The blood gushed from Guy's clenched hand as he struck it furiously against the stone mantel.

"By ——," he said, with a fearful oath, "he has escaped me, after all."

It was so. The mind, worn and strained by the terrors of the long pursuit, perhaps by remorse not acknowledged even to himself; and by the last great effort at self-control, had given way at last—forever. God had recorded his verdict, and no earthly court could try the criminal again. Bruce is living now (and I dare say will outlive most of us, for his bodily health is perfect), vicious sometimes, but never conscious; hard to please, but easy to manage, so long as his attendant is a man, and a strong one; accessible only to the one emotion which drove him mad—physical fear.

Livingstone called the officers; they came in with Macbane. The old man pretended to be very wroth when he saw his master's state, but I believe he rejoiced secretly. The credit of the family, with him, outweighed all considerations of personal attachment, and he would think public disgrace cheaply averted at any price.

On our poor detective, perhaps, the blow fell heaviest; for, after some time, Guy did come round to my idea, that no punishment we could have brought about would have been so ample and terrible; but Mr. Fitchett could not see it in that light at all. Not only was the termination of the affair dreadfully unprofessional, but the little triumph he had anticipated at the trial was spoiled. If human weakness ever could touch this great man, it was when he heard the judge pay a compliment to "the sagacity and zeal of that most efficient officer." On such occasions, his bow of conscious merit abnegating praise was, I am told, wonderful to see. After a few words of explanation, he glanced wistfully at Bruce, and shook his head, like a broken-hearted Lord Burleigh. Then he unloosed the handcuffs from Macbane's wrists, whistling all the while softly a popular air, lively in itself, with a cadence so plaintive that it might have been a penitential psalm. No romantic school-girl opening the cage to her pet starling ever displayed more hesitation and reluctance than Mr. Fitchett setting that grim old bird free.

In truth, there was no evidence to attach to the servant, so we left him and his master together. I could not have stood that room much longer. The ceaseless complacent chuckle of the idiot, and his fearful grimaces when he could not make the threads match, had the effect on my chest of a nightmare. Very slowly and silently we walked home through the darkness.



CHAPTER XXXV.

"Be the day weary or never so long, At length it ringeth to even song."

There is little to chronicle in the events of the next few years. Livingstone resided almost entirely at Kerton. He rode as hard, and distinguished himself in all other field-sports as much as ever. But even in these, his favorite pursuits, he had lost the intense faculty of enjoyment which once seemed a part of his powerful organization.

Do you remember that scene in the Nekuia, where the Eidolon of Achilles comes slowly through the twilight to meet his old brother in arms? Not only are his form and features altered after so ghastly a fashion that even the wanderer, wave-worn and travel-stained, looks brilliant by comparison, but all his feelings are utterly and strangely changed. Listen! He asks after the father from whom he parted when quite a child; after the son, whom he never saw; but not one word of his fair first-love—not one of her who was the passion of his manhood, whom he bucklered once against ten thousand. He had rather hear of Peleus and Neoptolemus than of Deidamia or Briseis. Of Polyxena, be sure that he remembers nothing but that he was holding her hand when her brother slew him. Will he ever forgive her that? Not if she could have made amends by the sacrifice of ten lives instead of that one which she gave, willingly, on Sigaeum. Has ambition any hold on him either? Only to breathe the fresh clear air above instead of that murky, heavy atmosphere, he would resign the empire of the dead, and be a drudge to the veriest boor. Yet once, if we remember right, he chafed fiercely enough at a word of authority uttered by the King of Men. One of his old tastes clings to him still—a very simple one. He has forgotten the savor of Sciote and Chian wine; but—were it only for the sake of the carouses they have had together—Odysseus will not grudge him another draught out of the black trench. It is so long since be tasted blood!

Guy was no more like his former self than the shadow was like the substance of Pelides. He was not languid, but simply apathetic and indifferent, so that one could not help being constantly struck by the contrast between his moral and physical state: the latter was still the perfection of muscular power.

