogador.

My hand trembles while I record such enormities and backslidings. O Brougham-girls of Belgravia, who "never gave your mothers a moment's uneasiness"—stars of the Western hemisphere, who can be trusted any where without fear of your wandering from your orbits—think on this lost Pleiad, once your companion, and be warned. Men are deceivers ever, even when they mean matrimony; and the tender mercies of the Light Dragoon are cruel.

Isabel was dreadfully startled at the sudden appearance of her cousin. Her notions of his power were quite unlimited and irrational, and I believe her first thought was that he had changed his mind about the propriety of her marriage, and was come to carry her back into the house of her bondage with the strong hand.

When his curt sentences told her the facts, sorry as she was, it certainly was rather a relief to her. Charley was full of compassion too, but he only confided this to his wife. He knew better than to try condolence with Guy, and felt instantly that the case was far beyond his simple powers of healing.

They did not see much of him. The contrast of their happiness with his own state must have grated on his feelings. His grim presence chilled and clouded their little banquets at the Trois Freres or the Cafe de Paris. He sat there among the bright lamps and flowers like a statue of dark marble that it is impossible to light up, drinking all the while, moodily, of the strongest wines to that portentous extent that it made Isabel nervous and her husband grave.

Perhaps Guy was conscious of the effect he produced; at all events, he rather avoided the Forresters, finding in Mohun more congenial society. The latter probably regretted what had happened; perhaps he felt an approach to sympathy, after his rough fashion, but with this mingled a dreary sort of satisfaction at the sight of a strong mind and hardy nature rapidly descending to his own misanthropical level. Such an exultation was breathed in that ghastly chorus of the dead kings and chief ones of the earth when they rose, each on his awful throne, and Hell beneath was moved at the advent of the Son of the Morning.

These two did not stay long in Paris before they took their departure for Vienna.

We who were left behind in England talked a little at first, of course, about the broken engagement, but I had no occasion to throw down the gauntlet that had been left in my hands. I never heard any thing more spiteful about Miss Brandon than that "she was never suited to her fiance—far too good for him." Others "had always thought how it would be; it would take a good deal more yet to tame Livingstone." Sir Henry Fallowfield observed, "Nothing could be more natural and correct. The lady was a saint, and there is always a sort of incompleteness about saints if they are not made martyrs. Suffering is their normal state."

It was remarked that he was unusually cheerful for some days afterward; and when Guy's conduct was canvassed, seemed inclined to quote the old school-master's words on witnessing his pupil's success, "Bless the boy! I taught him."

Some other subject soon came up and replaced the week's wonder.

Constance left town with her uncle almost immediately, and I heard nothing of her for many months. Miss Bellasys remained. Very few persons even guessed at the share she had had in breaking off the match; so her credit was not much impaired, and her campaign was as brilliantly successful as usual. If she felt any disappointment at Guy's abrupt departure, she concealed it remarkably well. In some things, though naturally impetuous and impatient, she was as cool as a Red Indian, and would wait and watch forever if she saw a prospect of ultimate success. So the days rolled on, bringing swiftly and surely the bitter harvest-time, when he who had sown the wind was to reap the whirlwind.



CHAPTER XXIII.

"And from his lips those words of insult fell— His sword is good who can maintain them well."

It was the middle of October; the reflux of the winter season was beginning to fill Paris, and thither Mohun and Livingstone had returned from their German tour, the latter decidedly the worse for his wanderings. He had not suffered much physically, for the hard living that would have utterly broken up some constitutions had only been able to make his face thinner, to deepen the bistre tints under the eyes, and to give a more angular gauntness to his massive frame.

But morally he was not the same man. Play, which had formerly been only an occasional excitement, had now become a necessary part of his daily existence. Mohun would never say—perhaps he did not know—how much Guy had lost during those few months. In spite of several gigantic coups (he broke the bank both at Baden and Hombourg), the balance was fearfully on the wrong side, so much so that it entailed a heavy mortgage—the maiden one in his time—on the fair lands of Kerton Manor.

I wonder people have not got tired of quoting "Heureux en jeu; malheureux en amour." It seems one of the least true of all stale, stupid proverbs. Luck will run itself out in more ways than one; and sometimes you will never hold a trump, however often the suit changes. The ancients knew better than we when they called the double-sixes "Venus's cast." The monotony of Guy's reckless dissipations was soon broken up by an event which ought to have sobered him.

He had been dining with Mohun at the Trois Freres, and they were returning late toward the Boulevards, when their attention was attracted by a group in one of the narrow streets leading out of the Rue Vivienne. Five or six raffish-looking men had surrounded a fair, delicate girl, and were preparing to besiege her in form, deriving apparently intense amusement from the piteous entreaties of their victim to be released. Not the roues of the Regency after the suppers that have become a by-word—not the mousquetaires after the wildest of their orgies—were ever so unrelenting in brutality toward women quite lonely and undefended as those unshorn ornaments of Young France, when replete with a dinner at forty sous, and with the anomalous liquor that Macon blushes to own.

In all Europe there is no more genial companion and gallant gentleman than the aristocrat of France pur sang—in all the world no more terrible adversary than her wiry, well-trained soldier; but, from the prolific decay of old institutions and prejudices, a mushroom growth has sprouted of child-atheists and precocious profligates, calculating debauchees while their cheeks are still innocent of down, who, after the effervescence of a foul, vicious youth has spent itself, simmer down into avaricious, dishonest bourgeois and bloated cafe politicians. The teeth of the Republican dragon have been drawn, but they are sown broadcast from Dan even to Beersheba. Ancient realm of Capet, Valois, and Bourbon—motherland of Du Guesclin and Bayard—you may well be proud of your Cadmean offspring!

Guy was passing the scene with a careless side-glance when the accent of the suppliant caught his ear—not French, though she spoke the language perfectly.

"By G—d," he said, dropping Mohun's arm, "I believe it's an Englishwoman they are bullying;" and three of his long strides took him into the midst of the group.

Two of the aggressors reeled back, right and left, from the shock of his mighty shoulders; and griping another, the tallest, by the collar, he whirled him some paces off on his back in the streaming kennel, as one might do with a very weak, light little child. "Au large, canaille!" he said, as he advanced on the two who still kept their feet. These drew back from his path without a second warning. One indeed, eminent in the savate, made a demonstration for an instant; but his comrade, who had just gathered himself up, caught his arm, muttering "Ne t'y frotte pas, Alphonse. C'est trop dur." None of them fancied an encounter with the grim giant who confronted them, his muscles braced and salient, his eyes gleaming with the gaudia certaminis, and his nostrils dilated as if they snuffed the battle.

So they made way for Guy and his charge to pass, only grinding out between their teeth the strange guttural blasphemies that characterize impotent Gallic wrath.

Mohun, a reserve scarcely leas formidable, stood by all the while, looking on lazily; he saw that his companion was more than equal to the emergency.

"I hope you have not been much annoyed," Livingstone said, kindly. "Where were you going to? I shall be too happy to escort you, if you will allow me."

She named the street, only a few hundred yards off, and tried to thank him gratefully, but her voice was broken and scarcely audible, and the blinding tears would rush into her eyes. Poor child! it was very long since she had heard gentle, courteous words in her mother-tongue. She recovered herself, however, during their short walk, and they had nearly reached her destination when Livingstone said, "Forgive me for being impertinent; I have no right to advise you; but I think you would find it better not to walk alone, often, at this hour. There is always a chance of something disagreeable."

He could see her blush painfully as she answered, "I have no one to accompany me. I work hard at drawing and painting as long as there is light, and I had gone out to see if I could sell what I have done. But I fear I am a very poor artist; no one would offer me as much as they had cost me. And I tried at so many places!"

It was piteous to hear the heavy, heart-broken sigh.

"Perhaps I have better taste," replied Livingstone. "Those print-sellers are absurdly ignorant of what is good and anonymous. At all events, they will interest me, as a memorial of to-night. Will you give them to me? I will promise not to be too critical."

He drew the roll out of her hand as he spoke, replacing it by his note-case; and before she could open it or make any objection, he followed Mohun (for they had reached the artist's door by this time), first raising his hat to her in adieu as courteously as he would have done to a reigning archduchess.

How much did the case contain? Guy himself could hardly have told you. But be sure the Recorder of his many misdeeds knew, and reckoned it to the uttermost farthing when he wrote down that one kind action on the credit side.

"Philanthropic, for a change!" Mohun remarked, when his companion joined him. "Well, it's not worse than many of your vagaries. We shall have you founding an asylum next, I suppose."

In his heart the savage old cynic approved, but, for the life of him, he could not check the sneer.

Livingstone made no reply. It was a habit of his very often not to answer Ralph, and the latter did not mind it in the least. In a few moments they reached Guy's apartments, where they found about a dozen men—French and English—awaiting their arrival to begin an unbridled lansquenet. It was a favorite rendezvous for this purpose. The thoroughbred gamblers preferred it to the brilliant entertainments of the Quartier Breda. They liked to court or fight Fortune by themselves, without being congratulated in success or compassionated in defeat by the fair Phrynes and Aspasias, whose sympathy was somewhat expansive, inasmuch as they always would borrow from the heap whenever any one won, repaying the loan in kind by smiles and caresses, which cost the happy recipient about fifteen Napoleons apiece. Here was an Eden from which Eves were excluded; and on the nights of the Mercurialia, the brightest Peri that ever wore camellias might have knocked at the gate disconsolately, but in vain.

While the tables were being prepared, Guy began to tell his late adventure. He spoke of it very lightly, but he thought, if he passed it over altogether, Mohun would probably betray him.

Immediately there was a great cry for a sight of the performances of the unknown genius.

