Foreign adventure had followed English hardships, and the soldier had been tossed on the stormy sea of European warfare. He had been graciously received at the French Court, but only to feel himself a stranger there, and to have his English clothes and English accent laughed at by Gramont and Bussy, and the accomplished St. Evremond, and the frivolous herd of their imitators; to see even the Queen, for whom he had spent his last jacobus, smile behind her fan at his bevues, and whisper to her sister-in-law while he knelt to kiss the little white hand that had led a King to ruin. Everywhere the stern Malignant had found himself outside the circle of the elect. At the Hotel de Rambouillet, in the splendid houses of the newly built Place Royale, in the salons of Duchesses, and the taverns of courtly roysterers and drunken poets, at Cormier's, or at the Pine Apple, in the Rue de la Juiverie, where it was all the better for a Christian gentleman not to understand the talk of the wits that flashed and drank there. Everywhere he had been a stranger and aloof. It was only under canvas, in danger and privation, that he lost the sense of being one too many in the world. There John Kirkland found his level, shoulder to shoulder with Conde and Turenne. The stout Cavalier was second to no soldier in Louis' splendid army; was of the stamp of an earlier race even, better inured to hardship than any save that heroic Prince, the Achilles of his day, who to the graces of a modern courtier joined the temper of an ancient Greek.

His daughter Hyacinth had given him the utmost affection which such a nature could give; but it was the affection of a trained singing-bird, or a pug-nosed spaniel; and the father, though he admired her beauty, and was pleased with her caresses, was shrewd enough to perceive the lightness of her disposition and the shallowness of her mind. He rejoiced in her marriage with a man of Fareham's strong character.

"I have married thee to a husband who will know how to rule a wife," he told her on the night of her wedding. "You have but to obey and to be happy; for he is rich enough to indulge all your fancies, and will not complain if you waste the gold that would pay a company of foot on the decoration of your poor little person."

"The tone in which you speak of my poor little person, sir, can but remind me how much I need the tailor and the milliner," answered Hyacinth, dropping her favourite curtsy, which she was ever ready to practise at the slightest provocation.

"Nay, petite chatte, you know I think you the loveliest creature at Saint Germain or the Louvre, far surpassing in beauty the Cardinal's niece, who has managed to set young Louis' heart throbbing with a boyish passion. But I doubt you bestow too much care on the cherishing of a gift so fleeting."

"You have said the word, sir. 'Tis because it is so fleeting I must needs take care of my beauty. We poor women are like the butterflies and the roses. We have as brief a summer. You men, who value us only for our outward show, should pardon some vanity in creatures so ephemeral."

"Ephemeral scarce applies to a sex which owns such an example as your grandmother, who has lived to reckon her servants among the grandsons of her earliest lovers."

"Not lived, sir! No woman lives after thirty. She can but exist, and dream that she is still admired. La Marquise has been dead for the last twenty years, but she won't own it. Ah, sir, c'est un triste supplice to have been! I wonder how those poor ghosts can bear that earthly purgatory which they call old age? Look at Madame de Sable, par exemple, once a beauty, now only a tradition. And Queen Anne! Old people say she was beautiful, and that Buckingham risked being torn by wild horses—like Ravaillac—only to kiss her hand by stealth in a moonlit garden; and would have plunged England in war but for an excuse to come back to Paris. Who would go to war for Anne's haggard countenance nowadays?"

Even in Lady Fareham's household the Cavalier soon began to fancy himself an inhabitant too much; a dull, grey ghost from a tragical past. He could not keep himself from talking of the martyred King, and those bitter years through which he had followed his master's sinking fortunes. He told stories of York and of Beverley; of the scarcity of cash which reduced his Majesty's Court to but one table; of that bitter affront at Coventry; of the evil omens that had marked the raising of the Standard on the hill at Nottingham, and filled superstitious minds with dark forebodings, reminding old men of that sad shower of rain that fell when Charles was proclaimed at Whitehall, on the day of his accession, and of the shock of earthquake on his coronation day; of Edgehill and Lindsey's death; of the profligate conduct of the Cavalier regiments, and the steady, dogged force of their psalm-singing adversaries; of Queen Henrietta's courage, and beauty, and wilfulness, and her fatal influence upon an adoring husband.

"She wanted to be all that Buckingham had been," said Sir John, "forgetting that Buckingham was the King's evil genius."

That lively and eminently artificial society of the Rue de Touraine soon wearied of Sir John's reminiscences. King Charles's execution had receded into the dim grey of history. He might as well have told them anecdotes of Cinq Mars, or of the great Henri, or of Moses or Abraham. Life went on rapid wheels in patrician Paris. They had Conde to talk about, and Mazarin's numerous nieces, and the opera, that new importation from Italy, which the Cardinal was bringing into fashion; while in the remote past of half a dozen years back the Fronde was the only interesting subject, and even that was worn threadbare; the adventures of the Duchess, the conduct of the Prince in prison, the intrigues of Cardinal and Queen, Mademoiselle, yellow-haired Beaufort, duels of five against five—all—all these were ancient history as compared with young Louis and his passion for Marie de Mancini, and the scheming of her wily uncle to marry all his nieces to reigning princes or embryo kings.

And then the affectations and conceits of that elegant circle, the sonnets and madrigals, the "bouts-rimes," the practical jokes, the logic-chopping and straw-splitting of those ultra-fine intellects, the romances where the personages of the day masqueraded under Greek or Roman or Oriental aliases, books written in a flowery language which the Cavalier did not understand, and full of allusions that were dark to him; while not to know and appreciate those master-works placed him outside the pale.

He rejoiced in escaping from that overcharged atmosphere to the tavern, to the camp, anywhere. He followed the exiled Stuarts in their wanderings, paid his homage to the Princess of Orange, roamed from scene to scene, a stranger and one too many wherever he went.

Then came the hardest blow of all—the chilling disillusion that awaited many of Charles's faithful friends, who were not of such political importance as to command their recompense. Neglect and forgetfulness were Sir John Kirkland's portion; and for him and for such as he that caustic definition of the Act of Indemnity was a hard and cruel truth. It was an Act of Indemnity for the King's enemies and of oblivion for his friends. Sir John's spirits had hardly recovered from the bitterness of disappointed affection when he came back to the old home, though his chagrin was seven years old. But now, in his delight at the alliance with Denzil Warner, he seemed to have renewed his lease of cheerfulness and bodily vigour. He rode and walked about the lanes and woods with erect head and elastic limbs. He played bowls with Denzil in the summer evenings. He went fishing with his daughter and her sweetheart. He revelled in the simple rustic life, and told them stories of his boyhood, when James was King, and many a queer story of that eccentric monarch and of the rising star, George Villiers.