He was every thing that was kind to his mother, and to Isabel Forrester too, who spent much of her time at Kerton, and whose health was very delicate. If Lady Catharine could only have seen him more cheerful, she would have been too happy. It was her great delight to try and spoil him, as she used to do when he was a child—trying to suit his tastes to the minutest shade. For instance, Guy was always finding in his own rooms some new ornament or addition to their comfort. Indifferent as he was to every thing, it was good in him that he never failed to remark these instantly. You would not have thought a cold, haughty face could light up so brilliantly as his mother's always did when he thanked her. Poor lady! Those last few years were her summer of St. Martin—not the less pleasant because winter was gathering already on the crests of the whitening hills.

There were a good many guests in the house at times, almost invariably men, but none of the wild revels of the old days, very little hard drinking, and no play to speak of.

One thing was remarkable—the great eagerness Guy displayed to keep the party together at night. He would engage us in arguments, and employ all sorts of ingenious devices to prevent us from going to bed, so that it became very trying to a weak constitution. I observed this to him one night when the rest had gone.

The slight flush left by the excitement of conversation was vanishing rapidly from his cheeks, and a gray tinge was creeping over them like that which we see on a sick man very near his end.

"It is too bad to keep you up, and too selfish," he said; "but I find the nights so long!"

I left him without another word; but I lay long awake, haunted by that haggard face and dreary eyes. I wish I did not see them so often still in my dreams.

There were changes in other houses besides Kerton Manor, and a vacancy in the most luxurious set of chambers in the Albany.

Duns, and rheumatic gout, and satiety had proved too much at last for the patience of Sir Henry Fallowfield; so one night he preached his farewell sermon in the smoking-room of the ——, in which he was especially severe and witty on the absurdity and bad taste of a man condescending to suicide under any circumstances. The next morning they found him with—"that across his throat that you had scarcely cared to see." The hand whose tremor used to make him so savage when he was lifting a glass to his lips, had been strong and steady enough when it shattered the Golden Bowl and cut the Silver Cord asunder.

Whether he was looking death in the face while he uttered those last cynicisms, and calculated on heightening the stage effect of the morrow, or whether a paroxysm of pain drove him mad, as it had done better men, who can tell? I think and hope the latter was the case, but—I doubt. Though Sir Henry Fallowfield had never read Aristotle, he had studied, all his life, the principles of the peripeteia.

Godfrey Parndon no longer ruled over the Pytchley. He had backed his own opinions and other men's bills once or twice too often, and had retired temporarily into private life till he could get "his second wind." The new M.F.H. was his complete contrast—pale-faced, low-voiced, mild-eyed, and melancholy as a lotus-eater—one of the class of "weak-minded but gentlemanly young men" that Tom Cradock used to ask his friends to recommend to him as pupils. The farmers missed sadly Godfrey's bluff face and stalwart figure at the cover-side, while the "bruisers" from Leamington, and the "railers" from town, hearing no longer his great voice, good-naturedly imperative, adjuring them to "hold hard, and not to spoil their own sport," rode over the hounds rejoicing.

Flora Bellasys was married.

It was just the match I thought she would make. Sir Marmaduke Dorrillon's possessions were vast enough to satisfy any ambition, and his years put love out of the question.

His friends had been as prophetic in their warnings as January's were, but even, they never guessed what he would have to endure at the hands of that cruel May. He tried very hard not to be jealous, but he could not help being sensitive; and so, day by day, she inflicted on him the peine forte et dure, "laying on him as much as he could bear, and more." It was sad to see how the kind old man withered and pined away; yet he never complained, and quarreled mortally with his best friend for daring to compassionate him.