Livingstone looked over the drawings himself carefully, and then passed them to the man who sat nearest him. "I have seen worse," he said. "There is no signature, and I shall not give you the address. You are none of you just the patrons she would fancy. You don't care much for high art."

Among the guests was Horace Levinge, a pale, dark man, with a face that was decidedly handsome, in spite of its Jewish contour, and the excessive fullness of the scarlet, sensual lips. His grandfather, report said, had been a prize-fighting Israelite, and afterward a celebrated betting-man—equally eminent in either ring for an unscrupulous scoundrelism which made his fortune. His father had added to the family treasure and importance by cautious usury and adventurous stock-jobbing. Horace himself was a gentleman at large, with no other profession than the consistent pursuit of all kinds of debauchery. He was calculating even in his pleasures, and, they say, kept a regular ledger and daybook of the moneys disbursed in his vices.

When the drawings came to him, he glanced at them for a moment, and then threw them down with a little contemptuous laugh.

"I am sorry to spoil your romance, Livingstone, but I have a pretty good right to recognize the artist's touch. You know her, some of you; it is Fanny Challoner."

"What! the girl you sent away about three weeks ago?" some one asked. "Poor thing! she was not sorry, I should think. She had a hard time of it before she left you."

"Precisely," Levinge replied. "Her modesty and high moral principles, which I never could quite subdue, gave a zest to the thing at first. You understand?—a sort of caviare flavor. But at last it bored me horribly. I really believe she had a conscience. Can you conceive any thing so out of place? I did offer her a little money when she went away, but she would not take any, and said she would try to maintain herself honestly. Bah! I defy her. She was a governess, you know, when I took her first, so she is trying some of the old accomplishments. I wish you joy of your protegee, Livingstone; and as for her address, if any of you want it, I will give it you to-morrow."

Before Guy could reply Mohun broke in. While Levinge had been speaking, the colonel's face had grown very dark and threatening.

"Did her father live near Walmer? And was he a half-pay officer?"

"Quite correct," was the answer. "He died about eighteen months before I met Fanny. You knew him, perhaps? How interesting! Excuse my emotion."

"I did know him," Ralph said. "He was a gentleman, and well born. Perhaps that was the reason you could not get on long with his daughter?"

It is a popular error that a bully is always a coward. Certainly Horace was an exception to the rule, if such exists. Nothing could be more calmly insolent than his tone as he answered deliberately,

"How admirable to find Colonel Mohun in the character of the Censor! A Clodius come to judgment. I should hardly have expected it, from his past life, either."

The reply came from the depths of Ralph's chest, very distinct, but with a strange effect of distance and echo, as if the words had been spoken under the vault of some vast dome.

"You will leave my past life alone, if you are wise. I don't preach against immorality; it is only brutality that I find simply disgusting."

"Bah!" the other retorted; "it comes to the same thing. I should have thought Lady Caroline Mannering might have taught you to be less critical."

The Cuirassier rose from his seat and strode a pace forward, the gray hair bristling round his savage face like a wild-boar's at bay.

"If you dare to breathe that name again, except with respect and honor, I'll cram the words down your throat, by the eternal God!"

Levinge crimsoned with passion. The brutal blood of the dead prize-fighter, who, when he "crossed" a fight, lost it ever by a foul blow, was boiling in his descendant. He had been drinking too, and, as the French say—avait le vin mauvais—so he answered coolly and slowly, letting the syllables fall one by one, like drops of hail,

"I shall mention it just as often as it pleases me, and with just so much respect as is due to Mannering's cast-off wife and your—"

The foul word that was on his lips never left them, for Mohun's threat was literally fulfilled. His right hand shot out from the shoulder with a sudden impulse that seemed rather mechanical than an action of the will, and, catching the speaker full in the mouth, laid him on the carpet senseless and streaming with blood.



CHAPTER XXIV.

"Look doun, look doun now, ladye fair, On him ye lo'ed sae weel; A brawer man than yon blue corse Never drew sword of steel."

The dead silence that ensued was broken first by Guy Livingstone. "It was well done! I say it and maintain it; Mohun, I envy you that blow!" He looked round as if to challenge contradiction; but evidently the general opinion was that Levinge had only got his deserts. By this time the fallen man had recovered his consciousness, and struggled up, first into a sitting posture, then to his feet; he stood leaning against a table, swaying to and fro, and staring about him with wild eyes half glazed. At last he spoke in a thick, faint voice, stanching all the while the gushing blood with his handkerchief.

"Will any one here be my second, or must I look for a friend elsewhere?"

There was a pause, and then from the circle stepped forth Camille de Rosny. He did not like Levinge, and thought in the present instance he had behaved infamously, but it was the fashion hereditary in his gallant house to back the losing side; so, when he saw every one else shrink from the appeal, he bowed gravely and said,

"I shall have that honor, if you will permit me. In an hour I shall be at the orders of M. le Colonel's second. Where shall I find him?"

"Here," replied Livingstone. "I think no one will contest my right to see my old friend through this quarrel."

Mohun grasped his hand. "I would have chosen you among a thousand. You understand me, and know what I wish."

"Then I shall expect you, De Rosny," Guy went on. The Frenchman assented courteously, and then, turning to his principal,

"Let us go," he said. "My coupe is at your disposition, M. Levinge. Messieurs, au plaisir."

Horace followed him with a step that was still faltering and uncertain; but at the door he turned, and, straightening himself up, faced his adversary with such a look as few human countenances have ever worn. There was more in it than mortal hatred: it expressed a sort of devilish satisfaction and anticipation, as if he knew that his revenge was secured.

Mohun read all this as plainly as if it had been written down in so many words; but he only smiled as he seated himself and lighted a cigar.

There was an end of lansquenet for that night. An ordinary quarrel would have made little impression on those reckless spirits, who had, most of them, at one time or another, "been out" themselves; but they felt that what they had witnessed now was the prologue to a certain tragedy; there was a savor of death in the air; so they dropped off one by one, leaving Guy and Ralph alone; not before the latter had expressed, with much politeness, "his desolation at having been compelled to interrupt a partie, which he trusted was only deferred till the morrow."

Before long De Rosny returned. The preliminaries were soon arranged. Pistols were necessarily to be the weapons, for Levinge had seldom touched a foil; and, as the Frenchman said with a bow that made his objection a compliment, "Colonel Mohun's reputation as a swordsman was European." An early hour next morning was fixed for the venue, in the Pre aux Clercs of the nineteenth century—the Bois de Boulogne.

When they were alone again Guy turned gravely to his companion. "It is a bad business, I fear, though you could not have acted otherwise; but I would rather your adversary were any other than Levinge. It is a murderous, unscrupulous scoundrel as ever lived. He can shoot—that's nothing; so can you, better than most men—but, mark me, Ralph, he has been out twice, and hit his man each time, the last mortally; but on neither occasion was his fire returned. Men say he has an awkward knack of pulling the trigger half a second too soon. I don't know if this is true, but I do know that Seymour, who seconded him at Florence when he killed O'Neill, has been more than cool to him ever since."

"Faith, I can well believe it," Mohun answered, quietly, "and it is very probable I may get hard hit to-morrow; but of killing him I feel morally certain. Do you believe in presentiments? I do. Before that drunken brute had half done speaking, I saw imminent death written in his face as plainly as if I had possessed the Highland second-sight. I think I could almost tell you how it will look after my shot. Well, we must talk of business. My arrangements won't take me long. I have very little to dispose of; it is almost all entailed property. I shall leave you the choice of any thing among my goods and chattels. You will find some arms that you may fancy. But if my pistols fail me to-morrow, so that Levinge lives over it, do me the favor to throw them into the Seine; they deserve nothing better. As for the ready-money I have with me, and some more at my banker's—" he hesitated, and then went on in a gentler voice, "I should like it to go to that poor child whom we met to-night. If I live I will take care she is settled in England, where some one will be kind to her. Her father was a good soldier and a true-hearted gentleman. And, Guy, I am sorry that I sneered at you to-night; I hardly meant it when I said it."

This was a great concession from Mohun, and his hearer thought so as he wrung his hand hard and replied,

"Don't think of that again. I did you justice an hour ago."

There was this peculiarity about Ralph; he was not only insensible to danger, like other men, but he absolutely seemed to revel in it. The genial side of his character came out at the approach of deadly peril, just as some morose natures will soften and brighten temporarily under the influence of strong wine.

His mood seemed to change, however, suddenly; and when, after a long pause, he spoke again, it was in a low, broken voice, as if to himself.

"'Be sure your sin will find you out.' It is thirty years since I heard that text; I forgot it the same day, and never thought of it again till now. There may be truth in that. It hunted her to her grave, and it will not leave her in peace even there. And yet she suffered enough to make atonement. She tried not to let me see how much, but I did see it; I watched her dying for a year and more. I am sure she is an angel now. I like to think so, though I shall never see her again. I would not believe otherwise if a thousand priests said it and swore it; for I never moved from her side, after she was dead, till I saw the smile come on her face. She must have been happy then; do you not think so? They would hardly have gone on punishing her forever. It was all my fault, you know."

He gazed at Livingstone anxiously, almost timidly. Guy bowed his head in assent, but he could not find words to answer just then. There was something very terrible in that opening of the flood-gates when a life's pent-up remorse broke forth.

"I think you will end better than I have done," Mohun went on, "though you are going down-hill fast now. But I have no right even to warn you. Only take care—" He broke off suddenly, and roused himself with an effort. "I shall go home and dress now, and get through what little I have to write, and then lie down for an hour or two. Nothing makes the hand shake like a sleepless night. I'll call for you in good time." So he went away.