"Ah, what a history that was!" he exclaimed. "His mother trained him as if with a foreknowledge of that star-like ascendency. He was schooled to shine and dazzle, to excel all compeers in the graces men and women admire. I doubt she never thought of the mind inside him, or cared whether he had a heart or a lump of marble behind his waist-band. He was taught neither to think nor to pity—only to shine; to be quick with his tongue in half a dozen languages, with his sword after half a dozen modes of fence. He could kill his man in the French, or the Italian, or the Spanish manner. He was cosmopolitan in the knowledge of evil. He had every device that can make a man brilliant and dangerous. He mounted every rung of the ladder, leaping from step to step. He ascended, swift as a shooting star, from plain country gentleman to the level of princes. And he expired with an ejaculation, astonished to find himself mortal, slain in a moment by the thrust of a ten-penny knife. I remember as if it were yesterday how men looked and spoke when the news came to London, and how some said this murder would be the saving of King Charles. I know of one man at least who was glad."

"Who was he, sir?" asked Denzil.

"He who had the greatest mind among Englishmen—Thomas Wentworth. Buckingham had held him at a distance from the King, and his strong passionate temper was seething with indignation at being kept aloof by that silken sybarite—an impotent General, a fatal counsellor. After the Favourite's death there came a time of peace and plenty. The pestilence had passed, the war was over. Charles was happy with his Henriette and their lovely children. Wentworth was in Ireland. The Parliament House stood still and empty, doors shut, swallows building under the eaves. I look back, and those placid years melt into each other like one long summer. And then, again, as 'twere yesterday, I hear Hampden's drums and fifes in the lanes, and see the rebels' flag with that hateful legend, 'Vestigia nulla retrorsum,' and Buckinghamshire peasants are under arms, and the King and his people have begun to hate and fear each other."

"None foresaw that the war would last so long or end in murder, I doubt, sir," said Angela.

"Nay, child; we who were loyal thought to see that rabble withered by the breath of kingly nostrils. A word should have brought them to the dust."

"There might be so easy a victory, perhaps, sir, from a King who knew how to speak the right word at the right moment, how to comply graciously with a just demand, and how to be firm in a righteous denial," replied Denzil; "but with Charles a stammering speech was but the outward expression of a wavering mind. He was a man who never listened to an appeal, but always yielded to a threat, were it only loud enough."

The wedding was to be soon. Marriages were patched up quickly in the light-hearted sixties. And here there was nothing to wait for. Sir John had found Denzil compliant on every minor question, and willing to make his home at the Manor during his mother's lifetime.

"The old lady would never stomach a Papist daughter-in-law," said Sir John; and Denzil was fain to confess that Lady Warner would not easily reconcile herself with Angela's creed, though she could not fail of loving Angela herself.

"My daughter would have neither peace nor liberty under a Puritan's roof," Sir John said; "and I should have neither son nor daughter, and should be a loser by my girl's marriage. You shall be as much master here, Denzil, as if this were your own house—which it will be when I have moved to my last billet. Give me a couple of stalls for my roadsters, and kennel room for my dogs, and I want no more. You and Angela may introduce as many new fashions as you like; dine at two o'clock, and sip your unwholesome Indian drink of an evening. The fine ladies in Paris were beginning to take tea when I was last there, though by the faces they made over the stuff it might have been poison. I can smoke my pipe in the chimney-corner, and look on and admire at the new generation. I shall not feel myself one too many at your fireside, as I used sometimes in the Rue de Touraine, when those strutting Gallic cocks were quizzing me."

* * * * *

There were clouds of dust and a clatter of hoofs again in front of the floriated iron gate; but this time it was not the Honourable Henriette who came tripping along the gravel path on two-inch heels, but my Lady Fareham, who walked languidly, with the assistance of a gold-headed cane, and who looked pale and thin in her apple-green satin gown and silver-braided petticoat.

She, too, came attended by a second coach, which was filled by her ladyship's French waiting-woman, Mrs. Lewin, and a pile of boxes and parcels.

"I'll wager that in the rapture and romance of your sweethearting you have not given a thought to petticoats and mantuas," she said, after she had embraced her sister, who was horrified at the sight of that painted harridan from London.

Angela blushed at those words, "rapture and romance," knowing how little there had been of either in her thoughts, or in Denzil's sober courtship. Romance! Alas! there had been but one romance in her life, and that a guilty one, which she must ever remember with remorse.

"Come now, confess you have not a gown ordered."

"I have gowns enough and to spare. Oh, sister! have you come so far to talk of gowns? And that odious woman too! What brought her here?" Angela asked, with more temper than she was wont to show.

"My sisterly kindness brought her. You are an ungrateful hussy for looking vexed when I have come a score of miles through the dust to do you a service."

"Ah, dearest, I am grateful to you for coming. But, alas! you are looking pale and thin. Heaven forbid that you have been indisposed, and we in ignorance of your suffering."

"No, I am well enough, though every one assures me I look ill; which is but a civil mode of telling me I am growing old and ugly."

"Nay, Hyacinth, the former we must all become, with time; the latter you will never be."

"Your servant, Sir Denzil, has taught you to pay antique compliments. Well, now we will talk business. I had occasion to send for Lewin—my toilet was in a horrid state of decay; and then it seemed to me, knowing your foolish indifference, that even your wedding gown would not be chosen unless I saw to it. So here is Lewin with Lyons and Genoa silks of the very latest patterns. She has but just come from Paris, and is full of Parisian modes and Court scandals. The King posted off to Versailles directly after his mother's death, and has not returned to the Louvre since. He amuses himself by spending millions on building, and making passionate love to Mademoiselle la Valliere, who encourages him by pretending an excessive modesty, and exaggerates every favour by penitential tears. I doubt his attachment to so melancholy a mistress will hardly last a lifetime. She is not beautiful; she has a halting gait; and she is no more virtuous than any other young woman who makes a show of resistance to enhance the merit of her surrender."

Hyacinth prattled all the way to the parlour, Mrs. Lewin and the waiting-woman following, laden with parcels.

"Queer, dear old hovel!" she exclaimed, sinking languidly upon a tabouret, and fanning herself exhaustedly, while the mantua-maker opened her boxes, and laid out her sample breadths of richly decorated brocade, or silver and gold enwrought satin. "How well I remember being whipped over my horn-book in this very room! And there is the bowling green where I used to race with the Italian greyhound my grandmother brought me from Paris. I look back, and it seems a dream of some other child running about in the sunshine. It is so hard to believe that joyous little being—who knew not the meaning of heart-ache—was I."