He was so courteous, and gentle, and chivalrous; so conscious of his own disadvantage in age; so generous in trusting her, and in hoping against hope; so considerate in anticipating all her wishes and whims, that it might have moved even Flora to pity. But her great disappointment had strangely altered and imbittered her character. She was quite merciless now, and never seemed really amused unless she was doing harm to some one.

It was not that her manner had become harsh or repellent, or even more sarcastic; she wag to the full as fascinating as ever; but she was cool and calculating in her caprices. She took pains to make the momentary pleasure as exquisite as possible, that the after suffering might be more terrible; just like that ingenious Borderer who fed his enemy with all pungent and highly-seasoned dishes, and then left him to die of thirst.

Yet all the while her own feelings must have been scarcely enviable. They say that great enchantresses, from Medea and Circe downward, have generally been unhappy in their loves. Either they could not raise the spirit, or it proved unmanageable; either their affection was not returned, or its object was unfaithful at last. In the single case where they put their science and their philtres aside, and were womanly, and natural, and sincere; where, to gain or to keep their treasure, they would gladly have broken their wand, they failed utterly, and found they were only half omnipotent. The justice was retributive, but it was very complete. Be sure, with those passionate natures, the honey of a thousand triumphs never deadened the sting of the one discomfiture. Suitors flocking from every shore and island of the AEgean never made Sappho forget, for one hour, that stubborn impassible Phaon. No wonder such are cruel and unjust to their subjects in after days. Poor innocent AEgeus very often has to do penance for the infidelity of Jason.

I have little more to tell, and that is of the sort that is best told briefly.

The hounds met one morning not far from Kerton. A three-days' frost had broken up; but it was not out of the ground yet, making the "take-off" slippery, and the north side of the fences dangerously hard. Livingstone rode the Axeine that day. The chestnut was still his favorite, and the crack hunter of three counties, though he had never lost his habit of pulling.

It was a large, straggling cover that we drew, but the fox went away very soon. From the lower end of the wood a great pasture sloped down, at the bottom of which was a flight of post-and-rails—very high, new, and strong, with a deep cutting on the farther side. At one end of this was an open gate, through which the whole field passed.

The hounds were just settling to the scent, when I happened to turn my head, and saw Livingstone coming down at the rails. He had got a bad start, and saw that, by taking them straight in his line, he would gain greatly on the pack, which was turning toward him.

As the Axeine tore down the hill at furious speed, pulling double, it was evident that neither he nor his rider had the remotest idea of refusing.

It was the last fence that either of them ever charged. As the chestnut rose to the leap, his hind legs slipped; he chested the rail, which would not break, and turned quite over, crushing Guy beneath him.

I had seen the latter fall a hundred times without feeling the presentiment that seemed to tighten round my heart as I galloped up to the spot. Many others must have felt the same, for they let the hounds go away without another glance, and some were before me there.

The Axeine lay stone dead, with his neck broken, the huge carcass pressing on the legs of his rider. Guy was quite senseless; his face of a dull, ghastly white; there was a deep cut on his forehead; but we all felt we did not see the worst. With great trouble we drew him from under the dead horse. Still we could discover no broken bones or further external injury. We dashed water over him. In a few minutes he opened his eyes, and seemed to recognize every one directly, for he looked up into the frightened face of the first whip, who was supporting him, and said,

"You always told me I went too fast at timber, Jack."

I was sure, then, he was desperately injured, his voice was so weak and changed.

"Where are you hurt, Guy?" some one asked. I could not speak myself.

"I don't know," he said, looking down in a strange, bewildered way. "My head and arm pain me; but I feel nothing below the waist."

His lower limbs were not much twisted or distorted, but they bore a horribly inert, dead appearance. There was not even a muscular quiver in them.

I saw the Squire of Brainswick turn his head away with a shudder and a groan (he loved Guy as his own son), and I heard him mutter, "The spine!"

It was so, and Livingstone soon knew it himself. He sighed once, drearily; but not a man there could have commanded his voice as he did when he said,

"You must carry me home, heavy as I am. My walking days are ended."