Livingstone sat thinking, without ever closing his eyes, till Mohun returned. The latter looked fresh and alert; he had slept for the time he had allotted to himself quite calmly and comfortably; the old habits of picket-duty had taught him to watch or sleep at pleasure.

After Guy had made a careful toilette, at the special request of his principal they started, and in forty minutes were on the ground. Levinge and his second, with the surgeon, arrived almost immediately; the former stood somewhat apart, keeping the lower part of his face carefully muffled.

It was a dull, chill morning; the sky of a steely-gray, without a promise of a gleam from the sun, which had risen somewhere, but was reserving himself for better times. There was a sort of desultory wind blowing, just strong enough at intervals to bring the moist brown leaves sullenly down.

After the pistols had been scientifically loaded, the seconds placed their men fifteen yards apart—with such known shots it was not worth while shortening the distance.

The sensations of ordinary mortals under such circumstances are somewhat curious. Very few are afraid, I think; but one has an impression that one's own proportions are becoming sensibly developed—"swelling wisibly," in fact, like the lady at the Pickwickian tea-fight—while those of our adversary diminish in a like ratio, so that he does not appear near so fair a mark as he did a few minutes ago. But, with all this, there is a quickening of the pulse not unpleasurable—something like the excitement of the "four to the seven" chance at hazard, when you are backing the In for a large stake.

I do not believe Mohun felt any thing of this sort. It was not his own life, but his adversary's death he was playing for; the other was busy, too, with still darker thoughts and purposes.

"Listen," Guy said in French; "M. de Rosny gives the signal, un, deux, trois; if either fires before the last is fully pronounced, it is murder." He looked sharply at Levinge, but the latter seemed studiously to avoid meeting his eye. Guy felt very uncomfortable and very savage.

The men stood opposite to one another like black marble statues, neither showing a speck of color which might serve as a point de mire, each turning only a side-front to his opponent.

De Rosny pronounced the two first words of the signal in a clear, deliberate voice; the last left his lips almost in a shriek, for, before it was half syllabled, his principal fired.

Quick as the movement was, it was anticipated; as Levinge's hand stirred, Mohun made a half-face to the right, and looked his enemy straight between the eyes. That sudden change of position, or the consciousness of detection, probably unsettled the practiced aim, for the ball, that would have drilled Ralph through the heart, only scored a deep furrow in his side.

No one could have guessed that he was touched; he brought his pistol to the level just as coolly as he would have done in the shooting-gallery, and, after the discharge, dropped his hand with measured deliberation. Before the smoke had curled a yard upward, Horace Levinge sprang into the air, and, with out-stretched arms, fell crashing down upon the grass—a bullet through his brain.

They turned him over on his back. It was a ghastly sight; the ball had penetrated just below the arch of the right eyebrow, and all the lower features were swollen and distorted with the blow of last night, adding to the hideous disfigurement.

Is that the face on which the dead man used to spend hours, tending it, like an ancient coquette, with washes and cosmetics, dreading the faintest freckle or sunburn which might mar the smoothness of the delicate skin? No need of the surgeon there. Cover it up quickly. The mother that bore him, if she should recognize him, would recoil in disgust and loathing.

"C'en est fini," Livingstone said to De Rosny, who stood by shuddering in horror, not at the death, but at the treachery which had preceded it.

None but a Frenchman could have given such an accent to the low, hissing reply, "Je l'espere."

Then they looked to Mohun's wound; it was nothing serious: there were a dozen deeper on the warworn body and limbs. Indeed, I imagine his general health was materially benefited by the blood-letting. The first remark he made was when he was depositing his pistol in its case—tenderly as you would lay a child in its cradle—"Do you believe in presentiments now, Guy?"

The sullen sun broke out just as they turned to go, and peered curiously through the boughs, till it found out and lighted on the angular ominous heap, shrouded with a cloak, that, ten minutes ago, was a strong, hot-blooded man.

There the garde soon after discovered Horace Levinge; and, when he had been owned, they buried him in Pere la Chaise. Such events were common then, and the police gave themselves no trouble to trace who had slain the stranger. Among his tribes-men and kinsfolk in Houndsditch and the Minories there was great joy at first, and afterward bitter, endless litigation. They screamed and battled over the heritage like vultures over a mighty carrion, tearing it at length piecemeal. He did not keep a pet dog, and so no living creature regretted him, unless it were the thin, delicate girl, with white cheeks and hollow eyes, who came once, and knelt to pray by his grave for hours, her tears falling fast.

Hard as they may find it to observe other precepts of the Great Master, this one, at least, most women have practiced easily and naturally for eighteen hundred years: "Forgive, until seventy times seven." The acts of some of these—how they warred with their husbands and were worsted; how they provoked the presiding Draco, and stultified the attesting policeman by obstinately ignoring their injuries, written legibly in red, and black, and blue; how they interceded with many sobs for the aggressor—are they not written in the book of the chronicles of Bow-street and Clerkenwell?

This propensity leads them into scrapes, it is true, for our world, in its wisdom, will take advantage of such weakness. Perhaps the next will make them some amends.

But the mourner strewed no flowers on the grave. It would have been too bitter a mockery; for, if there were sympathy in sweet roses and pure white lilies, on no other spot of God's earth would they have withered so soon: she hung up no wreath of immortelles; for, if such things could be, the dearest wish one could have formed for the dead man's soul would have been swift, utter annihilation.

Yet Fanny Challoner would scarcely have accepted Mohun's good offices if she had guessed that the blood of her seducer and tyrant was on his hand. She never suspected it, and so went gratefully to the home he found for her; and there she lives yet, tranquil and contented, though always sad and humble, among people who know nothing of her history and love her dearly, trying her best to be useful in her generation—alone in her cottage, that nestles under a sunny cliff, just above the white spray-line of the Irish Sea.



CHAPTER XXV.

"Let me see her once again. Let her bring her proud dark eyes, And her petulant quick replies; Let her wave her slender hand With its gesture of command, And throw back her raven hair With the old imperial air; Let her be as she was then— The loveliest lady in all the land Iseult of Ireland."

Mohun and Livingstone soon fell back into the groove of their old habits; if any thing, the former was more forbidding and morose, the latter more reckless than ever.

Just at this time Mrs. Bellasys and her daughter arrived in Paris. It was Flora's debut there, and she had an immense success. The jeunesse doree of the Chaussee d'Antin and the cavaliers of the Faubourg thronged about her, emulously enthusiastic. Her repartees and sarcasms were quoted like Talleyrand's. They never wearied in raving over her perfections, taking them in a regular catalogue—from her magnificent eyes and hair, that flashed back the light from its smooth bands like clouded steel, down to the small brodequins of white satin, which it was her fancy to wear instead of the ball-room chaussure of ordinary mortals. The intrigues to secure her for a waltz or a mazurka displayed diplomatic talent enough to have set half a dozen German principalities and powers by the ears. The succession of admirers was never broken; as fast as one dropped off, killed by her coldness or caprice, another stepped into his place. It reminded one of the old "Die-hards" at Waterloo, filling up their squares torn and ravaged by the pelting grape-shot.

Here, as elsewhere, she pursued her favorite amusement remorselessly. Fallowfield called it "her cutting-out expeditions." She used to watch till a mother and daughter had, between them, secured a good matrimonial prize, and then employ her fascinations on the captured one—seldom without effect—so as to steal him out of their hands.

Do you remember Waterton's story of the osprey? The hard-working bird, by dint of perseverance, has brought up a good fish. Just as it emerges from the water, there is heard a flap and a whistle of mighty pinions, and from his watch-tower on the cliff far above swoops down the great sea-eagle. The poor osprey a beau crier, it must drop its booty, and the strong marauder sails off with a slow and dignified flight, to discuss it in the wood at his leisure. The only fault in the parallel was that Flora always dropped the prey with the coolest disdain when it was once fairly within her clutches. How the match-makers did hate her! What vows for her discomfiture must have been breathed into bouquets held up to conceal the angry flush of disappointment or the paleness of despair!

I own this practice of hers did not raise her in my opinion. I can not think so hardly as it is the fashion to do of the junior and working members, at least, of the manoeuvring guild. It is not an elevating or very creditable profession, certainly, but it seems such a disagreeable one that none would take it up from choice. The chief fault, at all events, lies with the trainers; the jockeys (poor little things!) only ride to orders; and, by the way, I think they generally err in not knowing how to wait, and in making the running too strong at first.

As I meet, year after year, one of these—to whom the seed sown in London ball-rooms and German watering-places had produced nothing yet but those tiresome garlands of the vestal—I look curiously to see how she wears, thinking of the courtier's answer to Louis XIV. when the latter asked if he was looking older: "Sire, I see some more victories written on your forehead." It is more defeats that one can read so plainly on poor Fanny Singleton's.

How many shipwrecks close to port; how many races lost by a head, how many games by a point, she must have known before her silver laugh became so hollow, and her pleasant smile so evidently theatrical and lip-deep; before what once was chanceful became desperate, and she fell back into the ranks of the forlorn hope—of the "Lost Children!"

On one of these occasions I met her. She was just beginning her condottiere life then, and was very attractive even to those on whom she had no designs—believed in balls, and had an ingenious talent for original composition. I don't think those entertainments are dangerously exciting to her now; and Heaven forefend that she should write poetry! One shudders to think of what it would he. Well, she was returning to the house after a moonlight flirtation (if you can call it so when it was all on one side). She had been trying to fascinate a stupid, sullen, commercial Orson—a boy not clever, but cunning, who calculated on his share in the bank as a means of procuring him these amusements, as other men might reckon on their good looks or soft tongue. He had just left her, and I was wishing her good-night under the porch. She forgot her cue for a moment, and became natural. "I feel so very, very tired," she said. I remember how drearily she said it, and how the tears glittered in her weary eyes. I remember, too, how, ten minutes later, I heard that amiable youth boasting of what had happened, and giving a hideous travestie of her attempts to captivate him, till at last my wrath was kindled, and, to his great confusion (for he was of a timid disposition), I spoke, and sharply, with my tongue.