"Why that sigh, sister? Surely none ever had less cause for heart-ache than you?"

"Have I not cause? Not when my glass tells me youth is gone, and beauty is waning? Not when there is no one in this wide world who cares a straw whether I am handsome or hideous? I would as lief be dead as despised and neglected."

"Sorella mia, questa donna ti ascolta," murmured Angela; "come and look at the old gardens, sister, while Mrs. Lewin spreads out her wares. And pray consider, madam," turning to the mantua-maker, "that those peacock purples and gold embroideries have no temptations for me. I am marrying a country gentleman, and am to lead a country life. My gowns must be such as will not be spoilt by a walk in dusty lanes, or a visit to a farm-labourer's cottage."

"Eh, gud, your ladyship, do not tell me that you would bury so much beauty among sheep and cows, and odious ploughmen's wives and dairy-women. A month or so of rustic life in summer between Epsom and Tunbridge Wells may be well enough, to rest your beauty—without patches or a French head—out of sight of your admirers. But to live in the country! Only a jealous husband could ever propose more than an annual six weeks of rustic seclusion to a wife under sixty. Lord Chesterfield was considered as cruel for taking his Countess to the rocks and ravines of Derbyshire as Sir John Denham for poisoning his poor lady."

"Chut! tu vas un peu trop loin, Lewin!" remonstrated Lady Fareham.

"But, in truly, your ladyship, when I hear Mrs. Kirkland talk of a husband who would have her waste her beauty upon clod-polls and dairy-maids, and never wear a mantua worth looking at——"

"I doubt my husband will be guided by his own likings rather than by Mrs. Lewin's tastes and opinions," said Angela, with a stately curtsy, which was designed to put the forward tradeswoman in her place, and which took that personage's breath away.

"There never was anything like the insolence of a handsome young woman before she has been educated by a lover," she said to her ladyship's Frenchwoman, with a vindictive smile and scornful shrug of bloated shoulders, when the sisters had left the parlour. "But wait till her first intrigue, and then it is 'My dearest Lewin, wilt thou make me everlastingly beholden to thee by taking this letter—thou knowest to whom?' Or, in a flood of tears, 'Lewin, you are my only friend—and if you cannot find me some good and serviceable woman who would give me a home where I can hide from the cruel eye of the world, I must take poison.' No insolence then, mark you, Madame Hortense!"

"This demoiselle is none of your sort," Hortense said. "You must not judge English ladies by your maids of honour. Celles la sont des drolesses, sans foi ni loi."

"Well, if she thinks I am going to make up linsey woolsey, or Norwich drugget, she will find her mistake. I never courted the custom of little gentlemen's wives, with a hundred a year for pin-money. If I am to do anything for this stuck-up peacock, Lady Fareham must give me the order. I am no servant of Madame Kirkland."

* * * * *

Alone in the garden, the sisters embraced again, Lady Fareham with a fretful tearfulness, as of one whose over strung nerves were on the verge of hysteria.

"There is something that preys upon your spirits, dearest," Angela said interrogatively.

"Something! A hundred things. I am at cross purposes with life. But I should have been worse had you been obstinate and still refused this gentleman."

"Why should that affect you, Hyacinth?" asked her sister, with a sudden coldness.

"Chi lo sa? One has fancies! But my dearest sister has been wise in good time, and you will be the happiest wife in England; for I believe your Puritan is a saintly person, the very opposite of our Court sparks, who are the most incorrigible villains. Ah, sweet, if you heard the stories Lewin tells me—even of that young Rochester—scarce out of his teens. And the Duke—not a jot better than the King—and with so much less grace in his iniquity. Well, you will be married at the Chapel Royal, and spend your wedding night at Fareham House. We will have a great supper. His Majesty will come, of course. He owes us that much civility."

"Hyacinth, if you would make me happy, let me be married in our dear mother's oratory, by your chaplain. Sure, dearest, you know I have never taken kindly to Court splendours."

"Have you not? Why, you shone and sparkled like a star, that last night you were ever at Whitehall, Henri sitting close beside you. 'Twas the night he took ill of a fever. Was it a fever? I have wondered sometimes whether there was not a mystery of attempted murder behind that long sickness."

"Murder!"

"A deadly duel with a man who hated him. Is not that an attempt at murder on the part of him who deliberately provokes the quarrel? Well, it is past, and he is gone. For all the colour of the world I live in, there might never have been any such person as Henri de Malfort."

Her airy laugh ended in a sob, which she tried to stifle, but could not.

"Hyacinth, Hyacinth, why will you persist in being miserable when you have so little cause for sadness?"

"Have I not cause? Am I not growing old, and robbed of the only friend who brought gaiety into my life; who understood my thoughts and valued me? A traitor, I know—like the rest of them. They are all traitors. But he would have been true had I been kinder, and trusted him."

"Hyacinth, you are mad! Would you have had him more your friend? He was too near as it was. Every thought you gave him was an offence against your husband. Would you have sunk as low as those shameless women the King admires?"

"Sunk—low? Why, those women are on a pinnacle of fame—courted—flattered—poetised—painted. They will be famous for centuries after you and I are forgotten. There is no such thing as shame nowadays, except that it is shameful to have done nothing to be ashamed of. I have wasted my life, Angela. There was not a woman at the Louvre who had my complexion, nor one who could walk a coranto with more grace. Yet I have consented to be a nobody at two Courts. And now I am growing old, and my poor painted face shocks me when I chance on my reflection by daylight; and there is nothing left for me—nothing."

"Your husband, sister!"

"Sister, do not mock me! You know how much Fareham is to me. We were chosen for each other, and fancied we were in love for the first few years, while he was so often called away from me, that his coming back made a festival, and renewed affection. He came crimson from battles and sieges; and I was proud of him, and called him my hero. But after the treaty of the Pyrenees our passion cooled, and he grew too much the school-master. And when he recovered of the contagion, he had recovered of any love-sickness he ever had for me!"

"Ah, sister, you say these things without thinking them. His lordship needs but some sign of affection on your part to be as fond a husband as ever he was."

"You can answer for him, I'll warrant"

"And there are other claims upon your love—your children."

"Henriette, who is nearly as tall as I am, and thinks herself handsomer and cleverer than ever I was. George, who is a lump of selfishness, and cares more for his ponies and peregrines than for father and mother. I tell you there is nothing left for me, except fine houses and carriages; and to show my fading beauty dressed in the latest mode at twilight in the Ring, and to startle people from the observation of my wrinkles by the boldness of my patches. I was the first to wear a coach and horses across my forehead—in London, at least. They had these follies in Paris three years ago."

