There have been men, they say, who, sensible of the approach of delirium, chose the one person who should attend them, and ordered their doors to be closed against all others, preferring to die almost alone to the risk of what their ravings might betray; but I have heard, also, that there are secrets—secrets shared, too, by many confederates—to which neither fever or intoxication ever gave a clew. The hot blood grew chill for an instant, and the babbling tongue was tied when the dreamer came near the frontier ground, where the oath reared itself distinct and threatening as ever, while all else was fantastic and vague.

There was something of this in Guy's case. We could hear distinctly many of his broken sentences, relating sometimes to the hunting-field, sometimes to the orgies of wine or play. There were names, too, occurring now and then, which to his mother were meaningless, but to me had an evil significance. Once or twice—not oftener—he was talking to Flora Bellasys. But when the name of Constance Brandon came, the harsh loud voice sank into a whisper so low that if you had laid your ear to his lips you would not have caught one syllable. Very, very often I had occasion to remark this, and to wonder how the heart could guard its treasure so rigidly when the brain was driving on, aimless as a ship before the hurricane with her rudder gone.

On the fifth day after Guy's illness began, an angel might have interceded for him in the stead of a pure true-hearted woman, for Constance was dead.

I saw Lady Catharine tremble, and bend her head down low when she heard the news, as if herself crushed by the blow which would fall so heavily on her son. She had known but very little of Constance; that little had made her love her dearly—who could help doing that? Yet it was not Constance she was regretting then. I could see the same thought was in her mind as in mine—who will tell Guy this if he recovers? I did all I could to spare her; but the anxiety she felt when out of the sick-room tried her almost more than the bodily fatigue. It was best to let her have her way. I never guessed, till then, the extent of a weak woman's endurance.

It was a close struggle, indeed, between life and death. The fire of the fever died out when there was little left for it to feed on. The arm which, a month ago, was fatal as old Front-de-Boeuf's, had not strength enough in its loosened sinews to lift itself three inches from the coverlet.

Guy had fallen at last into a heavy sleep. The doctors said it was the turning-point. If he woke quite calm and sane, the immense power of his constitution would probably enable him to rally; if not, the worst that could be feared was certain.

He woke after many hours. There was such a stillness in the room as he unclosed his eyes that you might have heard his mother's heart beat as she sat motionless by his bedside. They recognized her at once—heavy and dim as they were—for he tried to turn his head to kiss her hand that lay on the pillow beside him. Then we knew that he was saved; and I saw, for the first time, tears stream down Lady Catharine's worn cheeks. She could check the evidence of her grief better than that of her joy.

He saw me, too, as I came forward out of the shadow. "Is that you, Frank?" he said, faintly. "How very good of you to come." We would not let him speak any more.

On the third day after the change for the better, I was alone with the invalid. He turned to me suddenly, and spoke in a low voice, but so steady that it surprised me. "Frank, what have you heard of Constance?"

Had I been arming myself to meet that question—disciplining my voice and countenance for days, only to fail so miserably at last? I felt unspeakably angry and self-reproachful when I saw that my face had told him all.

"When did she die?" He went on in the same measured tone, without taking his eyes off me. I think he had nerved himself just enough for the effort, and was afraid of breaking down if he paused.

I could speak now, and told him. I was going on to tell him, too, how calmly and happily her life had ended (her aunt had written all this to Lady Catharine), when Guy stopped me—not coldly, but with a hopeless sadness in his accent very painful to hear. "Thank you; it is meant kindly, but I would rather not speak of this, even to you—at least for some time."

His self-command carried him through bravely, but it only just lasted out. Then he turned his head aside and threw his arm across it. As I drew back to the window, I saw the quivering of the long, emaciated fingers that veiled his face. I did not look again till Guy's voice called to me, quite composedly, for I did not dare to pry into or meddle with the secrets of the strong heart that knew its own bitterness so well.

I told Lady Catharine what had passed. She was very much relieved to hear that it was all over. She never opened her lips on the subject to her son; indeed, though those two understood each other thoroughly, there were wonderfully few confidences between them.

Guy's convalescence was slow—far slower than we had hoped for. It seemed as if some spring was broken in his being not easily to be replaced. He was moody and listless always, speaking very seldom; but his words and manner, when he did talk, were gentler and more kindly than I ever remembered them.

One of his first visitors was Colonel Mohun. He had been incessant in his inquiries, and had offered to share our watching, but Lady Catharine would not hear of it. She had a sort of dread at the idea of that grim face lowering over the sick man's bed.

No one was present at their first interview. Ralph was more moved than he cared to show at his old friend's altered looks and ways; but he gave him the account of his search after the lost letter conscientiously, without sparing a single detail. "It must have gone hard with Guy," he remarked to me, thoughtfully, as he came away. "He's very far from right yet. When I told him what Willis had done, I made sure he would be very angry. He only said, 'Poor wretch! He acted under orders, and did not know what mischief he was doing.' He wants rousing; but I am sure I don't know what is to do it."

Forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries seemed to that hard old heathen the most dangerous sign of bodily and mental debility.

He came almost daily after that, and I think his rough ways, and sharp, sarcastic remarks acted on Livingstone as a sort of tonic—bitter, but strengthening.

A few days later Mrs. Vavasour called. She, too, saw Guy alone. She surely had a message to deliver, or she would not have ventured on an interview which must have been so painful to both. It did not last long; but when she came down, her thick black veil was drawn closely over her face, and that evening Guy was denied to Ralph Mohun.

One afternoon Livingstone was quite by himself. The colonel had gone into Warwickshire for a few days' hunting; Lady Catharine had paid her usual visit and had gone back to her hotel, and I was out for an hour or two. We did not mind leaving him a good deal alone; indeed, he preferred it very often, and said so.

His servant came in, looking rather puzzled, to say that a lady wished to see him. She would not give her name, but said that she would not detain him many minutes.

Guy had not time to refuse admittance to the visitor, she followed so close upon her message. Though she was closely-wrapped in her mantle, and her veil fell in triple folds, there was no mistaking the turn of the haughty head, the smooth, elastic step, and the lithe undulations of a figure matchless between the four seas. No wonder that he drew his breath hard as he recognized Flora Bellasys.



CHAPTER XXX.

Treu und fest.

As the door closed, Flora advanced quickly. "Confess you are surprised to see me," she said, holding out her little gloved hand. The courtesy toward the sex, which was hereditary with the Livingstones, contrasting strangely with their fierce, ungovernable tempers, made him not reject it; but his lay passive and nerveless in her slender fingers, never answering their eager pressure; it had no longer the elastic quiver of repressed strength that she remembered and liked so well.

"I am surprised to see you here, and so soon," he answered, coldly; "but I knew we should meet before long."

"The surprise does not seem too charming," Miss Bellasys said, pouting her scarlet lip as she threw herself into a deep bergere opposite to the couch on which Livingstone had already sunk down again—he was very weak and unsteady in his movements still.

Was it by chance or calculation that a fold of her dress disarranged displayed the slender foot, with its arched instep—set off by the delicate brodequin, a labor of love to the Parisian Crispin—and the straight, beautifully-turned ankle, cased in dead-white silk? The latter, I think; for Flora knew how to fall as well as Caesar or Polyxena, and had studied her part to its minutest shade. It was by the senses that she had always been most successful in attacking Guy, and she knew that, in old days, no point of feminine perfection had a greater attraction for him.

The temptation, if so it was intended, had about as much effect upon him now as it might have had on weather-beaten St. Simeon Stylites when his penances had lasted twenty years.

After a minute's silence, during which Flora was gazing intently on her companion, leaning her chin upon her hand, she spoke again.

"I fear you must have been very ill. How—how changed you are!"

Livingstone was, indeed, fearfully altered. The healthy brown of his complexion had given place to a dull, opaque pallor; there were great hollows under the prominent cheek-bones, and his loose dressing-robe of black velvet hung straight down from the gaunt angles of the immense joints and bones. His voice sounded deeper than ever as he replied,

"Yes, I have been very ill, and I am utterly changed. But you must have had something more important to say to me, or you would hardly have ventured on this step."

She was getting very nervous—inexplicably so for her, who generally kept her head, while she made others lose theirs,

"No. I only wished—" she hesitated, trying to force a smile, and then broke off suddenly—"Guy, do speak kindly to me. Don't look at me so strangely."

His answer came, brief and stern.

"I will speak, then. Miss Bellasys, on what authority from me did you venture to interfere in my concerns so far as to intercept my correspondence?"

She tried denial still; it was her way; she always would do it, even when it could avail nothing—perhaps to gain time.

"I don't know what you mean. I never—"

Livingstone interrupted her, with a curl of contempt on his lip.

"Stop, I beg of you. It is useless to stoop lower than you have done already. I have Willis's written confession here. Ah! I know your talents too well to accuse you without material proof."

She raised her head, haughtily enough now. There was something Spartan about that girl. She had such an utter recklessness of exposure—it was in failure that she felt the shame.