Ah me! I mind the time when men used to waylay Fanny Singleton in the cloak-room, and shoot her flying as she went up the staircase, in their anxiety to secure her for a partner; and now she is a refuge for the destitute, except when some one, for old acquaintance' sake, takes a turn with one of the best waltzers in Europe.

I like her for one thing—she has never tried the girlish dodge on yet. She has never been heard to say, "Mamma always calls me a wild thing." It is better that she should be bitter and sardonic, as she is sometimes, than that. Mars herself could hardly play the ingenues when in mature age. Grisi's best part now is not Amina.

The last thing I heard of Fanny was that she was about to unite herself (the active voice is the proper one) to a very Low-Church clergyman, a distinguished member of the Evangelical Alliance, pregnant with the odor of sanctity—bouquet de Baptiste treble distilled. I dare say they will get on well enough. If the holy man wants to collect "experiences," his wife will be able to furnish them, that's certain. It will be very "sweet."

I pity, but I condemn. In the name of Matuta and of common sense, is there an imperative necessity that all our maids should become matrons?

If such exists, think, I beseech you, O virgins—pretty, but penniless—apt for the yoke, how many chances of subjection may turn up without rushing to put your necks under it. Is the aspiring race of H.E.I.C.S. cadets extinct? Are Erin's sons so good or so cold as not to be tempted by woman, even without the gold? Are there not soldiers still to the fore too inflammable to be trusted near an ammunition wagon? Are there not—the bonne bouche comes at last—priests and deacons? The instant a man takes orders, celibacy becomes intolerable to him. I firmly believe that half the offers made in the year throughout broad England emanate from those energetic ecclesiastics.

After all, what specimens you do pick up sometimes in your haste! If you are to lead apes, is it not better to defer the evil day as long as possible, instead of parading the animals about by your sides here on this upper earth?

My sermon is too long for the occasion—too short for the text. I close a discourse not much wiser, perhaps, than poor Wamba's, with his "Pax vobiscum!"

Flora and Guy met with perfect composure on both sides. She did not appear to think that she had any claim upon him arising from what had passed, but it was evident that he was still the favorite, and that all others were complete "outsiders." No betting man would have backed the field for a shilling. She waltzed with him whenever he asked her, to the utter oblivion and annihilation of previous engagements, whereat the Frenchmen chafed inexpressibly, cursing and gnashing their teeth when, after the ball was over, they went forth into the outer darkness. Nothing but Livingstone's extraordinary reputation in the shooting-galleries, added to a certain ferocity of demeanor which had become habitual to him of late, saved him from more than one serious quarrel.

He took it all as a matter of course. Flora amused him certainly; she sympathized with his tastes, and perhaps flattered his vanity. For instance, she always took an interest in his fortunes at play, watching and sometimes backing him at ecarte, and often inquiring the next morning how the battle had gone in her absence at the Board of Green Cloth.

Once when an unfortunate adorer—in bitterness of spirit at being thrown over twice in one evening—hinted at some of the intrigues which had made Guy's name unenviably notorious (play was not the guiltiest of his distractions to thoughts that would come back), Miss Bellasys only smiled haughtily, and did not even deign to betray any curiosity on the subject. Those ephemeral passions were not the rivals she feared.

Her mother all this time was very uncomfortable. Though herself perfectly innocent of any connivance in Flora's schemes, she was afflicted with a perpetual indistinct sort of remorse. Once or twice, I believe, she did venture on a remonstrance, but she was put down decisively, and did not try it again.

One evening Guy had been lingering for some time in the Bellasys' box at the Opera. As he went out into the foyer he saw an old acquaintance coming toward him.

Lord Killowen was past sixty: the world had used him roughly, and he had been ruined very early in life, but he bore both years and troubles lightly. Looking at his smooth forehead, and square, erect figure, and listening to his ready, cheery laugh, you would never have guessed how long he had led that guerrilla existence—for forty years keeping the bailiffs at bay. His nerve and his seat in the saddle were as firm as they were on the first night of his joining the —— Hussars, when he rode Kicking Kate over the iron pales round Hounslow Barrack-yard, and hit the layers of the long odds for a cool thousand.

He had been intimate with Colonel Livingstone, and had known his son from childhood; but he was a still closer friend of the Brandon family, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected. He had never seen Guy since the breaking off of the latter's engagement till this night, when he caught a glimpse of his lofty head bending over Flora Bellasys' chair.

Lord Killowen's blood was as hot and his impulses as quick as if he had not yet seen his twentieth winter, and the chivalry within him was stirred at what he considered an insolent parade of treachery; for he had guessed much of what had happened, though he did not know all the truth; so he passed Guy's extended hand, turning his head studiously aside.

The latter was startled for a moment, but he could not believe in an intentional "cut," and he knew his friend to be rather short-sighted; so with one stride he overtook him, and, touching him on the shoulder, said, "I must be very much changed if you do not know me, Lord Killowen."

The brave old Irishman turned short upon his heel and confronted the speaker, bending on him all the light of his clear blue eyes: he drew himself up to the full height of a stature that nearly equaled Livingstone's, and said, coolly and slowly, "Pardon me, you are not changed in the least; I know you very well."

The insult was palpable. Guy fairly staggered as if he had received a sword-thrust; then the angry blood rushed up to his temples, making the veins start out like muscles, and he spoke in a voice hoarse and indistinct with passion, "You will answer this."

True, his antagonist was more than old enough to have been his father, but in feast, field, and fray, Lord Killowen remembered his own age so seldom that other men might be excused for forgetting it sometimes.

The old man was going to answer eagerly, but he checked himself with an effort, as if repressing a strong temptation; when, after some seconds, he spoke, there was more of sadness and warning than of anger in his tone.

"No, I will not fight, even in this quarrel, with your father's son; besides, I might be anticipating one who has a better right. Four days ago Cyril Brandon landed from India."

It would have been difficult, I think, to have found another, among living men, both by constitution and temperament, so inaccessible to material terrors as Livingstone, yet when that name came upon him thus suddenly he felt a thrill and a start through his nerves, so unpleasantly like commonplace physical fear that ever, when he thought of it, it made his cheek burn with shame. He could not, after that, controvert gallant Lannes' maxim: "It is only a coward who says that he never was afraid."

He stood silently, and allowed Lord Killowen to pass him, bowing courteously, though coldly, to him. The latter never knew what mischief he had done. After that momentary sensation had passed off, all the worst elements of Guy's stubborn, haughty nature rose in rebellion at what he deemed a despicable weakness. As if in defiance of the consequences, all that evening and on the succeeding days he devoted himself to Flora Bellasys with such unusual ardor that it made her nervous: she thought it was too good to last.

When Mohun heard what had happened, he would not admit that there was the slightest chance of a meeting with Cyril Brandon, though he knew the character of the latter—fierce and intractable to a degree.

"Don't flatter yourself you will wipe off the score in that way," he said to Guy, with his sardonic laugh. "Men will quarrel over cards and about lorettes easily enough, but who fights for a 'broken covenant' now? We live two hundred years too late."

Ralph remembered how long he had lingered on the French seaboard waiting for a challenge from beyond the Channel which never came, though there was deeper provocation to justify it.

A few mornings after this had occurred Livingstone found himself without a servant. His demeanor toward this estimable class had always been imperious and stern to a fault, but latterly they, as well as others, had felt the effects of his exasperated temper, and he was sometimes brutally overbearing in his reprimands. On this particular occasion he must have been unusually oppressive, for it exhausted the patience of the much-enduring Willis, so that the worm turned again—insolently.

Before he had said ten words his master interrupted him, his eye turning toward a heavy horsewhip that lay near with an expression that made Willis retreat toward the door.

"So you have robbed me of enough to make you independent? Very well; make your book up; the maitre d'hotel will settle with you. You will carry away some of my property, of course? I shall not trouble myself to have your trunks searched, but if you take any thing that I happen to want afterward, I'll have you arrested, wherever you are. Now go."

The man left the room sulkily: an hour later he returned. "I am going this instant, Mr. Livingstone; but I could tell you something first that you ought to know, if you would promise not to be violent. I am very sorry now I did it." There was a curious expression—half spiteful, half frightened—on his cunning face as he spoke.

Guy looked at him carelessly. "Thank you; I am in no humor to listen to your confessions. You may be quite easy; I give you credit for all imaginable rascality. Remember what I said: if I miss any thing, the police will be after you the same day. Now, once more, go. If I see your face about here again, it will be the worse for you."

There was a good deal of meaning in Willis's smile, though, his lips were white with fear. "You will never miss what I was going to tell you about, sir," he said; and then faded away out of the room with his usual noiseless step, closing the door softly behind him.

If his master could have guessed what was the secret he had refused to hear, haughty as he was, I do believe there is no earthly degradation to which he would not have abased himself to gain its knowledge.

But the hour for the humbling of the strong, self-reliant nature had not come yet, though it was very near. The wild bull never saw the net till its meshes had trapped him fast.

The same morning Guy, who was lounging an hour away at the Bellasys', mentioned to them what had occurred. If he had glanced at Flora's face just then, he would have been puzzled to guess what there was in the intelligence to turn her so deadly pale. It was only for an instant that the accomplished actress forgot her part, and when he looked at her next there was not a trace of emotion in her face.