"Indeed, dearest?"

"And thou wilt let me arrange thy wedding after my own fancy, wilt thou not, ma tres chere?"

"You forget Denzil's hatred of finery."

"But the wedding is the bride's festival. The bridegroom hardly counts. Nay, love, you need fear no immodest fooling when you bid good night to the company; nor shall there be any scuffling for garters at the door of your chamber. There was none of that antique nonsense when Lady Sandwich married her daughter. All vulgar fashions of coarse old Oliver's day have gone to the ragbag of worn-out English customs. We were so coarse a nation, till we learnt manners in exile. Let me have my own way, dearest. It will amuse me, and wean me from melancholic fancies."

"Then, indeed, love, thou shalt have thy way in all particulars."

After this Lady Fareham was in haste to return to the house in order to choose the wedding gown; and here in the panelled parlour they found the two gentlemen, with the dust of the road and the warmth of the noonday sun upon them, newly returned from Aylesbury, where they had ridden in the freshness of the early morning to choose a team of plough-horses at the fair; and who were more disconcerted than gratified at finding the dinner-parlour usurped by Mrs. Lewin, Madame Hortense, and an array of finery that made the room look like a stall in the Exchange.

It was on the stroke of one, yet there were no signs of dinner. Sir John and Sir Denzil were both sharp set after their ride, and were looking by no means kindly on Mrs. Lewin and her wares when Hyacinth and Angela appeared upon the scene.

"Nothing could happen luckier," said Lady Fareham, when she had saluted Denzil, and embraced her father with "Pish, sir! how you smell of clover and new-mown grass! I vow you have smothered my mantua with dust."

Father and sweetheart were called upon to assist in choosing the wedding gown—a somewhat empty compliment on the part of Lady Fareham, since she would not hear of the simple canary brocade which Denzil selected, and which Mrs. Lewin protested was only good enough to make his lady a bed-gown; or of the pale grey atlas which her father considered suitable—since, indeed, she would have nothing but a white satin, powdered with silver fleurs de luces, which she remarked, en passant, would have become the Grande Mademoiselle, had she but obtained her cousin's permission to cast herself away on Lauzun.

"Dear sister, can you consider a fabric fit for a Bourbon Princess a becoming gown for me?" remonstrated Angela.

"Yes, child; white and silver will better become thee than poor Louise, who has no more complexion left than I have. She was in her heyday when she held the Bastille, and when she and Beaufort were two of the most popular people in Paris. She has made herself a laughing-stock since then. That is settled, Lewin"—with a nod to the milliner—"the silver fleurs de luces for the wedding mantua. And now be quick with your samples."

All Angela's remonstrances were as vain to-day as they had been on the occasion of her first acquaintance with Mrs. Lewin. The excitement of discussing and selecting the finery she loved affected Lady Fareham's spirits like a draught of saumur. She was generous by nature, extravagant by long habit.

"Sure it would be a hard thing if I could not give you your wedding clothes, when you are marrying the man I chose for you," she protested. "The cherry-coloured farradine, by all means, Lewin; 'tis the very shade for my sister's fair skin. Indeed, Denzil"—nodding at him, as he stood watching them, with that hopelessly bewildered air of a man in a milliner's shop—"I have been your best friend from the beginning, and, but for me, you might never have won your sweetheart to listen to you. Mazarine hoods are as ancient as the pyramids, Lewin. Pr'ythee show us something newer."

It was late in the evening when the two coaches left the Manor gate. Hyacinth had been in no haste to return to the Abbey. There was nobody there who wanted her, she protested, and there would be a moon after nine o'clock, and she had servants enough to take care of her on the road; so Mrs. Lewin and her ladyship's woman were entertained in the steward's room, where Reuben held forth upon the splendour that had prevailed in his master's house before the troubles—and where the mantua-maker ate and drank all she could get, and dozed and yawned through the old man's reminiscences.

The afternoon was spent more pleasantly by the quality, who sat about in the sunny garden, or sauntered by the fish pond and fed the carp—and took a dish of the Indian drink which the sisters loved, in the pergola at the end of the grass walk.

Hyacinth now affected a passion for the country, and quoted the late Mr. Cowley in praise of rusticity.

"Oh, how delicious is this woodland valley," she cried.

"'Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, Hear the soft winds, above me plying, With all their wanton boughs dispute.'

Poor Cowley, he might well love the country, for he was shamefully treated in town—a devoted servant to bankrupt royalty for all the best years of his life, and fobbed off with a compliment when the King came into power. Ah me, 'tis an ill world we live in, and London is the most hateful spot in it," she concluded, with a sigh.

"And yet you will have me married nowhere else, sister?"

"Oh, for a wedding or a christening one must have a crowd of fine people. It would go about that Lady Fareham was quite out of fashion if I were content to see only ploughmen and dairy-maids, and a petty gentleman or two with their ill-dressed wives, at my sister's marriage. London is the only decent place—after Paris—to live in; but the country is a peacefuller place in which to die."

A heart-breaking sigh emphasised the sentence, and Angela scrutinised her sister's face with increased concern.

"Dear love, I fear you are hiding something from me; and that you are seriously indisposed," she said earnestly.

"If I am I do not know it. But when one is weary of living there is only one sensible thing left to do—if Providence will but be kind and help one to do it. I am not for dagger or poison, or for a plunge in deep water. But to fade away in a gentle disease—a quiet ebbing of the vital stream—is the luckiest thing that can befall one who is tired of life."

Alarmed at hearing her sister talk in this melancholy strain, and still more alarmed by the change in her looks, sunken cheeks, hectic flush, fever-bright eyes, Angela entreated Lady Fareham to stay at the Manor, and be nursed and cared for.

"Oh, I know your skill in nursing, and your power over a sick person," Hyacinth interjected scornfully, and then in the next moment apologised for the little spurt of retrospective jealousy.

"Stay with us, love, and let us make you happier than you are at Chilton," pleaded Angela; but Hyacinth, who had been protesting that nobody wanted her, now declared that she could not leave home, and recited a list of duties, social and domestic.

"I shall not have half an hour to spare until I go to London next week to prepare for the wedding," she said. The date had been fixed while they sat at dinner; Sir John and his elder daughter settling the day, while Denzil assented with radiant smiles, and Angela sat by in pale silence, submissive to the will of others. They were to be married on a Thursday, July 19, and it was now the end of June—little more than a fortnight's interval in which to meditate upon the beginning of a new life.