"At least you ought not to reproach me. You might guess my motive—my only one—without forcing me to confess it. Have I not gratified your pride enough already?"

"You know that is not the question," Guy answered, gravely. "Yet you are half right. I could not reproach you for any fair, honest move. In much, I own myself more guilty than you. But this is very different. Miss Bellasys, you must have distrusted greatly your own powers of fascination before you stooped to such cruel treachery."

"I did not know what I was doing," she whispered; "I did not know she was dying. Ah! Guy, have pity!"

"But you knew it might kill her to find her letter—such a letter—unanswered. You knew what she must have suffered before she wrote it. You did all this in cold blood, and now you say to me, 'Have pity!' If an accountable being—not a woman and her miserable instrument—had wronged me so, I would have risked my soul to have revenge; and, because that is impossible, you think that I feel less bitterly? You might have known me better by this time."

Instead of being softened by her appeal, his heart, features, and tone were hardening more and more.

The sting of defeat, imminent and unavoidable, that, ere this, has driven strong and wise men headlong into the thickest of the battle to hunt for death there, proved too much for a temper never well regulated.

"You have decided, then?" she cried, passionately, her eyes flashing and her lip quivering. "After all I have risked and borne for you, I am to be sacrificed to a shadow—a memory—the memory of that cold, pale statue of propriety?" She checked herself suddenly, only just in time.

Guy had sprung to his feet, excitement bringing back for the moment all his lost strength. If Ralph Mohun had seen him, he would not have feared that the wrathful devil was cast out. It was raging within him then, untamed and dangerous as ever.

"Do you dare to insult her now that she is dead—and to me, not a month after I have lost her? It is not safe: take care, take care!"

The tempest of his passion made him forget, for the first time in his life, the weakness of her who had roused it.

Flora was only a woman after all, though haughty and bold of spirit as any that had breathed. Her own outbreak of anger vanished before that terrible burst of wrath, just as the camp-fire, when the prairie is blazing, is swallowed up in the great roaring torrent of flame. She bowed her head on her hands, trembling all over in pure physical fear. Guy felt ashamed when he saw the effect of his violence, and spoke more gently than he had done yet.

"Forgive me. I was very wrong; but I have not learned to control myself—I never shall, I fear; but you ought not to say such words, even if I could bear them better. Now it is time that we should part; you have staid here too long already. You must not risk your reputation for me, who can not even be grateful for the venture. We shall never meet again, if we can avoid it; it would be strange to do so as mere acquaintance, and in any other way—no, don't stop me—it is impossible. It will be long before I go much into society again, so I shall not cross your path."

Flora knew it was hopeless then. She was quite broken down, and did not raise her head from her hand, through the fingers of which, half shading her face, the tears trickled fast. Guy heard her murmur, very low and plaintively, "I have loved you so long—so dearly!"

Mistress as she was of every art that can deceive, I believe she only spoke the simple truth then. With all the energy of her strong and sensual nature, I believe she did worship Livingstone. To most men she would have been far more dangerous thus, in the abandonment of her sorrow, than ever she had been in the insolence of her splendid beauty.

There are some women, very few (Johnson's fair friend, Sophy Streatfield, was one), whom weeping does not disfigure. Their eyelids do not get red or swollen; only the iris softens for a moment; and the drops do not streak or blot the polished cheeks, but glitter there, singly, like dew on marble; their sobs are well regulated, and follow in a certain rhythm; and the heaving bosom sinks and swells, not too stormily. It is a rare accomplishment. Miss Bellasys had not practiced it often, being essentially Democritian—not to say Rabelaisian—in her philosophy; but she did it very well. Like every other emotion, it became her.

Guy hardly glanced at her, and never answered a word.

She rose to go; then turned all at once to try one effort more. "Yes, we must part," she said. "I know it now. But give me a kind word to take with me. I shall be so lonely, now that you are my enemy. Will you not say you wish me well? Ah! Guy, remember all the hours that I have tried to make pleasant for you. Say 'Good-by, Flora,' only those two little words, gently." Her voice was broken and uncertain, but full of music still, like the wind wandering through an organ.

Just at that moment I opened the door. (I had not an idea Livingstone was not alone.) I closed it before either had remarked my entrance, but not before I had caught sight of a very striking picture.

Guy was leaning one arm against the mantel-piece; the other was crossed over his chest: on that arm Flora was clinging, with both her hands clenched in the passion of her appeal. Her slight bonnet had fallen rather back, showing the masses of her glorious hair, and all her flushed cheeks, and her eyes that shone with a strange lustre, though there were tears still on their long, trailing lashes. I saw the impersonation of material life, exuberant and vigorous, yet delicately lovely—the Lust of the Eye incarnate.

He stood perfectly still, making no effort to cast her off. Had he done so with violence, it would scarcely have evinced more repulsion than did the expression of his face. There was no more of yielding or softening in the set features and severe eyes than you would find in those of a corpse three hours old, whose spirit has passed in some great anger or pain. Can you guess what made him more than ever hard and unrelenting? He was thinking who tried to win a kind farewell from him six months ago, and utterly failed. Should her rival have this triumph, too, over the dead?

As he answered deliberately, each slow word shut out another hope, like bolts shot, one by one, in the lock of a prison door.

"I remember nothing of the past except your last act, for which I will never, never forgive you. I form no wish for your welfare or for the reverse. There shall not stand the faintest shadow of a connecting link that I can break asunder. Between you and me there is the gulf of a fresh-made grave, and no thought of mine shall ever cross it—so help me God in Heaven!"

Flora's last arrow was shivered: if she had had another in her quiver, she would have had no courage to try it after hearing those terrible words. She caught his hand, however, before he could guess her intention, and pressed her lips upon it till they left their print behind, and then she was gone. Her light foot hardly sounded as it sprang down the stairs, but its faint echo was the last living sound connected with Flora Bellasys that ever reached the ear of Guy Livingstone.

When I heard more of the interview, I thought, and think still, that he erred on the side of harshness. He was so fixed and steady in his purpose that he could have afforded to have compromised a little in expressing it. But he did things in his own way, and fought with his own weapons—effective, but hardly to be wielded by most men, like the axe of the King-maker or the bow of Odysseus. In carrying out his will, he was apt to consider the softer feelings of others as little as he did his own. It was just so with him when riding to hounds: he went as straight as a line, and if he did not spare his horses, he certainly did not himself.

To each man alive, one particular precept of the Christian code is harder to realize and practice than all the rest put together. It was this, perhaps, which drove the anchorites on from one degree of penance to another, and made them so savage in self-tormenting. When the macerated flesh had almost lost sensation, the thorn that had galled it sometimes in their hot youth rankled incessantly, more venomous than ever. That one injunction—"Forgive, as you would hope to be forgiven"—was ever a stumbling-block to Guy.

Besides all this, he knew, better than any one, what sort of an adversary he was contending against; one with whom each step in negotiation or temporizing was a step toward discomfiture. It was like the Spaniard with his navaja against the sabre: your only chance is keeping him steadily at the sword's-point, without breaking ground; if he once gets under your guard, not all the saints in the calendar can save you.

Perhaps, then, he was right, after all. Certainly Ralph Mohun thought so, as he listened to a sketch of the proceedings with a grim satisfaction edifying to witness.

As for me, before I went to bed that night, I read through those chapters in the "Mort d'Arthur" that tell how the long, guilty loves of Launcelot and Guenever ended. In the present case, there was certainly wonderfully little penitence on the lady's side, but yet there were points of resemblance which struck me. [I always think the queen must have been the image of Flora.] It is worth while wading through many chapters of exaggeration and obscurity to come out into the noble light of the epilogue at last.

Good King Arthur is gone. It bit deep, that blow which Mordred, the strong traitor, struck when the spear stood out a fathom behind his back; and Morgan la Fay came too late to heal the grievous wound that had taken cold. The frank, kind, generous heart, that would not mistrust till certainty left no space for suspicion, can never be wrung or betrayed again. The bitter parting between the lovers is over too; and Launcelot is gone to his own place, without the farewell caress he prayed for when he besought the queen "to kiss him once and never more." After a very few short months, the beautiful wild bird has beaten herself to death against her cage, and the vision comes by night, bidding Launcelot arise and fetch the corpse of Guenever home. She wandered often and far in life, but where should her home be now but by the side of her husband? Hardly and painfully in two days, he and the faithful seven accomplish the thirty miles that lay between; so utterly is that unearthly strength, before which lance-shafts were as reeds, and iron bars as silken threads (remember the May night in Meliagraunce's castle), enfeebled and broken down. He stands in the nunnery-church at Almesbury; he hears from the queen's maidens of the prayer that was ever on her lips through those two days when she lay a dying, how "she besought God that she might never have power to see Sir Launcelot with her worldly eyes." Then, says the chronicler, "he saw her visage; yet he wept not greatly, but sighed. And so he did all the observance of the service himself, both the dirge at night and the mass on the morrow." Not till every rite was performed, not till the earth had closed over the marble coffin, did Launcelot swoon.