"Have you filled up his place?" she asked, carelessly.

"I have ordered my landlord to provide me," replied Guy. "I shall find some well-trained scoundrel on my return, I hope. I shall never get another like Willis, though. It's just my luck. The great principle of the gazelle runs through life: When they come to know you well, &c. What made you ask? Surely you have no protege to recommend?"

Flora laughed gayly as she answered in the negative, and so the subject dropped; but all the afternoon she was pensive and absent, and flashes of vexation gleamed every now and then fitfully in her stormy eyes.



CHAPTER XXVI.

"Let none think to fly the danger, For, soon or late, Love is his own avenger."

Christmas-tide had come round again, and hall, manor-house, and castle were filling fast. But the pheasants had a jubilee at Kerton, to the great discouragement of Mallett, who "could not mind such another breeding season." Foxes were strong and plentiful with the Belvoir and the Pytchley; and, during two months of open weather, many a straight-goer had died gallantly in the midst of the wide pasture-grounds, testifying with his last breath to the generalship of Goodall and Payne. But the best shot and the hardest rider in Northamptonshire lingered on still in Paris, wasting his patrimony in most riotous living, and trying his iron constitution presumptuously.

Lady Catharine sat alone in the gray old house, paler and more care-worn than ever. I think she would have preferred the noisiest revel that ever broke her slumbers in the old times to the dead silence that brooded like a mist in the deserted rooms.

Guy had always been a bad correspondent, and now he hardly ever wrote to her; but rumors of his wild life reached his mother often, though dimly and vaguely. It was best so; what would that poor lady have felt if she could have guessed at the scene in which her son was the principal figure as the Christmas morning was breaking?

It is the close of a furious orgie; the Babel of cries, of fragments of songs, of insane, meaningless laughter, is dying away, through the pure exhaustion of the revelers; on the gay carpet and the rich damask are pools of spilled liquors, heaps of shivered glass, and bouquets and garlands that have ceased to be fragrant hours ago. All around, in different attitudes—ignoble and helpless—are strewn the bodies of those who have gone down early in the battle of the Bacchanals: they lie in their ranks as they fell. One figure towers above the rest—pre-eminent as Satan in the conclave of the ruined angels—the guiltiest, because the most conscious of his own utter degradation. The frequent draughts that have prostrated his companions have only brought out two round scarlet spots in the pale bronze of his cheeks; his voice retains still its deep, calm, almost solemn tone. Listen to it as he raises to his lips an immense glass brimming-full of Burgundy: "One toast more, and with funeral honors—'To the memory of those who have fallen gloriously on the 24th of December.'"

Is it true that, six months ago, the soft, pure cheek of Constance Brandon rested often on the broad breast that pillows now the disheveled head of that wild-eyed, shrill-voiced Maenad? Draw the curtains closer yet; shut out the dawn of the Nativity for very shame.

Mohun was breakfasting with Livingstone on a cold, gusty January morning, that succeeded a night of heavy drinking and heavier play. The colonel would see him through one of these readily enough, but if there was even a single female face present he would retreat in disgust and contempt unutterable. Guy had been hit so hard that it made him graver than usual as he thought of it, though he was tolerably inured and indifferent to evil fortune; so the conversation languished during the meal. After it was over, Mohun rose to light a cigar, while his companion took up a pile of letters and began to glance at them listlessly. Suddenly the former dropped the match from his hand, starting in irrepressible astonishment.

He had seen strong men die hard, mangled and shattered by sabre or bullet, but he had never heard a sound so terribly significant of agony as the dull, heavy groan that just then burst from Livingstone's lips.

In those few seconds his face had grown perfectly livid; his eyes were riveted upon a small note that he held in his shaking fingers; they glittered strangely, but there was no meaning or expression in their fixed stare.

"In the name of God, what has happened?" Ralph asked.

Guy's lips worked and moved, but no sound came from them, except an irregular catching of the breath and a gasping rattle in the throat.

Mohun took the note from his hand without his seeming to be aware of it, and read it through. These were the words:

"I have tried very hard to persuade myself that you never received the letter I wrote to you two months ago. I think you would have answered it, for you would know how much I must have suffered before my pride broke down so utterly. Yet I could not have risked being scorned a second time if I had not learned yesterday that my life must now be reckoned by weeks, if not by days. I do not know if I shall be allowed to see you if you come. But you will come; will you not? Dear, dear Guy, I can not die as I ought to do, contentedly, unless I speak to you once again. In spite of all, I will sign my last letter

"Your own CONSTANCE BRANDON."

It was dated Ventnor.

Hard and cynical as he was, Mohun was thoroughly shocked and grieved; but the urgency of the crisis brought back the prompt decision of thought and purpose that were habitual to the trained soldier. He sprang to his feet, alert and ready for action, as he would have done in the old times, from his bivouac, to meet a night-surprise of the wild Hungarians.

"Get every thing ready," he said to the servant, who entered at that moment; "your master is going to England immediately. The train starts for Havre at two o'clock. You will catch the night-boat for Southampton."

When the man had left the room he turned to Guy: "Rouse yourself, man! There is all a lifetime for remorse, but only a few hours for the little amends you can make. You will be at Ventnor to-morrow; and mind—you must see her, whatever difficulties may be thrown in your way. You won't lose your temper if you meet her brother? Ah! I see you are not listening."

Then Livingstone spoke for the first time, in a hoarse, grating whisper, articulating the words one by one with difficulty.

"I never dreamed of this. I did not mean to kill her."

Mohun knew his friend too well to attempt consolation or sympathy, even if these had not been foreign to his own nature; so he answered deliberately and coldly,

"Of having brought bitter sorrow on Constance Brandon I do hold you guilty; of having caused her death, not, and so you will find when you know all. But her note of two months ago—of course you never saw it? You must have overlooked it; you are so careless with your papers."

"It never reached me," Livingstone replied. "I have always looked at the outside of my letters, and I should have known that handwriting among ten thousand. Some one must have intercepted it. I wish I knew who." He was recovering from the first stunning effects of the shock, and the old angry light came back into his eyes.

"I will find out when you are gone," said Mohun. "You have not a moment to spare. I won't ask you to write; I will join you in England in three days. Only remember one thing—keep cool. Yes, I know what you mean; but your patience may be tried more than you have any idea of." He was thinking of Cyril Brandon.

The hurry of departure prevented any further conversation. At the station, just before the train started, Ralph said, grasping his comrade's hand as he spoke, "I did not think you loved her so dearly."

It was very long before he forgot the dreary look which accompanied the answer, "I did not know it myself till now."

"I must trace the note," the colonel muttered, as he strode away from the station. "That handsome tiger-cat has laid her claw on it, I am certain. But she won't confess; red-hot pincers would not drag a secret from her, if she meant to keep it. I doubt if she will even betray herself by a blush. Poor Constance! What chance had she against such a Machiavel in petticoats? I am bad at diplomacy, too. If I only had the slightest proof, or if she had any weak point—unless she loses her head when she hears where Guy is gone, I have no chance of finding out much in that quarter. There's Willis, to be sure—she bribed him, no doubt. D—n them both!" In this complimentary and charitable mood, he went straight to Flora Bellasys.

He found her alone. She was sitting in her riding-dress, and the broad Spanish hat, with its curling plumes, lay close beside her, with the gauntlets and whip across it.

She did not much like Mohun, for she had an idea that his sarcasms, with her for their object, had made Guy smile more than once approvingly. She knew, too, that all her fascinations recoiled harmlessly from that rugged block of ironstone. Whatever he might have been in early years, he was harder of heart than stout Sir Artegall now. Radigund, unhelming her lovely face, would never have tempted him to forego his advantage and throw his weapons down.

However, she greeted him with perfect composure and satisfaction.

"Do you join our party this afternoon, Colonel Mohun? I expect them to call for me every moment. We are going to the Croix de Berny, to see the ground for the race next week. Mr. Livingstone was to have lunched here; but I never reckon on his keeping an engagement."

There was something in Ralph's manner which made her uncomfortable. She took up her whip, and began twisting its slender stock rather nervously; you would not have thought there was so much strength in the delicate fingers.

"You are right," he replied, coolly, "not to count too much on Guy's punctuality. He is very uncertain in his movements. I fear he can not accompany you this afternoon. He would have charged me with his excuses, I am sure, if he had not been so hurried."

Flora looked up quickly.

"It must have been something very sudden, then. Have you any idea where he is now?"

Ralph consulted his watch. "About Mantes, I should imagine. He started for Havre by the last train. He will be at Southampton, to-morrow, and the same day he can reach—"

He stopped, gazing at his companion with a cold, cruel satisfaction. The blood was sinking in her cheeks, not with a sudden impulse, but gradually—as the sunset rose-tints fade from the brow of the Jungfrau, leaving a ghastly opaque whiteness behind them. During the silence that ensued, a sharp tinkle might be heard as the jeweled head of the riding-whip, snapped by a convulsive movement, fell at Flora's feet.

It was weak in her to betray such loss of self-command, but, remember, the blow came unexpectedly. She saw the edifice she had plotted, and toiled, and risked so much to build, ruined and shattered to its foundation-stone. How many whispers, and smiles, and eloquent glances had been lavished, only to end in this Pavia, where not even honor was saved from the utter wreck!

Was not the perfect waxen mask of the first Napoleon shivered in that terrible abdication-night at Fontainebleau? Where was Cleopatra's queenly dignity when she heard that Antony had rejoined Octavia?

"Why has he gone? What called him back?"

Her voice had lost the clear ring of silver, and sounded dull and flat, like base metal.