Mrs. Lewin promised the white and silver mantua, and as many of the new clothes as a supernatural address, industry, and obligingness, could produce within the time. Hyacinth grew more lively after supper, and parted from her father and sister in excellent spirits; but her haggard face haunted Angela in troubled dreams all that night, and she thought of her with anxiety during the next few days, and most of all upon one long sultry day, the 4th of July, which was the third day she had spent in unbroken solitude since her father and Denzil had ridden away in the dim early morning, while the pastures were veiled in summer haze, on the first stage of a journey to London, hoping, with a long rest between noon and evening, to ride thirty-seven miles before night.

They were to consult with a learned London lawyer, and to execute the marriage settlement, Sir John vastly anxious about this business, in his ignorance of law and distrust of lawyers. They were to stay in London only long enough to transact their business, and would then return post-haste to the Manor; but as they were to ride their own horses all the way, and as lawyers are notoriously slow, Angela had been told not to expect them till the fourth evening after their departure. In her lonely rambles that long summer day, with her spaniel Ganymede, and her father's favourite pointer, for her only companions, Angela's thoughts dwelt ever on the past. Of the future—even that so near future of her marriage—she thought hardly at all. That future had been disposed of by others. Her fate had been settled for her; and she was told that by her submission she would make those she loved happy. Her father would have the son he longed for, and would be sure of her faithful devotion till the end of his days—or of hers, should untimely death intervene. Hyacinth's foolish jealousy would be dispelled by the act which gave her sister's honour into a husband's custody. And for him, that presumptuous lover who had taken so little pains to hide his wicked passion, if in any audacious hour he had dared to believe her guilty of reciprocating his love, that insolent suspicion would be answered at once and for ever by her marriage with Denzil—Denzil who was Fareham's junior by fifteen years, his superior in every advantage of person, as she told herself with a bitter smile; for even while she thought of that superiority—the statuesque regularity of feature, the clear colouring of a complexion warmed with the glow of health, the deep blue of large well-opened eyes, the light free carriage of one who had led an active country life—even while she thought of Denzil, another face and figure flashed upon her memory—rugged and dark, the forehead deeper lined than years justified, the proud eye made sombre by the shadow of the projecting brow, the cheek sunken, the shoulders bent as if under the burden of melancholy thoughts.

O God! this was the face she loved. The only face that had ever touched the springs of joy and pain. It was nearly half a year since she had seen him. Their meetings in the future need be of the rarest. She knew that Denzil regarded him with a distrust which made friendship out of the question; and it would be her duty to keep as far aloof from that old time as possible. Family meetings there must be, considering the short distance between Chilton and the Manor, feastings and junketings in company once or twice in the summer, lest it should be thought Sir John and his lordship were ill friends. But Angela knew that in any such social gathering, sitting at the overloaded board, amid the steam of rich viands, and the noise of many voices, she and Fareham would be as far apart as if the Indian Ocean rolled between them.

Once, and very soon, they must meet face to face; and he would take her hand in greeting, and would kiss her on the lips as she stood before him in her wedding finery, that splendour of white and silver which would provoke him to scornful wonder at her trivial pleasure in sumptuous clothes. Thus once they must meet. Her heart thrilled at the thought. He had so often shunned her, taking such obvious trouble to keep his distance; but he could hardly absent himself from her wedding. The scandal would be too great.

Well, she had accepted her fate, and this dull aching misery must be lived through somehow; and neither her father nor Denzil must ever have occasion to suspect her unhappiness.

"Oh, gracious Mary, Mother of God, help and sustain me in my sorrow! Guard and deliver me from sinful thoughts. What are my fanciful griefs to thy great sorrows, which thou didst endure with holy patience? Subdue and bend me to obedience and humility. Let me be an affectionate daughter, a dutiful wife, a friend and comforter to my poor neighbours."

So, and with many such prayers she struggled against the dominion of evil, kneeling meekly in the leafy stillness of that deep beechwood, where no human eye beheld her devotions. So in the long solitude of the summer day she held commune with heaven, and fought against that ever-recurring memory of past happiness, that looking back to the joys and emotions of those placid hours at Chilton Abbey, before the faintest apprehension of evil had shadowed her friendship with Fareham. Not to look back; not to remember and regret. That was the struggle in which the intense abstraction of the believer, lifting the mind to heaven, alone could help her. Long and fervent were her prayers in that woodland sanctuary where she made her pious retreat; nor was her sister forgotten in those prayers, which included much earnest supplication for the welfare here and hereafter of that lighter soul for whom she had ever felt a protecting and almost maternal love. Years counted for very little in the relations between these sisters.

The day wore to its close—the most solemn day in Angela's life since that which she had spent in the Reverend Mother's death-chamber, kneeling in the faint yellow glow of the tall wax-candles, in a room from which daylight was excluded. She remembered the detachment of her mind from all earthly interests as she knelt beside that death-bed, and how easily her thoughts had mounted heavenward; while now her love clung to this sinful earth. How had she changed for the worse, how was she sunk from the holy aspirations of that time!



CHAPTER XXV.

HIGH STAKES.

Angela had eaten her lonely supper, and was sitting at her embroidery frame between nine and ten, while the sounds of bolts and bars in the hall and corridors, and old Reuben's voice hectoring the maids, told her that the servants were closing the house before going to bed. Reuben would be coming to her presently, no doubt, to remind her of the lateness of the hour, wanting to carry her candle to her chamber, and as it were to see her safely disposed of before he went to his garret. She meant, on this occasion, to resist his friendly tyranny, having so little inclination for sleep, and hoping to find peace of mind and distraction in this elaborate embroidery of gold thread and many-coloured silks, which was destined to adorn her father's person, on the facings of a new-fashioned doublet.

Suddenly, as she bent over the candle to scrutinize the shading of her silks, the hollow sound of hoofs broke upon the silence, and in a minute afterwards a bell rang loudly.

Who could it be at such an hour? Her father, no doubt; no one else. He had hurried his business through, and returned a day earlier than he had hoped. Or could it be that he had fallen sick in London, and Denzil had come to tell her ill news? Or was it a messenger from her sister? She had time to contemplate several evil contingencies while she stood in the hall watching Reuben withdraw various bolts and bars.

The door swung back at last, and she saw a man in high-riding boots and slouched hat standing on the threshold, while in the moonlight behind him she could distinguish a mounted groom holding the bridle of a led horse, as well as the horse from which the visitor had just dismounted.

The face that looked at her from the doorway was the face which had haunted her with cruel persistency through that long day, chaining her thoughts to earth.

Fareham stood looking at her for a few moments, deadly pale, while she was collecting her senses, trying to understand this most unlooked-for presence. Why was he here? Ah, no doubt, a messenger of evil.