We made the best litter we could of poles and branches; and I remember, as we bore him past the carcass of the Axeine, he made us stop for an instant, and dropping his hand on the stiff, distorted neck, stroked it softly,

"Good-by, old horse," he said. "It was no fault of yours. How well you always carried me!" He never spoke again till we reached Kerton Manor.

Isabel Forrester was fortunately out, but Lady Catharine met us on the hall steps. She did not shriek or faint when she saw the horror, which had haunted her for years, fulfilled there to the uttermost. She knelt by her son when we laid him down, and wiped off a spot or two of blood from his forehead, and then kept his hand in hers, kissing it often. We had sent on before to warn the village doctor, and he visited Guy alone in his room.

Powell had been a surgeon's mate in his youth, and was serving under Collingwood at Trafalgar when his ship stood first into action, and, like a sovereign of the old days, led the van of the battle. There was no shape of shattered and maimed humanity with which he had not been familiar, and my last hope died away when I saw him come forth, trembling all over, his rugged features convulsed with grief.

"I saw him born," the old man sobbed out. "I never thought to see him die—and die so!"

Guy had received a mortal injury in the spine, though how long he might linger none could tell.

There broke from Lady Catharine's white lips one terrible heart-broken cry—"If God would only take me first!" Then her self-control returned, and she went into her son's room, outwardly quite calm.

I have never tried to fancy what passed at the meeting of those two strong hearts, after the one had been brought suddenly, face to face, with an awful death, the other with a yet more awful sorrow.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

"Ah! Sir Launcelot, there thou liest, that never wert matched of earthly hands. Thou wert the fairest person, and the goodliest of any that rode in the press of knights; thou wert the truest to thy sworn brother of any that buckled on the spur; and thou wert the faithfullest of any that have loved paramours: most courteous wert thou, and gentle of all that sat in hall among dames; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever laid spear in the rest."

When Powell's self-command gave way so completely after he saw the nature of Guy's case, it was not because he knew it must end fatally, but because his skill told him what fearful agonies must precede the release. All the surgeons who were called in could do nothing but confirm these forebodings. The colossal strength and vital energy of Livingstone's frame and constitution yielded but slowly to a blow which would have crushed a weaker man instantly. All the outworks were ruined and carried, but Death had still to fight hard before he won the citadel. I can not go through the details; I will only say that, sometimes, none of us could endure to look upon sufferings which never drew a complaint or a moan from him.

Almost every pleasure has been discussed and dissected, but we know comparatively nothing of the physiology of pain. There is no standard by which to measure it, even if the courage and endurance of any mortal man could enable him to analyze his own tortures philosophically. Was it not always supposed that the guillotine is merciful, because quick in annihilation? Look at Wiertz's pictures at Brussels. If his idea (shared too, now, by many clever surgeons) be true, you will see the amount of a long life's suffering exceeded by what seems to us a minute's agony. But it is like the Eastern king's gaining the experience of fifty years by dipping his head for a second in the magic water. For a soul in torment there is no horologe.

Of one thing be sure; the strong temperaments who enjoy greatly, suffer greatly too—those who endure in silence, most of all. I think the wolf's death-pang is sharper than the hare's.

But Guy was not only patient, he was actually more cheerful than I had seen him since Constance died. He liked to see his old friends, and to hear accounts of their sport with hound and gun. To do these justice, there was not one who would not give up, gladly, the best meet of the Pytchley, or the shooting of the best cover in the county, to sit for half a day in that sick-room. He talked, too, always pleasantly and kindly to his mother and his cousin.

Poor Isabel Forrester was quite broken down by this second blow. Next to her dead husband, I believe, she loved Guy better than any one; not unnaturally, for he had petted and protected her all her life long. She could not help giving way, though she tried hard, for the sake of others. It was piteous to see her, sitting alone for hours, gazing out on the bleak winter landscape, while the tears welled slowly from under her heavy eyelids.