"Constance Brandon wrote to tell him she was dying. Do you wonder that he went to her?"

A passing cloud of horror swept across Flora's pale face; but after it broke forth a gleam of strange, ferocious exultation, which stifled the rising pity in her hearer's breast, and changed it into contempt.

"I don't believe it," she cried, passionately. "It is a trick. She was quite well two months ago. At least, she said nothing—"

She checked herself, but too late. The practiced duelist laughed grimly in his mustache, as he might have done on discovering the weak point in his enemy's ward which laid him open to his rapier.

"You make my task easier," he said; "I came to inquire about a note which miscarried about the time you speak of. I will know what became of it, Miss Bellasys, though I wish to spare you unnecessary exposure and shame."

He had gained a momentary advantage, but it did not profit him much. There are swordsmen who will not own that they are touched, though their life-blood is ebbing fast. Flora rose without a sign of yielding or weakness in her dry eyes, drawing up her magnificent figure proudly. Ralph could not help thinking how like her father she was just then.

"I will answer, though I deny your right to question me. I have not the faintest idea of what you refer to. I have seen no note, except such as were addressed to myself; and you will hardly think that Miss Brandon would choose me as a confidante or correspondent."

Mohun saw that she would persist to the last, undaunted as Sapphira. So he rose to leave her, without another word.

"You do not doubt me?" Flora asked, as he turned away after saluting her. It was a rash question, all things considered, and scarcely worthy of the accomplished speaker. There is no more useful maxim in diplomacy than this: Quieta non movere.

Ralph faced her directly. "Miss Bellasys, when a lady tells me what I can not believe, I question—not her word, but—her agent." He was half way down stairs before she could answer or detain him.

He found out Willis's direction at Guy's hotel, but he had to wait some time before obtaining it; and other things delayed him en route, so that it was nearly two hours before he reached the modest lodgings, au quatrieme, where the discharged valet was hiding his greatness.

Willis had an extensive connection; this, and his well-known talents, made him tolerably sure of a situation whenever he chose to seek one. He had luxurious tastes, and thoroughly appreciated self-indulgence; so he determined to devote some time and a portion of his perquisites to relaxation before going into harness again.

On this particular evening he had in prospect a little dinner at Philippe's—not uncheered by the smiles of venal beauty—and had just completed a careful toilette. He was above the small peculations of his order; indeed, had he been inclined to plunder his late masters wardrobe, the absurd disproportion in their size would have saved him from that vulgar temptation. He was somewhat choice in his tailors, and his clothes fitted him and suited him well. He was reviewing the general effect in the glass with a complacent and rather egrillarde expression in his little eyes, when between him and his partie fine rose the apparition of the colonel, like that of the commander before a bolder profligate. He knew that the interview must come, and did not wish to avoid it, but just at this moment it was singularly ill timed. What a contrast between the stern, fixed gaze that seemed to nail him to the spot where he stood and the well-tutored glances of fair, frail Heloise! He felt as if he had been put into the ice-pail by mistake for the Champagne. However, he met his ill luck placidly, and, handing his visitor a chair, begged to know "what he could do to serve him."

"You can tell me what became of a letter from Miss Brandon, which ought to have reached yow master two months ago, and miscarried."

Willis was forewarned and armed for the question; but, even with this advantage given in, his blank, unconscious look and start of astonishment did him infinite credit.

"A letter, sir?" he said, vaguely, as if consulting his recollections. "From Miss Brandon? I have never seen or heard of such a thing. If I had, of course I should have given it to Mr. Livingstone. What else could I have done with it?"

"I will give a thousand francs for it," Mohun went on, without noticing the denial, "or for a written acknowledgment of how you disposed of it, and at whose orders." He laid the bank-note on the table.

The flats changed; the look of bewilderment gave place to one of injured innocence—an appeal against manifest injustice. It was really artistically done.

"I am sorry, sir, that you should think I want a bribe to serve you or Mr. Livingstone. It is quite out of my power now. I don't know what you refer to."

"I have no time to bargain," Ralph growled, and his eyes began to glisten ominously. "Name your price, and have done with it."

Finale and Grand Tableau—virtuous indignation—the faithful servant asserting his dignity as a man. There was a hitch here somewhere; the scene-shifter was hardly up to his work, so that it was rather a failure.

"I have told you twice, sir, that I do not know any thing about it. I beg you will not insult me with more questions. You have no right to do so; I am neither in your service nor Mr. Livingstone's now."

Mohun bent his bushy brows in some perplexity. After all, he had not a shadow of proof, though he felt a moral certainty. His sheet-anchor was the avarice of the scoundrel he was dealing with, and this seemed to fail. Evidently a strong counter-influence had been at work.

"Curse her!" he muttered between his clenched teeth, "she has been here before me."

Then he looked up suddenly, and what he saw caused the shallow cup of his patience at once to overflow.

In Willis's eyes was an ill-repressed twinkle of exultation and amusement, and on his thin lips the dawning of an actual sneer. It was but seldom the trained satellite allowed himself the luxury of betraying any natural feeling. In truth, he chose his time badly for its exhibition now. Before he could collect himself so as to utter a cry, he lay upon his back on the carpet, a heavy foot on his chest; and the colonel was gazing down on him with a fell murderous expression, that made the victim's blood run cold.

"By G—d!" Mohun said, in the smothered tones of concentrated passion, "if you trifle with me ten seconds longer—if you open your lips except to answer my question, I'll crush your breast-bone in."

Willis knew the desperate character of the man who held him in his power; it was no vain threat he had just heard; the pressure on his chest was agonizing already.

"For God's sake don't murder me!" he gasped out; "I—I gave it to Miss Bellasys."

"Of course you did," Mohun said, coolly; "I knew it all along. Now get up, and write that down."

He spurned away the fallen man as he spoke till he rolled over and over on the floor.

There is nothing which disconcerts a nature long used to obey like a sudden brutal coup de main. Remember the Scythians and their slaves. The rebels met their masters boldly enough on a fair field with sword and spear, but they cowered before the crack of the horsewhips.

All the spider-webs of the unfortunate Willis's diplomacy were utterly swept away; his powers of thought and volition were concentrated now on one point—to get rid of his visitor as soon as possible.

He rose slowly and painfully (for the mere physical shock had been heavy), and, placing himself at a table, tried to write the few words of acknowledgment that Mohun dictated; but his hand trembled so excessively that he could hardly form the letters. As he looked up in piteous deprecation, evidently fearing lest his inability to comply should be construed into unwillingness or rebellion, he presented a spectacle of degraded humanity so revolting in its abasement that even the cynic turned away in painful disgust.

It was done at last. As Willis saw his confession consigned to Mohun's pocket-book, his avarice gave him courage to try one last effort to gain something by the transaction—a salve to his bruises—a set-off against the relicta non bene parmula.

"I hope you will consider I have done all I can, sir," he said, looking wistfully at the bank-note, which still lay on the table. "I shall be ruined if this becomes known."

The cast-steel smile which was peculiar to him hardened the colonel's face.

"You must come down on Miss Bellasys for compensation. She pays well, I have no doubt. You never get another sou from our side, if it were to keep you from starving. My second thought was the best, after all; it saved time and—money. (He put the note back into his purse.) I'll give you one caution, though. Keep out of Mr. Livingstone's way. If he meets you, after hearing all this, he'll break your neck, I believe in my conscience." So he left him.

For the second time that evening Willis looked in the glass—the reflection was not so satisfactory. Was that unseemly crumpled ruin the white tie, sublime in its scientific wrinkles, on which its author had gazed with a pardonable paternal pride? No wonder that he stamped in wrath, not the less bitter because impotent, while he shook off the dust from his garments as a testimony against Ralph Mohun.

He repaired the damages, though, to the best of his power, and then went off to keep his appointment; but the pates a la bechamelle were as ashes, and the gelee au marisquin as gall to his parched, disordered palate. He made himself so intensely disagreeable that poor Heloise thenceforth swore an enmity against his compatriots, which endured to the end of her brief misspent existence. "Gredin d'Anglais, va!" she was wont to say, grinding her little white teeth melodramatically, whenever she recalled that dreary entertainment, and the failure of her simple stratagems to enliven her saturnine host.



CHAPTER XXVII.

"Then let the funeral bells be tolled, a requiem be sung, An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young; A dirge for her—the doubly dead, in that she died so young."

For the first few minutes after the train had moved off Guy was unable to collect his thoughts. As the tall figure of Mohun passed from his view, it seemed as if a sustaining prop had been suddenly cut away from under him, and he felt more than ever helpless. The stubborn strength of his character asserted itself before long, and he faced his great sorrow as he would have done an enemy in bodily shape; but neither then, nor for many days after, could he pursue any one train of reflection long unbroken.

First he began to think how Constance would look when he saw her. Would she be much changed? How beautiful she was the night they parted, with the blue myosotis gleaming through her bright hair! Would her eyes be as cold as he remembered them then (he had not seen their last look), or would they forgive him at once, and tell him so? Not if she knew all. And then, in hideous contrast to her pure stately beauty, there rose before him faces and figures which had shared his orgies during the past months, gay with paint and jewels, and meretricious ornament. There was a deeper horror in those mocking shapes than in the most loathsome phantasms of corporeal corruption that feverish dreams ever called up from the grave-yard. If his lips were unworthy, months ago, to touch Constance's cheek or hand, what were they now? He ground his teeth in the bitterness of self-condemnation. It would be easier to bear, if she met him coldly and proudly, than if she yielded at once, as her letter seemed to promise. Her letter! What became of the first one? If that had reached him, how much had been saved! Perhaps Constance's life—certainly much of his own dishonor. The idea did cross him that Flora might have been concerned in intercepting it, but it seemed improbable, and he drove it away. With all his revived devotion to Constance, he did not like to think hardly of her rival; in a lesser degree he had wronged her too.