"Oh, sir, my sister is ill!" she cried; "I read sorrow in your face—seriously ill—dangerously? Speak, my lord, for pity's sake!"

"Yes, she is ill."

"Not dead?"

"No, no."

"But very ill? Oh, I feared, I feared when I saw her that there was something amiss. Has she sent you to fetch me?"

"Yes; you are wanted."

"Reuben, I must set out this instant. Order the coach to be got ready. And Betty must go with me."

"You will need no coach, Angela. Nor is there time to spare for any such creeping conveyance. I have brought Zephyr. You remember how you loved him. He is swift, and gentle as the wind after which we named him; sure of foot, easy to ride. The roads are good after yesterday's rain, and the moon will last us most of our way. We shall be at Chilton in two hours. Put on your coat and hat. Indeed, there is no time to be lost."

"Do you mean that she may die before I can reach her?"

"I know not," stamping his foot impatiently. "Fate holds the keys. But you had best waste no time on questions."

His manner was one of command, and he seemed to apprehend no possibility of hesitation on her part. Reuben ran to his pantry, and came back with a tankard of wine, which he offered to the visitor with tremulous respect, almost ready to kneel.

"Our best Burgundy, my lord. Your lordship must be dry after your long ride; and if your lordship would care to sup, there is good picking on last Monday's chine, and a capon from madam's supper scarce touched with the carving-knife."

"Nothing, I thank you, friend. There is no time for gluttony."

Reuben, pressing the tankard upon him, he drank some wine with an automatic air, and still stood with his eyes fixed on Angela's pallid countenance, waiting her decision.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

"Does she want me? Has she asked for me? Oh, for God's sake, my lord, tell me more! Is she dangerously ill? Have the doctors given her over?"

"No. But she is in a bad way. And you—you—you—are wanted. Will you come? Ay or no?"

"Yes. It is my duty to go to her. But when my father and Denzil come back to-morrow, Reuben must be able to tell them why I went; and the nature of my sister's illness. Were it not so serious that there is no time for hesitation, it would ill become me to leave this house in my father's absence."

He gave his head a curious jerk at Denzil's name, as if he had been stung.

"Yes, I will explain; I can make all clear to this gentleman here while you put on your cloak. Bring the black to the door," he called to his man.

"Will not your lordship bait your horses before you start?" Reuben asked deferentially.

"No time, fellow. There is no time. How often must I tell you so?" retorted Fareham.

Reuben's village breeding had given him an exaggerated respect for aristocracy. He had grown up in the midst of small country gentlemen, rural squires, among whom the man with three thousand a year in land was a magnate, and there had never been more than one nobleman resident within a day's ride of the Manor Moat. To Reuben, therefore, a peer was like a god; and he would have no more questioned Lord Fareham's will than a disciple of Hobbes would have imputed injustice to Kings.

Angela returned in a few minutes, having changed her silken gown for a neat cloth riding-skirt and close-fitting hood. She carried nothing with her, being assured that her sister's wardrobe would be at her disposal, and having no mind to spend a minute more in preparation than was absolutely necessary. Brief as her toilet was, she had time to consider Lord Fareham's countenance and manner, the cold distance of his address, and to scorn herself for having thought of him in her reveries that day as loving her always and till death. It was far better so. The abyss that parted them could not yawn too wide. She put a stern restraint upon herself, so that there should be nothing hysterical in her manner, lest her fears about her sister's health should be mistaken for agitation at his presence. She stood beside the horse, straight and firm, with her hand on the pommel, and sprang lightly into the saddle as Fareham's strong arm lifted her. Yet she could but notice that his hand shook as he gave her the bridle, and arranged the cloth petticoat over her foot.

Not a word was spoken on either side as they rode out at the gate and through the village of St. Nicholas, beautiful in the moonlight. Such low crumbling walls and deeply sloping roofs of cottages squatting in a tangle of garden and orchard; such curious outlines of old brick gables in the better class houses of miller, butcher, and general dealer; orchards and gardens and farm buildings, with every variety of thatch and eaves, huddled together in picturesque confusion; large spaces everywhere—pond, and village green, and common, and copse beyond; a peaceful, prosperous settlement, which had passed unharmed through the ordeal of the civil war, safe in its rural seclusion. Not a word was spoken even when the village was left behind, and they were riding on a lonely road, in so brilliant a moonlight that Angela could see every line in her companion's brooding face.

Why was he so gloomy and so unkind, in an hour when his sympathy should naturally have been given to her? Was he consumed with sorrow for his wife's indisposition, and did anxiety make him silent; or was he angry with himself for not being as deeply distressed as a husband ought to be at a wife's peril? She knew too well how he and Hyacinth had been growing further apart day by day, till the only link between husband and wife seemed to be a decent courtesy and subservience to the world's opinion.

She recalled that other occasion when they two had made a solitary journey together, and in as gloomy a silence—that night of the great fire, when he had flung off his doublet and taken the sculls out of her hands, and rowed steadily and fast, with his eyes downcast, leaving her to steer the boat as she would, or trusting to the lateness of the hour for a clear course. He had seemed to hate her that night just as he seemed to hate her now, as they rode mile after mile side by side, the groom following near, now at a fast trot, now galloping along a stretch of waste grass that bordered the highway, now breathing their horses in a walk.

In one of those intervals he asked her if she were tired.

"No, no. I have no power to feel anything but anxiety. If you would only be kinder and tell me more about my sister! I fear you consider her in danger."

"Yes, she is in danger. There is no doubt of that."

"O God! she looked so ill when I saw her last, and she talked so wildly. I feared she was in a bad way. How soon shall we be at Chilton, my lord?"

"My lord! Why do you 'my lord' me?"

"I can find no other name. We seem to be strangers to-night; but, indeed, names and ceremonies matter nothing when the mind is in trouble. How soon shall we reach the Abbey, Fareham?"

"In an hour, at latest, Angela."

His voice trembled as he spoke her name, and all of force and passion that could be breathed into a single word was in his utterance. She flushed at the sound, and looked at him with a sudden fear; but his countenance might have been wrought-iron, so cold and passionless and cruelly resolute looked that rough-hewn face in the moonlight.

"I have a fresh horse waiting for you at Thame," he said. "I will not have you wearied by riding a tired horse. We are within five minutes of the inn. Will you rest there for half an hour, and take some refreshment?"

"Rest, when my sister may be dying! Not a moment more than is needed to change horses."

"I have brought Queen Bess, another of your favourites. 'Twas she who taught you to ride. She will know your voice, and your light hand upon her bridle."