I know nothing in fiction so piteous as the words that tell of his dreary, mortal sorrow. "Then, Sir Launcelot never after ate but little meat, nor drank, but continually mourned until he was dead; and then he sickened more and more, and dried and dwined away; for the bishop nor none of his fellows might make him to eat, and little he drank; so that he waxed shorter by a cubit than he was, and the people could not know him; for evermore day and night he prayed; but needfully as nature required, sometimes he slumbered a broken sleep; and always he was lying groveling on King Arthur's and Queen Guenever's tomb. And there was no comfort that his fellows could make him; it availed nothing."

We know it can not last long; we know that the morning is fast approaching, when they will find him "stark dead, and lying as he had smiled;" when they will bear him forth, according to his vow, to his resting-place in Joyous Guard; when there will be pronounced over him that famous funeral oration—the truest, the simplest, the noblest, I think, that ever was spoken over the body of a sinful man.



CHAPTER XXXI.

"I pray God pardon me, That I no more, without a pang, His choicest works can see."

It was long before Livingstone's health recovered the check to its improvement given by that interview. However, as the spring advanced he began to regain strength rapidly, and toward the end of May he and I started in the Petrel, which he had just bought, for a cruise in the Mediterranean.

It would seem hard that any one, coasting for the first time along the shores of Italy, and penetrating ever and anon far into the interior, should not feel and display some interest in the succession of pictures, of living Nature and dead Art, that meet you at every step. I can not say that I ever detected the faintest symptom of such in my companion. He strayed with me through the old Forum, and through Adrian's Villa, and lingered by the Alban Lake; but it was more to keep me in countenance than any thing else. I liked them better this second time of seeing them than I did the first; I doubt if they left an impression on his mind equal to the dimmest photograph that ever was the pride of an amateur and the puzzle of his friends. The brilliant landscapes made up of bold headlands, hanging woods, and sunny bays fared no better. Guy did not come on deck for two hours after we cast anchor off Mola di Gaeta.

Our ciceroni were much pained and scandalized at an indifference which exceeded all they had yet encountered in the matter-of-fact Signori Inglesi. I saw one of them look quite relieved when, after quitting us, he had to listen to an excitable young Jewess endeavoring to express her raptures in the most execrable Italian. The physical effort it cost her was awful to witness, especially as she was wintering in Italy for her lungs. O, long-suffering stones of the Coliseum! which returned the most barbarous echo—the growls from the cells when their tenants scented the Christian; the jargon of the Goth and the Hun; or the lingua Anglo-Romana in bocca Bloomsburiana? The two first-named classes, at all events, confined themselves to their own dialect, and spoke it, doubtless, with perfect propriety. However, in the present instance, the custode took the sentimental ebullition of the Maid of Judah for an amende honorable, and rubbed his key complacently.

I do not believe that our travels brought to Guy a single distraction to the great sorrow that all the while held him fast.

A German philosopher under similar circumstances would have written reams and spoken volumes (eating and drinking all the while Pantagruelically), theorizing and abstracting his emotions till they vanished into cloud and vapor. A true disciple of Rousseau or Lamartine would have analyzed his grief, dividing it into as many channels as Alexander did the Oxus, till the main stream was lost, and each individual rivulet might be crossed dry-shod. Both would have shed tears perpetual and profuse. I read the other day of a Frenchman who, in the midst of a mixed assembly, remembering that on that day ten years he had lost a dear friend, instantly went out and wept bitterly. He was so charmed with the happiness of the thought that, as he says, "I took the resolution henceforth to weep for all whom I have loved, each on the anniversary of their death."

Can you conceive any thing more touching than the picture of the Bereaved One consulting his almanac and then "going at it with a will?" It was an athletic performance certainly; but remember what condition he must have been in from the constant training.

From the episode of Niobe down to the best song in the "Princess," how many beautiful lines have been devoted to those outward and visible signs of sorrow?

Sadder elegiacs, more pathetic threnodies might have been written on the tears that were stifled at their source, either from pride or from physical inability to let them flow. Great regrets, like great schemes, are generally matured in the shade. If I had to choose the tombs where most hopes and affections are buried, I should turn, I think, not to those with the long inscriptions of questionable poetry or blameless Latinity, but to where just the initials and a cross are cut on the single stone.

The philosophical and poetical mourners hardly suffered much more than Guy did during those months, and for long after too, though he was always quite silent on the subject, and would speak cheerfully on others now and then, and though, from the day that he parted with Constance to that of his own death, his eyes were as dry as the skies over the Delta. He used to lie for hours in that state of utter listlessness which gives a reality to the sad old Eastern proverb, "Man is better sitting than standing, lying down than sitting, dead than lying down."

With all this, however, his health improved every day. After the wild life he had led lately, the perfect rest and the clear pure air refreshed him marvelously. It had the effect of coming out of a room heated and laden with smoke into the cool summer morning. His strength, too, had returned almost completely. I found this out at Baiae.

The guardian of the Cento Camerelle, a big lazzarone, became inordinately abusive. My impression is that he had received about fifteen times his due; but, seeing our yacht in the offing, he conceived the idea that we were princes in our own country, and ought to be robbed in his proportionally. Guy's eyes began to gleam at last, and he made a step toward the offender. I thought he was going to be heavily visited; but Livingstone only lifted him by the throat and held him suspended against the wall, as you may see the children in those parts pin the lizards in a forked stick. Then he let him drop, unhurt, but green with terror. A year ago, a straightforward blow from the shoulder would have settled the business in a shorter time, and worked a strange alteration in good Giuseppe's handsome sunburnt face. But the old hardness of heart was wearing away. I had another proof of this some days later.

We were dropping down out of the Bay of Naples. Though we weighed anchor in early morning, it was past noon before we cleared the Bocca di Capri, for there was hardly wind enough to give the Petrel steerage-way. The smoke from our long Turkish pipes mounted almost straight upward, and lingered over our heads in thin blue curls; yet the sullen, discontented heave and roll in the water were growing heavier every hour. The black tufa cliffs crested with shattered masonry—the foundations of the sty where the Boar of Capreae wallowed—were just on our starboard quarter, when Riddell, the master, came up to Livingstone. "I think we'd better make all snug, sir," he said. "There's dirty weather to windward, and we haven't too much sea-room." He was an old man-of-war's boatswain, and had had a tussle, in his time, on every sea and ocean in the known world, with every wind that blows. He had rather a contempt for the Mediterranean, esteeming it just one degree above the Cowes Roads, and attaching about as much importance to its vagaries as one might do to the fractiousness of a spoiled child. If he had been caught in the most terrible tempest that ever desolated the shores of the Great Lake, I don't believe he would have called it any thing but "dirty weather." He was too good a sailor, though, not to take all precautions, even if he had been sailing on a piece of ornamental water; and he went quickly forward to give the necessary orders, after getting a nod of assent from Guy.

The latter raised himself lazily on his arm, so as to see all round over the low bulwarks. There was a blue-black bank of cloud rolling up from the southwest. Puffs of wind, with no coolness in them, but dry and uncertain as if stirred by some capricious artificial means, struck the sails without filling them, and drove the Petrel through the water by fits and starts.

"I really believe we are going to have a white squall," Guy remarked, indifferently. "Well, we shall see how the boat behaves. Riddell only spoke just in time."

Suddenly his tone changed, and he said, quickly and decidedly, "Hold on every thing!"

The master turned his weatherwise eye toward the quarter where the danger lay, and frowned. "We're none too soon with it, Mr. Livingstone. If there's a yard too much canvas spread when that reaches us, I won't answer for the spars."

Deeper and deeper the blackness came rushing down upon us, an angry ridge of foam before it—the white squall showing its teeth.

Guy took the old man by the arm, and pointed to an object to leeward that none on board had remarked yet. It was a small barca with four men in it. They were Capriotes, as we found afterward, the boldest boatmen in the Bay. Had they been pure-bred Neapolitans, they would have been down on their faces long ago, screaming out prayers to a long muster-roll of saints. As it was, they stood manfully to their oars, straining every muscle to reach us; there was no other safety for them then. "They will never get alongside in time, unless we bear down to meet them," Livingstone said, "and what chance will they have in ten minutes hence?"

Riddell was only half satisfied. His creed evidently was that a sailor's first duty is to his own ship; but neither he nor any one else ever argued with Guy. "As you like, sir," he grumbled, somewhat discontentedly. "Keep her full, Saunders; we shall fetch them so."

If a stitch of sail had been taken off our vessel she could never have reached the barca, though her crew strove hard to meet us. She forged down slowly enough as it was, but we were just in time to take them on board.

"Reef every thing now!" Riddell shouted, leaping himself first into the rigging like a wild-cat. "Cheerily, men—with a will!" All his ill-humor was gone when the peril became imminent.