You will rarely find the sternest or wisest of men disposed to be harsh toward errors that spring from a devotion to themselves. It is only just, as well as natural, that it should be so. If the second cause of the crime did not find an excuse for the defendant, I don't know where he or she would look for an advocate. St. Kevin need not have troubled himself: there were plenty of people ready to push poor Kathleen down. I think it is a pity they canonized him.

Through all Guy's reflections there ran this under-current—"how easily all might have been avoided if the slightest things had turned out differently." Just so, after a heavy loss at play, a man will keep thinking how he might have won a large stake if he had played one card otherwise, or backed the In instead of the Out. I have heard good judges say that this pertinacious after-thought is the hardest part to bear of all the annoyance. Of course he worries himself about it, just as if "great results from small beginnings" were not the tritest of all truisms. I don't wish to be historical, or I would reflect how often the Continent has been convulsed by a dish that disagreed with some one, or by a ship that did not start to its time. The Jacobites were very wise in toasting "the little gentleman in black velvet" that raised the fatal mole-hill. Does not the old romance say that an adder starting from a bush brought on the terrible battle in which all the chivalry of England were strewn like leaves around Arthur on Barren Down?

Guy could still hardly realize to himself the certainty of Constance's approaching death. He tried to fix his thoughts on this till a heavy, listless torpor, like drowsiness, began to steal over him. He roused himself impatiently, and began to think how slow they were going. Nevertheless, the green coteaux that swell between Rouen and the sea were flying past rapidly, and they arrived at Havre, as Mohun had said, just in time to catch the Southampton packet.

There was threatening of foul weather to windward. The clouds, in masses of indigo just edged with copper, were banking up fast, and the "white horses," more and more frequent, were beginning to toss their manes against the dark sky-line.

To the few travelers whom the stern necessities of business drove forth, lingering and shivering, from their comfortable inns on to the deck, already wet and unsteady, Livingstone was an object of great interest and many theories. His impatience to be gone was so marked that the conscientious official looked more than once suspiciously at his passport.

Mr. Phineas Hackett, of Boston, U.S., Marchand (so self-described in the Livre des Voyageurs at Chamounix), made up his mind that he saw before him the hero of some gigantic forgery, or a fraudulent bankrupt on a large scale; but, just as he had fixed on the astute question which was to drive the first wedge into the mystery, Guy turned in his quick walk and met him full. I doubt if he even saw the smooth-shaven, eager face at his elbow; but he was thinking again of the lost letter, and the savage glare in his eyes made the heart of the "earnest inquirer" quiver under his black satin waistcoat. "D——d hard knot, that," he muttered, disconsolately, and retreated with great loss, to writhe during the rest of the passage in an orgasm of unsatisfied curiosity.

The weather looked worse every moment as the wild north wind came roaring from seaward with a challenge to the vessels that lay tossing within the jetty to come forth and meet him. The waste-pipe of the Sea-gull screamed out shrilly in answer; and the brave old ship, shaking the foam from her bows after every plunge, as her namesake might do from its breast-feathers, steamed out right in the teeth of the gale.

A regular "Channel night"—a night which Mr. Augustus Winder, Paris traveler to H—— and Co., the mighty mercers of Regent Street, spoke of in after days with a shudder of reminiscence mingling with the pride of one who has endured and survived great peril; who has gone down to the sea in ships, and seen the wonders of the deep. His associates—the elite of the silk-and-ribbon department—youths of polished manners and fascinating address, than whom non alii leviore saltu took the counter in their stride—would gather round the narrator in respectful admiration, just as the young sea-dogs of Nantucket might listen to a veteran hunter of the sperm whale as he tells of a hurricane that caught him in the strait between the Land of Fire and terrible Cape Horn.

Mr. Winder represented himself as having assisted all on board, from the captain down to the cabin-boy, with his counsel and encouragement, and as having been materially useful to the man at the wheel. The fact was, that he cried a good deal during the night, and was incessant in his appeals to the steward and Heaven for help. In his appeals to the latter power he employed often a strangely modified form of the Apostles' Creed; for his religious education had been neglected, and this was his solitary and simple idea of an orison. However, no one was present to detract from his triumph or to controvert his concluding words:

"An awful night, gents; but duty's duty, and the firm behaved handsome. Mr. Sassnett, I'll trouble you for a light, sir." And so he ignited a fuller-flavored Cuba, and drank, in a sweeter grog, "Our noble selves"—olim haec meminisse juvabit.

There was one striking contrast on board to the gallant Winder. Livingstone did not go below, but walked the deck all night long, straining his eyes eagerly forward through the thick darkness and the driving rain.

Captain Weatherby regarded him approvingly, as, halting in his walk, Guy stood near him, upright and steady as a mainmast of Memel pine. "That's the sort I like to carry," the old sailor remarked confidentially to his second in command as they shared an amicable grog under the shelter of the companion.

The wind abated toward morning; and, as the dawn broke, they were under the lee of the Wight, and moving steadily into the quiet Solent.

Guy made his way straight to Ventnor. Twenty-four hours after her summons reached him, Constance knew that her lover had never received her first letter, and that now he was within five hundred yards of her, waiting to be called into her presence.

It was long before her answer came. It only contained a few hurried words, saying that it was impossible for her to see him that day, and begging him not to be angry, but to wait. The hand-writing was far more faltering and uncertain than that which had struck him so painfully with its weakness the day before. It spoke plainly of the effort which it had cost the invalid to trace even those brief lines. He did not try to delude himself any more, but all that day remained alone, face to face with his despair.

He went out after nightfall, and stole up cautiously to the house where Constance was staying.

It is not only ghosts that walk. Men, as powerless to retrieve the past as if they were already disembodied spirits, will haunt the scenes and sepulchres of their lost happiness even before they die. Though the world was all before them where to choose, I doubt not that the exiles from Paradise lingered long just without the sweep of the flaming sword.

Two rooms in the house were lighted, one with the faint glimmer peculiar to the shaded lamp of a sick-room. Guy's pulse bounded wildly at first, and then grew dull and still. In that room he knew Constance lay dying. The other window was brightly lighted, but half shaded by a curtain. While he gazed, this was torn suddenly aside, as if by an angry, impatient hand, and a man leaned out, throwing back the hair from his forehead, to catch the cold wind which was blowing sharply. Guy had never seen the dark, passionate face before, but he know whose it was very well, though there was little family likeness to guide him. Cyril Brandon's features were small and finely cut, like his sister's; but there the resemblance ended. His complexion, naturally sallow, had been burnt three shades deeper by the Indian sun. His fierce black eyes, and thin lips, that seemed always ready to curl or quiver, made the contrast with Constance very striking.

Livingstone drew back into the farthest shadow of the garden trees. He knew how much reason Cyril had for hating him above all living men, and he did not wish to risk a meeting. Mohun's warning shot across his mind, and he felt it was rightly founded.

Brandon looked out for some minutes without moving, then he dropped his head suddenly on his arms with a heavy groan. The bright light was behind him, and Guy could see his clasped fingers twisting and tearing at each other, as if he wished to distract mental agony by the sense of bodily pain. The gazer saw that another besides himself had given up all hope; and, with a heavier heart than over, he stole away home—not to sleep, but to think, and wait for the morning.

About noon next day the expected message came:

"DEAR GUY,—I have got leave to see you at last, but it was very difficult to gain. It is only on these conditions: you are not to stay with me a moment beyond three hours, and you must leave Ventnor immediately afterward, and not return. I have promised all for you. It seems very hard; but we must not think of that now. Come directly. C.B."

Ten minutes later there was only a closed door between Livingstone, and the interview he longed for and dreaded so much. His steel nerves stood him in good stead then; it was not at the crisis that these were likely to fail. When Constance heard his step, it was measured and firmly planted as she always remembered it. So it would have been if he had been walking to meet the fire of a platoon. Her aunt, Mrs. Vavasour, was with her, but left the room, as Guy opened the door, and so they met again as they had parted—alone.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

"I charge thee, by the living's prayer, By the dead's silentness, To wring from out thy soul a cry That God may hear and bless; Lest heaven's own palm fade in my hand, And, pale among the saints I stand A saint companionless."

Constance was lying on a couch near the fire propped up by many pillows. She felt weaker than usual: what she had gone through in the morning had exhausted her. Guy never knew, till long after, that the effort she had made to secure the meeting with him had, in all human probability, shortened her life by weeks. She thought it cheaply purchased at that price—and she was right. Even the excitement of the moment had hardly brought a tinge of color into the pure waxen cheeks, but the beautiful clear eyes were more brilliant than ever. A ribbon of the blue which was Guy's favorite was twisted in her bright glossy hair.

He saw nothing of this at first; he did not see her raise herself with a faint joyful cry as he advanced with his eyes cast down; he never knew how it was that he found himself kneeling by Constance, with her arms clinging fondly round his neck, and her voice murmuring in his ear, "I said you would come—I knew you would come."

Though her soft cheek lay so very near his lips, they never touched it. He drew back, shuddering all over, and said, hoarsely,

"I can not; I dare not; I am not worthy."

I do not know if she guessed what he meant, but she tried to lift his head, which was bent down on the cushion beside her, so that he might look into her true eyes as she answered,

"You must not think that—you must not say so. I know you have been angry and almost mad for many months, but you are not so now, and you never will be any more. It was my fault—yes, mine. If I had not been so cold and proud, you would never have left me. You thought I did not love you; but I did; my own, my darling, I did—so dearly!"