They found the Inn wrapped in slumber, like every house or cottage they had passed; but a lantern shone within an open door in the quadrangle round which house and stables were built. One of the Fareham grooms was there, with an ostler to wait upon him, and three horses were brought out of their stable, ready saddled, as the travellers rode under the archway into the yard.

The mare was excited at finding herself on the road in the clear cool night, with the moonlight in her eyes, and was gayer than Fareham liked to see her under so precious a load; but Angela was no longer the novice by whose side he had ridden nearly two years before. She handled Queen Bess firmly, and soon settled her into a sharp trot, and kept her at it for nearly three miles. The hour Fareham had spoken of was not exceeded by many minutes when Chilton Abbey came in sight, the grey stone walls pale in the moonlight. All things—the long park wall, the pillared gates, the open spaces of the park, the depth of shadow where the old oaks and beeches spread wide and dark, had a look of unreality which contrasted curiously with the scene as she had last beheld it in all its daylight verdure and homeliness.

She dropped lightly from her horse, so soon as they drew rein at an angle of the long irregular house, where there was a door, half hidden under ivy, by which Lord Fareham went in and out much oftener than by the principal entrance. It opened into a passage that led straight to the library, where there was a lamp burning to-night. Angela saw the light in the window as they rode past.

He opened the door, which had been left on the latch, and nodded a dismissal to the groom, who went off to the stables, leading their horses. All was dark in the passage—dark and strangely silent; but this wing was remote from the chief apartments and from the servants' offices.

"Will you take me to my sister at once?" Angela asked, stopping on the threshold of the library, when Fareham had opened the door.

A lamp upon the tall mantelpiece feebly lighted the long low room, gloomy with the darkness of old oak wainscot and a heavily timbered ceiling. There were two flasks of wine upon a silver salver, and provisions for a supper, and a fire was burning on the hearth.

"You had better warm yourself after your night ride, and eat and drink something before you see her."

"No, no. What, after riding as fast as our horses could carry us! I must go to her this moment. Can you find me a candle?"—looking about her hurriedly as she spoke. "But, indeed, it is no matter; I know my way to her room in the dark, and there will be light enough from the great window."

"Stop!" he cried, seizing her arm as she was leaving the room; "stop!" dragging her back and shutting the door violently. "Your sister is not there."

"Great God! what do you mean? You told me your wife was here—ill—dying perhaps."

"I told you a lie, sweetheart; but desperate men will do desperate things."

"Where is my sister? Is she dead?"

"Not unless the Nemesis that waits on woman's folly has been swifter of foot than common. I have no wife, Angela; and you have no sister that you will ever care to own. My Lady Fareham has crossed the narrow sea with her lover, Henri de Malfort—her paramour always—though I once thought him yours, and tried to kill him for your sake."

"A runaway wife! Hyacinth! Great God!" She clasped her hands before her face in an agony of shame and despair, falling upon her knees in sudden self-abasement, her head drooping until her brow almost touched the ground. And then, after but a few minutes of this deep humiliation, she started to her feet with a cry of anger. "Liar! villain! despicable, devilish villain! This is a lie, like the other—a wicked lie! Your wife—your wife a wanton? My sister? My life upon it, she is in London—in your house, busy preparing for my marriage. Unlock that door, my lord; let me go this instant—back to my father. Oh, that I could be so mad as to leave his protection at your bidding! Open the door, sir, I command you!"

She seemed to gain in height, and to be taller than he had thought her—he who had so watched her, and whose memory held every line of that slender, graceful figure. She stood straight as an arrow, looking at him with set lips and flaming eyes, too angry to be afraid, trembling, but with indignation, not fear of him.

"Nay, child," he said gravely, "I have got you, and I mean to keep you. But you have trusted yourself to my hospitality, and you are safe in my house as in a sanctuary. I may be a villain, but I am not a ruffian. If I have brought you here by a trick, you are as much mistress of your life and fate under this roof as you ever were in your father's house."

"I have but one thing to say, sir. Let me out of this hateful house."

"What then? Would you walk back to the Manor Moat, through the night—alone?"

"I would crawl there on my hands and knees if I could not walk; anything to get away from you. Oh, the baseness of it! To vilify my sister—for your own base purposes. Intolerable villain!"

"Mistress, we will soon put an end to that charge. Lies there have been, but that is none. 'Tis you are the slanderer there."

He took a letter from the pocket of his doublet, and handed it to her. Then he took the lamp from the mantelshelf and held it while she read.

Alas, it was her sister's hand. She knew those hurried characters too well. The letter was blotted with ink and smeared as with tears. Angela's tears began to rain upon the page as she read:—

"I have tried to be a good woman and a true wife to you, tried hard for these many years, knowing all the time that you had left off loving me, and but for the shame of it would have cared little, though I had as many lovers as a maid of honour. You made life harder for me in this year last past by your passion for my sister, which mystery of yours, silent and secret as you were, these eyes must have been blind not to discover.

"And while you were cold in manner and cruel of speech—slighting me ever—there was one who loved and praised me, one whose value I knew not till he left this country, and I found myself desolate without him.

"He has come back. He, too, has found that I was the other half of his mind; and that he could taste no pleasure in life unshared by me. He has come to claim one who ever loved him, and denied him only for virtue's sake. Virtue! Poor fool that I was to count that a woman's noblest quality! Why, of all attributes, it is that the world least values. Virtue! when the starched Due de Montausier fawns upon Louise de la Valliere, when Barbara Palmer is de facto Queen of England. Virtue!

"Farewell! Forget me, Fareham, as I shall try to forget you. I shall be in Paris perhaps before you receive this letter. My house in the Rue de Touraine is ready for me. I shall dishonour you by no open scandal. The man I love will but rank as the friend I most value, and my other friends will ask no questions so long as you are silent, and do not seek to disgrace me. Indeed, it were an ill thing to pursue me with your anger; the more so as I am weak and ailing, and may not live long to enjoy my happiness. You have given me so little that you should in common justice spare me your hate.

"I leave you your children, whom you have affected to love better than I; and who have shown so little consideration for me that I shall not miss them."

* * * * *

"What think you of that, Angela, for the letter of a she-cynic?"

"It is blotted with her tears. She wrote in sorrow, despairing of your love."

"She managed to exist for a round dozen years without my love—or doubting it—so long as she had her cavaliere servante. It was only when he deserted her that she found life a burden. And now she has crossed the Rubicon. She belongs to her age—the age of Kings' mistresses and light women. And she will be happy, I dare swear, as they are. It is not an age of tears. And when the fair Louise ran away to her Convent the other day, in a passion of penitence, be sure she only went on purpose to be brought back again. But now, sweet, say have I lied to you about the lady who was once my wife?" he asked, pointing to the letter in her hand.