We were strong-handed, and the four Capriotes did us seaman's service; but it was "touch and go." The last man had scarcely reached the deck when the line of foam was within half-cable's length. Then there came a sound unlike any I had ever heard before in the elements, beginning with a whistling sort of scream and deepening into a roar as of many angry voices, bestial and human, striving for the mastery; and then the Petrel staggered and reeled over almost on her beam-ends, in the midst of a white boiling caldron of mad water. She recovered herself, however, quickly, quivering and trembling as a live creature might do after severe punishment; and we drove on, the strong arms at the wheel keeping her well before the blast. In a very few minutes, I suppose (though it seemed very long), I heard old Riddell say, "Sharp while it lasted, Mr. Livingstone; but they're right to call it a squall. They've nothing down here-away like a good right down hard gale."

I looked up, clearing my eyes, blinded with the hissing spray, just as Guy answered, coolly as ever. He had run his arm through a becket, and did not seem to have moved otherwise, whereas I disgraced myself by falling at full length as the squall struck us.

"Ah! you've got difficult to please; it's always so when one sees so much of life. Never mind, Riddell, the Mediterranean does its best, and perhaps we'll go and try your tornadoes some day. Where's the barca now?"

Where? The eyes that could have told you that must have looked a hundred fathoms deep. There was not the faintest vestige of such a thing to be seen—not even a shivered plank. The poor Capriotes' "bread-winner" had gone the way of Antonio's argosies—another whet to the all-devouring appetite, for which nothing that swims is too large or too small.

It was almost calm again when we landed the rescued men at Salerno; we were glad to get rid of them, for their gratitude was overpowering, especially as all the salt water that had soaked them could not disguise the savor of their favorite herb.

You may break, you may ruin the clay if you will, but the scent of the garlic will cling to it still.

Guy gave them enough to buy two such boats as they had lost—about as much as one wins or loses in an evening's whist, with fair luck and half-crown points.

This incident showed the change that was coming over my companion. His principle had always been that a man who could not help himself was not worth helping. He never asked for aid himself, and never gave it to his own sex, as a rule. I believe his rescuing me at B—— was a solitary case, and I took it as a great compliment. You will say this one was only an act of common humanity. If you had known the man, you would have thought, as I did, that the words of her, who was an angel then, were bearing fruit already.

Nothing happened of the slightest interest as we ran down through the Straits of Messina, and up the eastern coast of Calabria. We did not stay to see Sicily then, for we had settled to be in Venice by a certain day, to meet the Forresters.

If I were to be seduced into "word-painting," the Queen of the Adriatic would tempt me. I know no other scene so provocative of enthusiasm as the square acre round St. Mark's. All things considered, the author of the "Stones of Venice" seems very sufficiently rational and cold-blooded.

We can not all be romantic about landscapes. Nature has worshipers enough not to grudge a few to Art. For myself, admiring both when in perfection, I prefer hewn stones to rough rocks—the Canalazzo to any cascade. The glory of old days that clings round the Palace of the Doges stands comparison, in my mind's eye, with the Iris of Terni.

But why trench on a field already amply cultivated? I will never describe any place till I find a virgin spot untouched by Murray, and then I will send it to him, with my initials. Does such exist in Europe? "Faith, very hardly, sir." Nil intentatum reliquit. What obligations do we not owe to the accomplished compilers? Rarely rising into poetry (I except "Spain"—the field, and bar one), never jocose, they move on, severe in simplicity, straight to their solemn end of enlightening the British tourist. Upright as Rhadamanthus, they hold the scales that weigh the merits of cathedrals, hotels, ruins, guides, pictures, and mountain passes, telling us what to eat, drink, and avoid. Let us repose on them in blind but contented reliance.

I heard of one man, clever but eccentric, who became so exasperated at seeing the volumes in every body's hand, and hearing them in every body's mouth, that he conceived a sort of personal enmity to them, impiously dissenting from their conclusions and questioning their premises. The well-known red cover at last had the same effect on him as the scarlet cloak on the bull in the corrida, making him stamp and roar hideously. The angry gods had demented him. Vae misero! How could such sacrilege end but badly? Braving and deriding the solemn warning of the prophet, he attempted a certain pass in the Tyrol alone, and, losing his way, caught a pleurisy which proved fatal. He died game, but, I am sorry to say, impenitent, speaking blasphemy against the book with his last breath. Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere—

Such heresy, be it far from me! If I had my will, I protest I would found a "Murray's Traveling Fellowship" in one or both of the Universities. If I had the poetic vein, I would indite a pendant to Byron's iambics to that enlightened bibliopole. He published "Childe Harold," and the Hand-book to Every Where. Could one man in one century do more for the Ideal and the Real?



CHAPTER XXXII.

"Sweetest lips that ever were kissed, Brightest eyes that ever have shone, May sigh and whisper, and he not list, Or look away, and never be missed Long or ever a month be gone."

It was a very curious menage that of the Forresters'. They were wonderfully happy, yet you could not call theirs domestic felicity. They went out perpetually every where, and were scarcely ever alone together at home. Tho cold-water cure of matrimony had not been able to cool either down into the dignity and steadiness befitting that honorable state. As far as I could see, Charley flirted as much as ever; the only difference was, that he stole upon his victims now with a sort of protecting and paternal air, merging gradually, as the interest deepened, into the old confidential style. The whole effect was, if any thing, more seductive than before.

The fair Venetians admired him intensely. His bright, clear complexion and rich chestnut hair had the charm of novelty for them. Though without the faintest respect for grammar or idiom, he spoke their language with perfect composure, confidence, and self-satisfaction, and his tones were so well adapted to the slow, soft, languid tongue, that his blunders sounded better than other men's correctness of speech. Mallem mehercule cum Platone errare. When he said "Si, Siora," it seemed as if he were calling the lady by a pet name.

Isabel did a good deal of mischief too in her unassuming way, but I think she confined her depredations chiefly to her compatriots.

The best of it was, that neither objected in the least to the other's proceedings, appearing, indeed, to consider them rather creditable than otherwise. Perhaps it would be as well if this principle of reciprocal free agency were somewhat extended, though not quite to the latitude to which they carried it.

We can not send our wives about surrounded by a detachment of semiviri to keep the peace; our climate is too uncertain, and influenza too prevalent, for us to watch their windows ourselves, as they do at Cadiz. Fancy mounting guard in Eaton Square at 4 P.M., shrouded in a yellow fog, on the chance of surprising a forbidden morning visitor!

Supposing that we could adopt either of those methods, why should they prove more efficacious than they are said to be on their native soil? If the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom—nothing for the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his peace—why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most cases, his substantial interest would be little endangered.

That poor Hephaestus! The net was an ingenious device, and a pretty piece of workmanship, but—it didn't answer.

In despite of Mrs. Ellis, there are women whose mission it is not to be good housewives; they can't be useful if they would, any more than May-flies can spin silk. Like them, they can attract fish (and sometimes get snapped up if they go too close), that's all. If you marry them, you must accept them as they are, and take your chance. Be generous, then, and don't stop their waltzing. I believe there may be flirting without the most distant idea of criminality—fencing with wooden foils, where no blood is drawn.

A lady was asked the other day "what she did when an admirer became too lover-like." Her answer was, "I never had such a case." I think she spoke the truth; yet she was a coquette renowned through a good part of two hemispheres.

As for the doubts and fears of the other sex, the subject is too vast for me. To the end of time there will be Deianiras (with imaginary Ioles), Zaras, and Mrs. Caudles. Tragedy and comedy have tried in vain to frighten or to laugh them out of the indulgence of the fatal passion, that wreaks itself indiscriminately on the beat and the worst, the youngest and the oldest, the simplest and the most guileful of adult males. Let us not attempt to argue, then, but, wrapping ourselves in our virtue, endure as best we may the groundless reproaches and accusations of our ox-eyed Junos.

We did Venice very severely, with the exception of Forrester, who, after strolling once through the Palace of the Doges (a pilgrimage interrupted by many halts and profuse lamentations), declined seeing any thing more than what he could view from his gondola. I never saw any one so completely at home in that most delicious of conveyances. His Venetian friends encouraged and sympathized with him in his laziness, and pitied him with eyes and words, forever being teased about it. Indeed, he was generally left alone; but one day we were landing to see a church of great repute, and Miss Devereux made a strong appeal to him to follow her. She was a handsome, clever girl, a great favorite of Charley's. I believe they used to quarrel and make it up again about six times in every twenty-four hours. We saw that it was hopeless, but she was obstinate enough to try and persuade him.

"Now, Captain Forrester, you must come. I have set my heart upon it."

He lifted his long eyelashes in a languid satisfaction. "Thank you very much; I like people to be interested about me; but you see it's simply impossible. Look at Rinaldo; there's a sensible example for you. He doesn't mean to stir till he is obliged to do so." The handsome gondolier had already couched, to enjoy a bask in the sun, which was blazing fiercely down on his brown face and magnificent black hair.

"There is the most perfect Titian," she persisted.

"No use. I should not appreciate it," he replied. "I have been through a gallery with you before. It's a delusion and a snare. I never looked at a single picture. The canvas won't stand the comparison."