All Guy's stout manhood was shivered within him, utterly and suddenly, as 4000 years ago the rock was cloven in Horeb, the Mount of God. Now, too, from the rift in the granite the waters flowed; the first tears that he had shed since he was a very little child—the last that any mortal saw there—streamed hot and blinding from his eyes down on the thin, transparent hand that he held fast.

Would those with whom he was a by-word for hard sternness of character have known him then? They would have been almost as much surprised to see Constance Brandon—thought so haughty and cold—overcoming her terror at his passionate burst of grief, to soothe him with every tenderest gesture and with words that were each a caress, till the convulsion passed away, and calm self-government returned.

Guy did not speak till he could quite control himself; then he said firmly, but with a sob in his voice still,

"Yet I have killed you!"

"No, no," Constance answered, quickly; "indeed it is not so. A cold which attacked my chest caused this illness; but they say my lungs were affected long ago, and that I could hardly have lived many months. You must think of that, dear; and perhaps it is much better that it should be so. Life is very hard and difficult, I think, and I should never have been strong enough to bear my part in it well."

Guy shook his head sadly, as if only half convinced, though he knew she would not have said an untrue word even to save him from suffering.

"If you could only stay with me—if I could only keep you!" he cried out, and threw his arms round her, as if their strong clasp would hold her back one step on the road along which the messengers of God had been beckoning her for many days past.

"Hush!" Constance whispered; "you must be patient. Yet I like to think that you will not forget me soon. Now listen—" and she held up her finger with something of the "old imperial air." "I have something to ask of you. Will you not like to do it for my sake, even if it is hard?"

He did not answer; but she understood the pressure of his hand, and went on.

"I have been fearing so much that something terrible will happen between you and Cyril. He is so passionate and willful, he will not listen to me, though he loves me dearly, and though I have tried every entreaty I could think of. (She grew paler than ever, and shuddered visibly.) And you are not patient, Guy, dear; but you would be this time, would you not? Only think how it would grieve me if—"

The deep hollow cough that she had tried hard to keep back would break in here.

"You can not doubt me," Guy replied, caressing her fondly: "I promise that nothing he can say or do shall tempt me to defend myself by word or deed. How could I, even if you had not asked this? Has he not bitter cause? Ask me something harder, my own!"

Constance hesitated; then she spoke rapidly, as if afraid to pause when she had once made up her mind. The lovely color came and flickered for a moment on her cheek, and then went out again as suddenly.

"I know it is easier for me to submit than for you, yet it is very hard to be obliged to leave you, Guy; it is harder still to leave you to Flora Bellasys. I hope my jealousy—I am jealous—does not make me unjust; but I don't think she will make you better, or even happier in the end. Now do forgive me; perhaps I ought not—"

Guy interrupted her here: he had not stopped her till she began to excuse herself.

"I must see her once again (the knitting of his black brows omened ill for the peace of that interview); afterward, on my honor and faith, I will never speak to her one word, or willingly look upon her face."

O true heart! that had suffered so long, and hitherto unavailingly, till your life-blood was drained in the struggle, be content, for the victory is won at last. Never did loyalty and right triumph more absolutely since those who stood fast by their King in the dies irae of the great battle saw the rebel angels cast headlong down.

If, in the intense joy that thrilled through every fibre of Constance's frame, there mingled an element of gratified pride, who shall blame her? Not I, for fear of being less indulgent than I believe was her Eternal Judge when, not many days later, she stood before him.

She needed no further protest or explanation; she never thought that, because her lover had once been entangled, there was danger of his falling into the net again; she never doubted for an instant—and she was right. The gaze of the spirit is far-seeing and rarely fallible when so near its translation as was hers.

As she leaned her head against his shoulder, murmuring, "You have made me so very, very happy!" there were pleasant tears in the beautiful eyes that had known so many bitter ones, and had not lost their brightness yet.

There was silence for some minutes; then Constance spoke again, looking wistfully, and more sadly than she had yet done, on her companion:

"Do you know, Guy, I have been thinking that yours will not be a very long life? You are so strong that it seems foolish in me, but I can not help it."

The faintest glimmer of satisfaction, like the ghost of a smile, came upon Livingstone's miserable, haggard face: there had been nothing like it there for many hours; there was nothing like it again for many days.

"You may be right," he said, very calmly. "I trust in God you are."

"Yes," Constance went on; "but I was thinking more than that. I was hoping that perhaps, for my sake, if not for your own, you would try to grow better every day. Only think what it would be if, throughout all ages, we were never to meet after to-day." She drew him closer to her, and her voice almost failed her. "I don't believe you ever could be what is called a very religious character. I am so weak—strong-minded as you thought me—that I fear I have found an attraction in this fault of yours; but you could keep from great sins, I am sure. Try and be gentler to others first, and with every act of unselfish kindness you will have gained something. Any good clergyman will tell you the rest better than I. Remember how happy you will make me. I believe I shall see and know it all. It may be hard for you, dear, but it may not be for long."

The same strange, wistful look came into her eyes again, as if shadows of the dim future were passing before them.

Poor child! Pure as she was in principle and firm in truth, she would have made but a weak controversial theologian; but her simple words went straight to her hearer's heart, with a stronger power of conversion than could have been found in the discourses of all the surpliced Chrysostoms that ever anathematized a sinner or anatomized a creed.

Yet Guy did not answer so soon this time. When he did, he spoke firmly and resolutely: "Indeed, indeed, I will try."

Constance nestled down on his broad chest, wearily, but with a long-drawn breath of intense relief.

"I have said all my say," she whispered; "I have not tired you? Now I will rest, and you shall pet me and talk to me as you used to do."

What broken sentences—what pauses of silence yet more eloquent—what lavish, tender caresses passed between those two, over whom the shadow of desolation was closing fast, I have never guessed, nor, if I could, would I write them in these pages. I hold that there are partings bitterer to bear than a father's from his child, and sorrows worthier of the veil than those of Agamemnon.

Though Guy repressed now all outward signs of painful emotion, he suffered, I believe, far the most of the two. It is always so with those whom death is about to divide. The agony is unequally distributed, falling heaviest on the one that remains behind. If the separation were for years, and both were healthy and hopeful, very often the positions would be reversed; but—whether it be that bodily weakness blunts the sharp sense of anticipated sorrow, or that, to eyes bent forward on the glories and terrors of the unknown world, earthly relations lessen by comparison—you will find that with most, however impetuous it may have been in mid-channel, the river of life flows calmly and evenly just before its junction with the great ocean stream. Besides, the dying girl had suffered so much of late that the present change left no room for other feelings than those of unalloyed happiness, and the words of love murmured into her ear brought with them a deeper delight than when she heard them for the first time from the same lips.

Both were so engaged with their own thoughts and with each other that they never noted how the narrow space of time allotted to them was vanishing, rapidly as the last dry islet of sand when the spring-tide is flowing. They never heard the footsteps, more impatient at every turn, sounding from the room beneath, where Cyril Brandon paced to and fro. Constance had cut off one of her long sunny braids, and was twining it, in and out, in fetter-locks round Guy's fingers as she lay nestling in the clasp of his other arm: it was only their eyes that were speaking then. They started as the door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Vavasour came in, her face white, and her eyes wild with terror. She was too frightened to be gentle or considerate.

"You must go this instant!" she cried out, catching Livingstone's arm. "Constance, make him go; he has staid too long already. You know you promised."

"I did promise," Constance answered, calmly, almost proudly "and he will keep it."

Then she turned to Guy, who was kneeling by her, and hid her face in his neck, locking her arms round him. Her aunt caught the words—"Not forget!" Beyond these her farewell was a secret known only to her lover and the angels.

But the parting, which had come so suddenly, drained the last weak remnant of strength already taxed too hardly. Guy felt the lips that were murmuring in his car grow still at first, and then cold; the tender arms unknit themselves, and his imploring eyes could draw no answer from hers that were closed.

"She has only fainted," Mrs. Vavasour said, answering his look: "I will recover her. But pray, pray go!"

He laid the light burden that scarcely weighed upon his arm down on the pillows, very softly and gently, smoothing them mechanically with his hand. Then he stooped and pressed one kiss more on the pale lips; they never felt it, though the passion of that lengthened caress might almost have waked the dead. And so those two parted, to meet again—upon earth never any more.

The next time woman's lips touched Guy Livingstone's they were his mother's, and he had been a corpse an hour.

He went, without looking back; his step was slow and unsteady, very different from the firm, even tread of three hours ago. The power of volition and self-direction was very nearly gone. Through a half open door on the lower story he caught a glimpse of a haggard face lighted up by wolfish eyes, and heard a savage, growling voice. He felt that both eyes and voice cursed him as he passed; and afterward, recalling these things vaguely, as one does the incidents of a hideous dream, he knew that, for the second time, he had seen Cyril Brandon. Guy could hardly tell how he reached London that night, for the brain fever was coming on that the next morning held him in its clutches fast.



CHAPTER XXIX.

"Quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse."

The tidings of her son's illness reached Lady Catharine quickly at Kerton Manor. I did not hear of it till a day later, and when I arrived I found her nearly exhausted by sleeplessness and anxiety, though she had not been Guy's nurse for more than thirty-six hours.

The sick-bed of delirium taxes the energies of the watcher very differently from any other. There is a sort of fascination in the roll of the restless head, tossing from side to side, as if trying to escape from the pressure of a heavy hot hand; in the glare of the eager eyes, that follow you every where, with a question in them that they never wait to have answered; in the incoherent words, just trembling on the verge of a revelation, but always leaving the tale half told, that creates a perpetual strain on the attention, enough to wear out a strong man.