Foster, who was still at Kerton, came often to visit Livingstone. No one could do him so much good. The curate was just as confident and uncompromising in the discharge of his office as he was yielding and diffident when only himself was in question. He was so honest, and straightforward, and true—so free from rant or cant—so strong in his simple theology, that Guy soon trusted him implicitly when he spoke of the past and of the future that was so near. The repentance that was begun by Constance's dying bed was completed, I am sure, on his own.

"Frank," Guy said, one morning, suddenly, "I have written to ask Cyril Brandon to come to me. He will be here to-day. It would make me very happy if I could hear him say he forgave me."

"Do you think you will succeed?" I asked, sadly; for I felt a nervous certainty that the pain the interview must cost him would be unavailing.

"I can not tell," he answered, firmly; "but Foster says, and I know, that it is my duty to try. You may be present, if you like, on one condition—you must promise, whatever he may say or do, not to interfere by a look or a word."

I did promise; but I looked forward with dread to Brandon's coming. In an hour's time he was announced.

It was the first time I had seen him; and I was much struck by the mingled expression of suffering and ferocity that sat, like a mask, on his worn dark face. I have seen its like but once—in a dangerous maniac's. He walked straight up to Guy's couch without noticing me, and stood there silent, glaring down on the sick man with his fiery black eyes.

"It is very good of you to come," Guy said; "I scarcely hoped you would. I have wronged you, more deeply than any living man—so deeply that I could never have dared to ask your forgiveness if I had not been very near my death. Can you give me your hand? Indeed, indeed, I have repented sorely."

Brandon's hoarse tones broke in:

"I came, because, years ago, to see this sight, to see you lying there like a crushed worm, I would have sold my soul. Wronged me? Shall I tell you what you have done? There was only one creature on earth I cared for; that was my sister. All those years in India I had been fancying our meeting. I came back, and found her dying; more than that, I found her love turned away from me. You did all this. I tell you, I never could get one of her old fond looks or words from her all the time she was dying. She was only afraid of me. By hell! you stood between us to the last. Do you know that she dragged herself across the room at my knees—mine, who never refused to indulge her in a whim before—first to be allowed to see you, and then to make me swear not to attempt your life?"

He stopped, gnashing his teeth.

All Guy's features, wan and worn by pain, were lighted up with a tenderness and joy inexpressible as he heard what his dead love had borne and done for him. He would have hidden his face had he guessed how its expression would exasperate Cyril's furious temper.

"D—n you!" he howled out, like a madman, "do you dare to triumph?" and, tearing off his glove, he struck Livingstone on the cheek with it a sharp blow.

A great shudder swept through every fibre of the maimed giant's frame, in which sensation lingered still; the blood surged up to his forehead and ebbed again instantly, leaving even the lips deathly white; he raised his hand quickly, but it was only to warn me back; for, mild and peaceable as I am, I leaped up then, as savage as Cain. With that hand he caught Brandon's wrist. The latter stood with his eyes cast down, sullenly—already, I am sure, horror at the act of foul cowardice into which his passion had driven him was creeping over him—he did not try to disengage himself. Had he done so, thrice his strength would not have set him free.

"I thank God, from my heart," Guy said, very slowly and steadily, "that, if I meet your sister hereafter, I shall not shrink before her, for I believe all I promised her has been kept. Listen! you would feel shame to your life's end thinking that you had struck a helpless, dying cripple. It is not so. You don't know what you risked. You were within arm's-length, and at close quarters I could be dangerous still. Look."

He took up a small silver cup that lay near, and crushed it flat between his fingers.

There was silence then; only Brandon's breath was heard, drawn hard and irregularly, as if he was trying to throw off a weight from his chest.

Guy looked up at him, and said very gently, holding out his hand, "Once more, forgive me."

Cyril answered in a thick, smothered voice,

"I will not take your hand. I will never forgive you. But I forgive Constance; for—I understand her now."