"I did not think you would have refused me," Miss Devereux went on, "particularly after last night, when you were so very—amusing." She hesitated out the last word with a blush. It evidently was not the adjective that ought to have closed the sentence.

"Amusing!" replied Charley, plaintively. "You need not say any more. I am crushed for the day. I meant to be especially touching and pathetic. Well, there's some good in every thing, though. I entertained an angel unawares."

"I shall know how far to believe you another time, at all events," she retorted, getting rather provoked.

"Don't be unjust," said Forrester, profoundly regardless of the fact that his wife was within three paces of them. "I said I was ready to die for you. So I am. You may fix the time, but I may choose the place. If you insist upon it, I'll make an end of it now—here." And he settled himself deeper into the pile of cushions.

We had no patience to listen to any more, but went off to perform our duty. Long before he had exhausted his arguments against moving, we had returned. Margaret Devereux missed seeing the church and its Titian, but she got a "great moral lesson." She never wasted her pretty pleadings in such a hopeless cause again.

I remember, when we mounted the Campanile, the solemn way in which he wished us buon viaggio. When we reached the top, we made out his figure reclining on many chairs in front of "Florian's."

He saw us, too, and lifted the glass before him to his lips with a wave of approval and encouragement, just as they do at Chamounix when the telescopes make out a few black specks on the white crests of the mountain. When we came down, he stopped us before we could say one word. "Yes, I know—it was magnificent. Bella, I see you are going to rave about the view. If you do, I'll shut you up for a week en penitence, and feed you on nothing but 'Bradshaw' and water."

We spent a very pleasant month in Venice. It did Guy good being with the Forresters. He had always been very fond of his cousin, and she seemed to suit him better than any one else now. She would sit by him for hours, talking in her low, caressing tones, that soothed him like a cool soft hand laid on a forehead fever-heated. Isabel was not afraid of him now, but a great awe mingled with her pity.

It is curious, and tells well perhaps for our human nature; neither pride of birth, nor complete success, nor profound wisdom, surrounds a man with such reverence as the being possessed with a great sorrow. At least no one can envy him; and so those who were his enemies once—like the gallant Frenchman when he saw his adversary's empty sleeve—bring their swords to the salute, and pass on.

At last we started for Rome, our party nearly filling two carriages. There are only two ways of traveling: in your own carriage, with courier and fourgon, like Russian or transatlantic noble, or with vetturino. This last mode, which was ours, is scarcely less pleasant, if you are not in a hurry. The charm of having, for a certain period, every care as to ways and means off your mind, compensates for the six-miles-an-hour pace. So we moved slowly southward through Verona, where one thinks more of the Avon than the Adige—where, in tombs poised like Mohammed's coffin, the mighty Scagliari sleep between earth and heaven, as if not quite fit for either—where are the cypresses in the trim old garden, soaring skyward till the eyes that follow grow dizzy, the trees that were green and luxuriant years before the world was redeemed. So through Mantua and Bologna down to Florence, where, I think, the spirits of Catharine and Cosmo linger yet, the women and the men all so soft-toned, and silky, and sinful, and cruel. We did not stay long there, for we had all visited it before once or twice, but kept on our way, by the upper road, to Rome, till we reached our last halting-place—Civita Castellana.

We were gathered round the wood fire after dinner (for the October evenings grew chilly as they closed in); I don't know how it was that Forrester began telling us about their flight.

"You ought to have seen Bella's baggage," he said, at last; "it was so compact. You can't fancy any thing so tiny as the sac de nuit. A courier's moneybag would make two of it. Then a vast cloak, and that's all. Quite in light marching order."

"I wonder you are not ashamed to talk about baggage," his wife retorted. "When we got to Dover, there was his servant with four immense portmanteaus and a dressing-case nearly as large, waiting for us. Was it not romantic?"

"Bah!" Charley said. "A man must have his comforts, even if he is eloping. I am sure I arranged every thing superbly. I don't know how I did it—an undeveloped talent for intrigue, I suppose."

"Was it not kind of him to take so much trouble?" Isabel asked, quite innocently, and in perfect good faith, I am sure; but her husband pinched the little pink ear that was within his reach.

"She means to be sarcastic," he said. "You've spoiled her, Guy. If I had had time to deliberate, though, I don't think I should ever have come to the post. I wonder how any one stands the training."

"I'll tell you what would have suited you exactly," Livingstone remarked—"to have been one of those men in the Arabian Nights, who wake and find themselves at a strange city's gate, 10,000 leagues from home, to whom there comes up a venerable vizier, saying, 'My son, heaven has blessed me with one daughter, a very pearl of beauty; many have sought her in marriage, but in vain. Your appearance pleases me, and I would have you for my son-in-law.'"

"Exactly," said Forrester. "I should not have minded turning out somebody else's child eventually—(they all did that, didn't they?)—for such a piece of luck as to be taken in and done for off-hand, without the trouble of thinking about it."

Instead of looking vexed, Isabel laughed merrily, and her eyes glittered as they rested on him, full of a proud, loving happiness.

"The best of it was," Charley went on, "she was in the most dreadful state of alarm and excitement all the way to Dover, looking out at every station, under the impression that she should see the bridegroom there, 'dangling his bonnet and plume' (though how he was to have got ahead of us, unless he came by electric telegraph, does not appear). What sport it would have been! I should have liked so to have seen the 'laggard in love' once more."

"He was not quite that," Isabel interrupted, rather mischievously.

"Ah! I dare say you kept him up to the traces," her husband remarked, languidly. "You have a talent that way. What 'passages,' as Varney called them, there must have been, eh! Guy? We won't hear your confession now, Puss. In pity to Mademoiselle Aglaee's eyes (which are very fine), if not to your own (which are very useful), I think you had better go to bed. That ferocious vetturino will have us up at unholy hours, and is not to be mitigated."

We sat talking for a little while after Isabel left us; then Forrester rose and strolled to the window. The flood of light that poured in when he drew the curtain was quite startling, making the three beaked oil lamps look smoky and dim.

"I shall smoke my last cigar al fresco," Charley said; "I suppose it's the correct thing to do, with such a moon as that. Won't you come, Guy? I must not tempt you out into the night air, Hammond."

"Not to-night," Livingstone answered. "I am not in the humor for admiring any thing. I should be rather in your way."

One of his gloomy fits was coming over him, at which times he always chose to be alone.

"Well, I shall go and consume the 'humble, but not wholly heart-broken weed of every-day life,' as Tyrrell used to say. (Don't you remember his double-barreled adjectives?) If you hear any one singing very sweetly, don't be alarmed; you'll know it is the harmless lunatic who now addresses you; the fit won't last more than an hour. We shall be in Rome to-morrow. The only thing on my mind now is whether I shall find any thing there to carry me across the Campagna. K—— has a very fair pack, I understand, and no end of foxes."

Have you ever watched the completion of a photograph, when the nitrate of silver (or whatever the last lotion may be) is applied? First one feature comes out, that you may indulgently mistake for a tree, or a gable-end, or a mountain top; then another, till the whole picture stands out in clear, brilliant relief.

Just so when I recall that scene—little heed as I took at the time of them—every gesture, and look, and tone of Forrester's becomes as distinct as if he stood in the body before me now. I can see him standing in the shadow of the doorway, the red glare from the blazing wood with which he was lighting his cigar falling over his delicate features and bright chestnut hair—I can hear his kind soft voice as he speaks these last two words, "Al rivederci."

Whether that wish will be accomplished hereafter, God alone can tell; if so, it must be beyond the grave. In life we never saw him any more.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

"But time at length makes all things even, And if we do but bide the hour, There never yet was human power That could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him who treasures up a wrong."

Three quarters of an hour later, Guy was sitting in his room, gazing at the embers on the hearth, in the attitude of moody thought that of late he was apt to fall into. Suddenly there came a timid knock at his door. When he opened it, his cousin stood on the threshold—ghost-like, against the background of darkness, with her white dressing-gown, pale cheeks, and long hair unbound.

"Guy, don't be angry," she said; "it's very foolish of me, I know; but Charley has not come in yet, and just now I am certain there was a shot quite near. Aglaee heard nothing, but I did. You know he always carries a pistol. I made him do so. It is nothing, I am sure; but I am so frightened. If you would—"

She tried to smile, but that ghastly look of terror that he had seen once before, long ago, in the library at Kerton Manor, again swept over, and possessed all her face like a white chill mist.

"Don't be absurd, you silly child," Guy said, kindly. "Of course I'll go out directly, and bring him in in five minutes, to laugh at you. Now go back to your room; there's nothing on earth to be alarmed about."

But the instant she had gone, I heard his voice quick and stern: "Frank, come here." There was a door of communication between our rooms, and, though it was closed, I had caught some words of this conversation, so I was ready nearly as soon as he. Guy only staid to take a short lance-wood club, headed with a spiked steel head, which was his constant traveling companion—a very simple weapon, but deadly in his hands as the axe of Richard the King—and then we sallied out, taking our servants and some other men that were below, with torches, in case the moon should fail us unexpectedly.

Twice, three times, when we had gone a short distance, Livingstone shouted Forrester's name. His powerful voice rang far through the ravines, and struck against the rocks, rolling and reverberating in their hollows like a blast fired in a deep mine; but no answer came.

I looked at my companion very nervously. He never spoke, but I saw him gnaw his under lip till the blood ran down.

We had gone a hundred paces or so farther along a narrow path outside the town. On our right the cliff fell almost abruptly toward the river. Guy was a few paces in front, when suddenly there broke from his lips such a sound as I have never heard from those of any mortal before or since.

It is impossible to describe it. It was utterly involuntary, as if some spirit had spoken within the man—a cry of horror and of unspeakable wrath, such as might have burst from the chest of one of the Old-World giants, when the rock fell from heaven that crushed him like a worm. The Italians, used to every tone that can express passion, shrunk and cowered back in terror.

Our eyes all followed the direction of his, that were staring down upon a flat open space, clear from brush-wood, down in the hollow on our right. Our search was ended, and we knew it. The moon, that flickered and quivered elsewhere through bough and brake, settled there steadily on a single white spot.

In all the world there is but one object on which she can cast so ghastly a reflection—a dead man's face.

Guy recovered himself first, and plunged recklessly down the cliff side. When we reached him, he was supporting on his knee the head of poor Charley Forrester, stone dead, and foully murdered.

The first glance told how unavailing all human aid must be. One small deep wound just above the left temple must have been fatal instantly. Close by his side lay the instrument of the slaughter—a thin, triangular piece of granite—and, ten paces off, his pistol, one barrel discharged. His watch and (as we afterward found) his purse were gone, but an emerald ring of great value was still untouched on his finger.

I staggered back, heart-sick and faint. When I recovered I saw dimly the group of men, awe-stricken and whispering, and Guy still gazing down at the face that rested on his knee, as if it fascinated his eyes. I could not bear to look upon the piteous sight. All through the bright hair the dark blood had soaked, and a slow stream was stealing through it still; the fair features were all defaced and deformed with the wrath and agony of the last mortal struggle. Yet I do remember that, if any one definite expression still lingered there, it was bitter contempt and scorn.

"In God's name, sir, what is to be done?" It was Hardy who spoke, poor Forrester's own servant, the only Englishman among our attendants. He was choking, and could hardly gasp out the words.

Livingstone rose slowly, first pillowing the mangled head on a soft tuft of moss, tenderly as if it were conscious still. His nature was such that no shock, or pain, or sorrow to which humanity is liable, could bend or quell it, so as to deprive him, beyond a brief instant, of self-possession and calmness. It was not insensibility now, and hardly stoicism, but an elasticity of resistance and strength of endurance that, in my own knowledge, have never been matched. In history or in Indian life you might find many parallels.

He answered quite steadily, though in a low tone, as if reverencing the presence of the dead.

"There is no hope. It is useless to send for a surgeon. Hardy, you will take all the men whom you can collect and scour the country. Send to the sbirri immediately; they will go with you. There must be traces of the murderer. Frank, will you see that—he—is brought carefully to the house? I will"—he stopped, and drew a long, hard breath—"I will go and break it to Isabel." His hand, that happened to touch mine as he spoke, was damp and icy cold.

In his life Guy Livingstone had done and dared more than most men, but he never ventured on any thing so thoroughly brave, and valiant, and strong-hearted as when he left me, without another word, on that errand. For myself, though weak both in body and nerve, I swear I would rather have gone up the breach at Badajoz with the forlorn hope, than up that bank with the certainty before me of what awaited him.

Trees overhanging, and high walls on either side, and the change from the bright moonlight, made it so dark just as you approached the inn that Guy scarcely saw a white figure crouching down a few paces from the door till he was close upon it.

He threw his arm round Isabel Forrester's waist before she could pass him. Half his task was done; there was nothing to break to her now. She understood all when she saw him come back alone.

For a few moments, there they stood in the dark, no word passing between them; the only sound was her quick panting, as she struggled in his grasp, battling to get free.

"Isabel," he said, at last, gravely, "come in; I must speak to you."

No answer still, but the same desperate struggle to get loose. There was a savage, supernatural power in her writhings that taxed even his gigantic strength to hold her; as it was, he yielded unconsciously to her impulse so as to recede some paces till they issued out into the moonlight. He could scarcely recognize her features; they were all working and contorted, the lips especially horribly drawn back and tense. She bent her head down at last, and made her teeth meet in the arm that detained her.

Guy never flinched nor stirred, but spoke again in the same slow, deliberate tone.

"Isabel, come in. I swear that you shall see him when it is safe. They are bringing him back now."

She ceased struggling and stood straight up, shaking all over, straining her eyes forward to the turning in the path where the torches began to gleam.

"Is he not dead, then?" she said, in a strange, harsh voice, utterly unlike her own. Her cousin did not try to delude her; all the stern outline of his face softening in an intense pity told her enough.

Such a scream—weird, long drawn out, and unearthly, such as we fancy the Banchee's—as that which pierced through my very marrow (though I stood three hundred yards away, as if it had been uttered close at my ear), I trust I shall never hear again.

Then followed the contrast of a great stillness; for, as the last accents died away on her lips, Isabel sank down, without a struggle, into a dead swoon.

A sad satisfaction came into Guy's face. "It is best so," he muttered; "I hope she won't wake for an hour," and he carried her into the house. They were trying to revive her, unsuccessfully, when I reached it with those who bore the corpse on a litter of pine branches. By Guy's directions, it was laid on his own bed; and there the Italian women rendered the last offices to the dead man, weeping and wailing over him as though he had been a brother or dear friend—only for his rare beauty—even as the Moorish girls mourned over that fair-faced Christian knight whom they found lying, rolled in blood, by the rock of Alpujarro.

Soon they came to tell Guy that Isabel was recovering from her swoon. She was hardly conscious when he entered the room, and he heard her moaning, "I am so cold, so cold," shivering all over, though she was warmly wrapped in cloaks and shawls.

The village doctor, a mild, helpless-looking man, was sitting by her bedside. He tried to feel her pulse just then, I suppose to show that he could be of some use; but she shrunk away from him, and beckoned to her cousin to come near. He motioned to the others to leave them alone, and, kneeling down by her, took her hand in his.

"Guy, dear," she said, "I know I have been so very wicked and ungrateful to you; but you must not be angry. I have no one left to take care of me but you, now. I will try to be patient; indeed, indeed I will." Her voice was faint and exhausted, but as gentle as ever.

He held her hand faster, and bent his forehead down upon it.

"You are not wicked—only too weak to bear your sorrow. If I only knew what to do to comfort you! But I am so rough and harsh, even when I mean to be kind. I can say nothing, either. I suppose you ought to submit, but I can not tell you how; it is a lesson I have never been able to learn."

"You can do this," she said. "Let me go to him. Ah! don't refuse. I will be calm and good. Indeed I will. But I must go"—she sank her voice into a lower whisper yet—"I have not kissed him to-night."

There was something so unspeakably piteous in her tone and in her imploring eyes, that had grown quite soft again, though no tears had moistened them, that Guy could hardly answer her.

"I did not mean to refuse you, dear," he said, at last. "I won't even ask you to wait. If you are not strong enough to walk, I will carry you."

She rose slowly and painfully, as if her limbs were stiff with cold; but she could stand, and walk with his arm round her; and so these two moved slowly along the deserted passages toward the room where the corpse lay.

There was nothing shocking in its appearance now. All the traces of murder had been washed away, and they had arranged the silky chestnut hair till it concealed the wound, and fell in smooth waves over the white forehead. That sweet calm which will sometimes descend on the face of the dead, even when their end has been violent—the sad Alpen-gluth that comes only when the sun has set—was there in all its beauty. Save that the features were somewhat sharper than in life, there was nothing to mar their pure classical outline. It was well, indeed, that Guy held her back two hours ago. If Isabel had looked on them then, I believe she would have gone mad with terror, if not with sorrow. It matters much, the expression of a face, when it is sure to mingle in our dreams for many after years.

Guy led her up to the bedside, and left the room as she sank down on her knees. He remained outside the closed door, for he thought she might need help if her strength failed suddenly; and I joined him there.

For some time we heard only the quick, stormy sobs, and the kisses showering down; then came the piteous, heart-broken wail that called upon her husband's name; and then the great gush of tears that saved her. After that there was a murmur, often broken off but always renewed: we both bowed our heads reverently, for we knew the widow was praying.

She came forth at length, her head buried in her hands; but she could walk to her room unassisted, and allowed them to undress her there, without a word but thanks. Before long nature would have her way, and she was sleeping quietly.

While we were waiting the return of the men who had gone out in pursuit, Livingstone went alone into the death-chamber. He staid there some minutes. When he came out his face was paler than ever, and there was a sort of horror in his eyes.

He took my arm and led me into the room without speaking. "Do you see that?" he asked, lifting the hair gently that fell over the left check of the corpse.