He turned on his heel, and left the room without another word, still with his head bent down, as if in thought. I gazed after him till the door shut softly. Then I looked round at Guy. His head had fallen back, and the features looked so drawn and changed that I cried out, thinking he was dead. It was only a long, long swoon.

Just another scene, and my tale is told.

I was reading in Guy's room one evening. He had not spoken for some time, and I fancied he was asleep. Suddenly he called to me,

"Frank, come here—nearer. I have several things to say to you, and I feel I must make haste. No, don't call any one. I said farewell to my mother yesterday, and we must spare her all we can."

In the presence of that sublime self-command, I dared not betray my grief by any outward sign. I knelt down by his side silently.

He went on in a voice that, though hollow and often interrupted by failing breath, was perfectly measured and steady.

"You can only be glad that the end has come at last, though it is well I have had time to prepare myself. Am I ready now? I can not tell. Foster says I ought to hope. I trust it is not wicked to say I do not fear. I have sinned often and deeply; but He who will judge me created me, and He knows, too, how much I have suffered. I do not mean from this (he threw his hand toward his crippled limbs with the old gesture of disdain), but from bitterness and loneliness of heart. More than all, I am sure my darling has been pleading for me ever since she died. I will not believe her prayers have been wasted.

"I want to tell you what I have done. You know the direct line of my family ends with me. I am glad it does. The next in succession would be a cousin, who has taken to some trade in Edinburgh; a good man, I believe—but he would not do here. So I have left Kerton to my mother for her life, and then—to you. Hush! the time is too short for objections or thanks, and death-bed gifts show little generosity. Besides, I would have left it to Isabel, only it would be more a trouble to her than any thing else. You will take care of every thing and every body. Say farewell for me to my old friends, especially to Mohun. Poor Ralph! he will be sorry—though he will not own it—when he comes back from Bohemia and finds me gone."

He raised himself a little, so as to rest his hand on my shoulder as I knelt, while his voice deepened in its solemn calm:

"Dear Frank, one other word for yourself, who have borne so patiently with my perverse temper since we were boys together. I have been silent, but, indeed, not ungrateful. For all your kind, unselfish thoughts, and words, and deeds—for all the good you would have counseled—for all your efforts to stand between me and wrong-doing—tried friend, true comrade! I thank you now, heartily, and I pray God to bless you always."

It was only self-control, almost superhuman, that enabled him to speak those words steadily, for the fierce death-throe was possessing him before he ended. Through the awful minutes that followed, not another sound than the hissing breath escaped through his set lips; his face was not once distorted, though the hair and beard clung round it, matted and dank with the sweat of agony. The brave heart and iron nerve ruled the body to the last imperially—supreme over the intensity of torture.

When he opened his eyes, which had been closed all through the protracted death-pang, there was a look of the ancient kindness in them, though they were glazing fast. He found my hand, and grasped it, till I felt the life ebbing back in his fingers. I saw his lips syllable "Good-by;" then, he leaned his head back gently, and, without a sigh or a shiver, the strong man's spirit went forth into The Night.

A sense of utter desolation, as it were a horror of great darkness, gathered all around me as I leaned my forehead against the corpse's cheek, sobbing like a helpless child.

You will not care to hear how we all mourned him.

Will you care to hear that, often as his mother visits his grave, there is one woman who comes oftener still?

None of us have ever met her, for she comes always at late night or early morning. But finding, in the depth of winter or in the bleak spring, the ground about strewed with the choicest of exotic flowers—not carefully arranged, but showered down by a reckless, desperate hand—we know that Flora Dorrillon has been there.

Do not laugh at her too much for clinging to the one romance of her artificial existence. Remember, while he lived, there was nothing so rare and precious—ay, even to the sacrifice of her own body and soul—that she would not have laid ungrudgingly at Guy Livingstone's feet.

THE END.