Distinctly and lividly marked on the waxen flesh were the five fingers of a man's open hand.

"Do you think that was a brigand's work?" he went on, his gripe tightening till I could scarcely bear the pain. "They always strike with a weapon or with the clenched fist. Shall I tell you whose mark that is? Bruce's. If he did not murder him himself, he struck him after he was dead."

"Impossible," I said; "how could he? He has never—"

Livingstone cast my arm loose somewhat impatiently. "We shall know all some day," he growled, his whole face black with passion. "I am convinced of it. If he's on earth I'll find him; and when I do, if I show him mercy or let him go—" The imprecation that followed was not less solemn and terrible because it was muttered to his own heart.

"We must never let Isabel guess the truth," he said, when he became calmer. "It would be worse than all. She would always think she had caused this, and she has enough to bear up against already. God help her!"

Soon Aglaee came to tell us that her mistress was asleep. The Frenchwoman's first impulse had been to be hysterical and helpless; it was only her terror of Guy prevailing over all others that made her, as she was, very useful.

He went to the door for an instant, and looked at Isabel. Dreamland was kinder and pleasanter to her than real life, poor child, for there was a smile on her lips that, when she was waking, would be long in visiting them. How would ships or men ever last out if there were not some harbors of refuge to rest in before going out into the wild weather again? Truly she had won hers for the moment; it looked as if an angel had come down to smooth, this time, instead of troubling the waters.

The pursuers came back empty-handed; they had not come upon the faintest trace, nor could they hear of any suspicious character having been seen in the neighborhood.

Guy betrayed no impatience when he heard this; but he went out himself with some of the best men, and spent the rest of the night and all the following morning on the quest. All to no purpose. He returned about noon, with his companions quite fagged out; but fatigue and sleeplessness seemed to have no grasp upon his frame.

Isabel was up, and had been asking for him several times. When he saw her, she offered no opposition to his wish to go on straight to Rome the next day. Neither then nor at any future time did she ever ask for any particulars of her husband's death.

Her old child-like dependence and trust in her cousin had come back, and all through the journey she was quite tranquil. It is true, we hardly ever saw her face, for her veil was closely drawn. Her grief was not the less painful to witness because it was so little demonstrative. Very old and very young women, in the plenitude of their benevolence, are good enough to sympathize with any tale of woe, however absurdly exaggerated; but men, I think, are most moved by the simple and quiet sorrows. We smile at the critical point of a spasmodic tragedy, complacently as the Lucretian philosopher looking down from the cliff on the wild sea; we yawn over the wailings of Werter and Raphael, but we ponder gravely over the last chapters of the Heir of Redclyffe, and feel a curious sensation in the throat—perhaps the slightest dimness of vision—when we read in The Newcomes how that noble old soldier crowned the chivalry of a stainless life, dying in the Gray Brother's gown.

There were many at Rome who had known Forrester and loved him well, and all these followed him to his grave. I do not think he had an enemy on earth except the man who slew him.

What are the qualifications of a general favorite? Good looks, good birth, good-humor, and good assurance will do much; but the want of one or more of these will not invalidate the election, nor the union of all four insure it. It must be very pleasant to serve in the compagnie d'elite. They have privileges to which the Line may not aspire. It does not much matter what they do. Their victories make them no enemies, and their defeats raise them up hosts of sympathizers and apologists. When they err gravely, if you hint at the misdemeanor, a "true believer" looks at you indignantly, not to say contemptuously, and says, "What could you expect? It's only poor—" Yes, it is a great gift—Amiability; and when the possessor dies, it is profoundly true that better men might be better spared.

Very soon Raymond came to take his daughter back to England. That calm old calculating machine was more deranged and shocked by the catastrophe than I should have thought it possible he would have been by any earthly disaster. He was getting older now, and more broken, it is true, and so, perhaps, was more accessible to the weakness of sympathy. At all events, nothing could be kinder and more considerate than his conduct to Isabel.

Guy and I still lingered on in Rome. He was untiring in his researches, but quite unsuccessful. Yet it was not that the police were remiss, or the country people inclined to shield the murderer. The best of them would have sold his own father to the guillotine for half the reward offered by Livingstone, for he lavished as much gold in trying to clear up that crime as in old days the Cenci or Colonna did to smother theirs. At length we were forced to give it up, and returned home in the Petrel. I own I despaired of ever being more successful; but my companion evidently had not done so, for I heard him, more than once, mutter to himself, in the same low, determined tone, "If he is on earth, I'll find him."

Immediately on our arrival, Guy went up to Bruce's home in Scotland. He only learned that the latter had not been there for a long time; but that some months back, Allan Macbane, a sort of steward and old dependent of the family, had left suddenly, summoned, it was supposed, by his master. More the people could not or would not tell.

At his banker's it was discovered that, immediately after the Forresters' marriage, he had drawn out a very large sum—not in letters of credit, but in bank-notes—and had not been heard of since. After much trouble, we did find out that one of the large notes had been changed at Florence about the time of the murder, but the description of the person did not answer in the least to that of Bruce or the man who was supposed to be his attendant. All trace stopped there. So the months rolled away. I constantly saw Guy, and sometimes was with him both in town and at Kerton, where Isabel was staying with Lady Catharine. He still appeared to have no doubt of the ultimate result of the search, which, personally or by deputy, he never intermitted for a day.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

"He threw His wrathful hand aloft, and cried 'Away! Earth could not hold us both, nor can one heaven Contain my deadliest enemy and me.'"

We were sitting in Livingstone's chambers one night in the following March, and dinner was just over, when the detective was announced who for months had been in Guy's pay and on Bruce's track.

He was a stout, hale man, rather past middle age, with a rosy face, a cheerful, moist eye, and full, sensual lips—just the proper person to return thanks for "The Successful Candidates" at an agricultural meeting. Originally of a kindly convivial nature, he had grown familiar with crime till he despised it. The reward set upon the criminal's capture was his only standard of guilt. He took a real pleasure in the chase, I imagine, but had no preference for any game in particular, and was quite indifferent whether the cover he had to draw was a saloon or a cellar. He would hunt a fraudulent bankrupt or a parricide with equal zeal, and, when he had caught him, be just as jocularly affable with the one as with the other. In a drama of life and death, the fierce passions of the actors were only so many gleams of light showing him where the right path lay, for which assistance he thanked them heartily. The foulest mysteries of the sinful human heart touched and shocked him no more than the evidences of disease do the dissecting surgeon: with both it was a simple question of defective organization. The possession of secrets, far less weighty than some that he never told, have made men look worn, and miserable, and gray; but he would pat his corpulent leather pocket-book with a self-sufficient satisfaction, scarcely hinting that the publication of its contents would have caused more devastation in some well-regulated families than the bursting of a ten-inch shell in their front drawing-room.

His lips and eyes wore a smile pleasantly significant as he entered, and, before he could speak, Guy leaped up, waving his hand high in irrepressible triumph. "I told you so, Frank. I knew we should find him. Come—come quickly." He was more excited than I had seen him in the last dozen years.

I exulted too, but I confess a certain repugnance and nervousness mingled with that feeling: it was a new thing to me to stand face to face with a murderer.

Neither of us gave as much attention as it deserved to the narrative with which the officer favored us en route, of how he had been gradually getting the clew to the fugitive's many doublings and disguises till he came upon his retreat at last. "They mostly make for home when they're dead beat," he remarked, alluding to Bruce's having selected London as his final hiding-place.

We soon reached the spot—one of those dreary by-ways that trend westward out of the Waterloo Road. As we drew up, the outline of a figure revealed itself out of the darkest nook of the dim street, and a man came forward and opened the door of the cab, interchanging a word or two with our companion.

As we got out, the detective laid his hand on Guy's arm. "Gently, sir," he said. "You must be careful. We've not quite so much proof as I could wish. It would be straining a point to arrest him as it stands. I'd do it though—for you. Get him to talk, and don't hurry him; he's safe to commit himself; and we'll nail him at the first word. My comrade says he has not left his bed since yesterday. Perhaps he's ill. All the better. We can frighten him if we get his man out of the way."

Guy's hand was on the bell before the last words were said, and he rang it sharply. The two officers drew back into the shadow.

In a few moments an old man opened the door, whom we guessed to be Bruce's attendant. He had one of those stubborn, rough-hewn faces that even white hair can not soften any more than hoar-frost can the outline of a granite crag.

"What's ye're wull?" he drawled out, in the rugged Aberdeen Doric.

"I wish to see Mr. Bruce."

"No sic a pairson here," was the reply, accompanied by a vigorous effort to close the door.

A heavy groan, proceeding from a room on the ground floor, gave him the lie as he spoke. Guy threw up his head like a hound breaking from scent to view, and thrust Macbane back violently. The old man staggered and fell; but he clung round Livingstone's knees, as he groveled, till he was actually trampled down. There was a difficulty in the lock somewhere; but bolt and staple were torn away in an instant by the furious hand that grasped the handle, and so at last we stood in the presence of the man we had sought so long.

Do you remember that hideous picture in Hogarth's "Two Apprentices," where the sleeping robber is alarmed by the crash in the chimney? That was exactly Bruce's attitude. He had started into a sitting posture, and was braced up on his hands, his face thrust forward, half covered by the straight unkempt hair. What a face it was! White and flecked with sweat-drops, marbled here and there with livid stains, the lips quivering and working till they twisted themselves sometimes into a ghastly mockery of a smile, the long teeth gleaming more wolfish than ever. The iris of the prominent eyes had grown yellowish, and the whites were bloodshot, so that the light seemed to flash from them tawnily.

Bruce had always been very much afraid of Livingstone. His terror had gone on increasing during months of relentless pursuit; it had reached its climax now. Guy stood at the foot of the bed, contemplating the unhappy wretch with a cruel calmness that seemed to drive him wild. He writhed and cowered under the fixed gaze, as if it gave him physical pain.

"What are you here for?" he screamed out at last.

In strong contrast to the shrill, strained voice, the answer came slow and stern. "To arrest Charles Forrester's murderer."

Then Bruce seemed to lose his head all at once, and began to rave. It is impossible to transcribe the string of protestations, prayers for mercy, and horrible blasphemies; but there was enough of self-betrayal to complete the proof we wanted ten times told. The detective chuckled more complacently than ever as he insinuated the handcuffs round Macbane's wrists. Over all Bruce's cries, I remember, the old man's harsh voice made itself heard, "Whisht, whisht, I tell ye, and keep a quiet tongue; they canna harm ye." The other did not seem to hear him, or to notice his removal by the officers, muttering, as he went, that "we had driven his master mad, and were killing him."

Livingstone waited patiently till the outbreak had spent itself; then he said, "Get up, and come with us instantly. You shall finish your night in Newgate."

Tho sick man lay back for some moments with his eyes closed, panting and evidently quite exhausted. When he opened his eyes there was a steadiness in them which surprised us. He spoke, too, quite calmly. "I do not mean to deny any thing, nor to resist, even if I could. I am tired of running away; it is as well over; but I was taken by surprise at first. Guy Livingstone, do you choose to listen to me for five minutes? My head is clear now. I do not know how long it will last; but I do know that, after to-night, I will never speak about Forrester's death one word."

"Will you tell me how you killed him?" Livingstone asked, controlling his voice wonderfully.

"That is what I wish to do," Bruce said. I believe he was glad of the opportunity of showing us how much we had misjudged him in thinking him harmless, for a curious sort of grin was hovering about his mouth. Guy, whose eyes were bent down at the moment, did not see it, or the tale would never have been told.

"You know how you were all against me at Kerton," he began. "She did not care for me then, perhaps; but I would have been so patient and persevering that she must have loved me at last—only you never gave me fair play. Ah! do you think, because I was ugly and awkward, I had no chance?"

"No; but because she knew you were a coward," Guy said.

There was something grand in the utter indifference with which Bruce met the insult.

"You are wrong," he replied, coolly; "she did not know it. You all did, and reckoned on my being long-suffering and inoffensive. I saw, at last, what Forrester had done; yet I never guessed but that she would marry me. I trusted to her father and her own fears for keeping her straight. After marriage I would have tried still what great love and tenderness could do. I meant—never mind what I meant—it's all over now. I was nearly mad for a week after their flight. Then I became quite cool, and I said, 'I will kill him myself.' And so I did. Mind, I swear, Allan knew nothing of it till all was done. I thought I should be brave enough for that. Fifty times during the months that I tracked them, always changing my disguise, I nearly caught him alone; but each time I was balked. Wherever they went, I watched under their windows for the chance of his coming out; but I only saw—"

He gnashed his teeth, and rolled over and over in a paroxysm of jealous recollection. We guessed what he meant. Then he went on: "That night he sauntered backward and forward for some time. I thought he would not go far enough away, and I called to the devil to help me. He did; for, very soon, Forrester walked straight down the path. I crept after him till he had gone some hundred yards—my heart was beating so quickly that I could hardly breathe—then I ran forward and stood before him. I had taken off the black wig and beard that I always wore, and he knew me directly.

"'Mr. Bruce, I believe?' he said, raising his hat, just as if he had met me by appointment.

"'Yes,' I said. 'I have got you at last, as I wished.' I tried to speak as steadily as he had done; but, as the moment for action came near, my d——d cowardice made me stammer.

"'I am not invisible, as a rule,' he replied. 'You, or any friend of yours, might have found me long ago. You have been some time making up your mind. It's that unfortunate constitutional—caution, I suppose. Well, I'll meet you in Rome: it's more than you deserve.'

"'You'll fight me here—now,' I said.

"'I shall do nothing half so melodramatic,' he answered. 'I'll give you a fair chance on the ground; but, if you do not move out of my path now, I'll shoot you as I would any other disagreeable ruffian,' and he put his hand into his breast, where, I knew, he carried a pistol.

"I was brave then. I sprang in upon him all at once. 'You may shoot now, if you like,' I said. 'I swear I am quite unarmed. But show that to your wife when you go back,' and I struck him with my open hand."

(I remembered the mark on the corpse's cheek, and looked at Guy eagerly. I could not see his face, which was hidden by the curtain, but all his lower limbs were shaking and quivering.)

"I thought how it would be," Bruce went on; "he drew his hand out with the pistol in it, but he only flung it over the bank—one barrel went off in the fall—then we grappled. After wrestling for a minute or two on the narrow path, we lost our footing and rolled down the rocks; neither quitted his hold, but I fell uppermost and kept him down. He struggled desperately at first; but when he found that I was much the stronger, he lay quite still, looking up into my face. I said, 'It's my turn at last. Do you think I'll let you off?'

"He did not answer at first. I believe he would not till he had quite recovered his breath; then he said, coolly, 'No, I don't. Finish it quickly, if you can, that's all.' I would have delayed a little, to enjoy my triumph, but I thought the pistol-shot might bring some one; so I tightened my gripe on his throat, and looked round for a weapon. I found none at first, and my purpose actually began to soften when I saw him so helpless; but, as I relaxed my fingers, I heard him whisper to himself, 'Poor Bella! we have been very happy: I wish we had more time—' I got mad again directly. 'D—n you!' I cried out, 'I'll kill you now, and marry her some day.' His old insolent smile came on his lip. 'No you won't,' he said; 'you don't know how she hates you, and how we have laughed—' He had no time to say more, for I found my weapon then—a stone triangular and sharp-pointed like a dagger—and I struck him over the temple with all my force. He gave one convulsive spring that threw me clear of him, and never stirred again.

"I did not repent when it was done; I have never repented since; I do not now. I only thought how best to escape the consequences. I took his watch and purse, that brigands might be suspected, and threw them into the river a mile off. I robbed him of one thing more—this!" All his haggard face was transfigured with a ghastly triumph as he opened a small leathern case that hung round his neck, and held up before us two locks of hair.

There they were—the love-gift and the death-spoil—the memorials of defeat and of victory, of foiled affection and of gratified hate—the one, beguiled from Isabel by Bruce himself, with many earnest pleadings, in the early days of their engagement; the other, torn from her husband's temples before they were cold. The long light brown tress was scarcely more soft and satin-smooth than the chestnut curl; but one end of the last was matted, and discolored by a dark rusty stain—the stain that, the Greek poet said, all the rivers of earth flowing in one channel could never wash away—the testimony, to our ears mute enough now, but which, perhaps, will make itself heard above the Babel of all other cries at the Day of Judgment.

The two tokens were twined together lovingly, as if they were sensitive and conscious still. Bruce plucked them asunder: "I never can keep them apart," he said, querulously. Then he put them back into the case separately, and began to mutter to himself many words that I could not distinguish.

"Have you any thing more to say?" Livingstone asked. His lips were rigid and compressed like a steel-trap, opening and closing mechanically. As he spoke, he snatched the leathern bag from Bruce's hand and threw it into the blazing fire.

A sharp howl, like a flogged hound's, broke from the sick man as he saw his treasure shrivel up in the flame. Then he began to whimper out all sorts of incoherent supplications, crying "that we did not know how much he had suffered before he killed Forrester, and since too; that he had been cruelly used from the beginning; that he was very, very ill now; would not we let him die in peace?" The tears were streaming down his face. It was a sight of abasement that sent a shiver through one's veins.

Guy laid his hand on the miserable creature's shoulder. Though he scarcely touched it, I saw the great muscles starting out on his arm like ropes from the intensity of his suppressed emotion; his lower lip trembled, but his tones did not in the least. I can give no idea of their pitiless, deliberate ferocity.

"Listen!" he said. "I told you before to get up and come with us—that is my answer now. If you have life enough left to be carried to the gallows-foot, you shall never cheat the hangman."

Bruce looked up into the speaker's face for some moments. Gradually the agonized appeal in his wild eyes died away into vacancy; an expression, half cunning, half amused, stole over his face; and, leaning gently back, he began pulling threads out of the coverlet, laughing low.