"And who is my sister to the end of time; my sister in Eternity: in Purgatory or in Paradise. I cannot cast her off, though you may. I will set out for Paris to-morrow, and bring her home, if I can, to the Manor. She need trouble you no more. My husband and I can shelter and pity her."

"Your husband!"

"He will be my husband a fortnight hence."

"Never! Never, while I live to fling my body between you at the altar. His blood or mine should choke your marriage vows. Angela, Angela, be reasonable. I have brought you out of that trap. I have cut the net in which they had caught you. My love, you are free, and I am free, and you belong to me. You never loved Denzil Warner, never would love him, were you to live with him a quarter of a century. He is ice, and you are fire. Dearest, you belong to me. He who made us both created us to be happy together. There are strings in our hearts that harmonize as concords in music do. We are miserable apart, both of us. We waste, and fade, and torture ourselves in absence; but only to breathe the same air, to sit, silent, in the same room, is to be happy."

"Let me go!" she cried, looking at him with wild eyes, leaning against the locked door, her hands clutching at the latch, seeming neither to hear nor heed his impassioned address, though every word had sunk deep enough to remain in her memory for ever. "Let me go! You are a dishonourable villain! I came to London alone to your deserted house. I was not afraid of death or the plague then. I am not afraid of you now. Open this door, and let me go, never to see your wicked face again!"

"Angela, canst thou so play fast and loose with happiness? Look at me," kneeling at her feet, trying to take her hands from their hold on the latch. "Our fate is in our power to-night. The day is near dawning, and at the stroke of five my coach will be at the door to take us to Bristol, where the ship lies that shall carry us to New England—to a new world, and liberty; and to the sweet simple life that will please my dear love better than all the garish pleasures of a licentious court. Ah, dearest, I know thy mind and heart as well as I know my own. I know I can make thee happy in that fair new world, where we shall begin life again, free from all old burdens; and where, if thou wilt, my motherless children can join us, and make one loving household. My Henriette adores you; and it were Christian charity to rescue her and her brother from Charles Stuart's England, and to bring them up to an honest life in a country where men are free to worship God as He moves them. Love, you cannot deny me. So sweet a life waits for us; and you have but to lay that dear hand in mine and give consent."

"Oh, God!" she murmured. "I thought this man held me in honour and esteem."

"Do I not honour you? Ah, love, what can a man do more than offer his life to her he loves——"

"And if he is another woman's husband?"

"That tie is broken."

"I deny it. But if it were, you have been my sister's husband, and you could be nothing to me but my brother. You have made sisterly affection impossible, and so, my lord, we must be strangers; and, as you are a gentleman, I bid you open this door, and let me make my way to some more peaceful shelter than your house."

"Angela!"

He tried to draw her to his breast; but she held him off with outstretched arm, and even in the tumult of his passion the knowledge of her helplessness and his natural shame at his own treachery kept him in check.

"Angela, call me villain if you will, but give me a fair hearing. Dearest, the joy or sorrow of two lives lies in your choice to-night. If you will trust me, and go with me, I swear I will make you happy. If you are stubborn to refuse—well, sweetheart, you will but send a man to the devil who is not wholly bad, and who, with you for his guardian angel, might find the way to heaven."

"And begin the journey by a sin these lips dare not name. Oh, Fareham," she said, growing suddenly calm and grave, and with something of that tender maternal manner with which she had soothed and controlled him while he had but half his wits, and when she feared he might be lying on his death-bed, "I would rather believe you a madman than a villain; and, indeed, all that you have done to-night is the work of a madman, who follows his own wild fancy without power to reason on what he does. Surely, sir, you know me too well to believe that I would let love—were it the blindest, most absorbing passion woman ever felt—lead me into sin so base as that you would urge. The vilest wanton at Whitehall would shrink from stealing a sister's husband."

"There would be no theft. Your sister flings me to you as a dog drops the bone he has picked dry. She had me when I was young, and a soldier—with some reflected glory about me from the hero I followed—and rich and happy. She leaves me old and haggard, without aim or hope, save to win her I worship. Shall I tell you when I began to love you, my angel?"

"No, no; I will listen to no more raving. Thank God, there is the daylight!" as the cold wan dawn flickered across the room. "Will you let me beat my hands against this door till they bleed?"

"Thou shalt not harm the loveliest hands on earth," seizing them both in his own. "Ah, sweet, I began to love thee before ever I rose from that bed of horror where I had been left to perish. I loved thee in my unreason, and my love strengthened with each hour of returning sense. Our journey, I so weak, and sick, and helpless—was a ride through Paradise. I would have had it last a year; would have suffered sickness and pain, aching limbs and parched lips, only to feel the light touch of this dear hand upon my brow 'twixt sleep and waking; only to look up as I awoke, and see those sweet eyes looking down at me. Ah, dearest, my heart arose from among the dead, and came out of the tomb of all human affections to greet thee. Till I knew you I knew not the meaning of love. And if you are stubborn, and will not come with me to that new world, where we may be so happy, why, then I must go down to my grave a despairing wretch that never knew a woman's love."

"My sister—your wife?"

"Never loved me. Her heart—that which she calls heart—was ever Malfort's and not mine. She gave me to know as much by a hundred signs and tokens which read plain enough now, looking back, but which I scarce heeded at the time. I believed her chaste, and she was civil, and I was satisfied. I tell you, Angela, this heart never beat for woman till I knew you. Ah, love, be not stone! Make not our affinity an obstacle. The Roman Church will ever grant dispensation for a union of affinities where there is cause for indulgence. The Church would have had Philip married to his wife's sister Elizabeth."

"The Church holds the bond of marriage indissoluble," Angela answered. "You are married to my sister; and while she lives you can have no other wife."

Her brow was stern, her courage unfaltering; but physical force was failing her. She leant against the door for support, and she no longer struggled to withdraw her hands from that strong grasp which held them. She fought against the faintness that was stealing over her senses; but her heavy eyelids were beginning to droop, and there was a sound like rushing water in her ears.

"Angela—Angela," pleaded the tender voice, "do you forget that afternoon at the play, and how you wept over Bellario's fidelity—the fond girl-page who followed him she loved; risked name and virtue; counted not the cost, in that large simplicity of love which gives all it has to give, unquestioning? Remember Bellario."

"Bellario had no thought that was not virtue's," she answered faintly; and he took that fainter tone for a yielding will.

"She would not have left Philaster if he had been alone in the wilderness, miserable for want of her love."

Her white lips moved dumbly, her eyelids sank, and her head fell back upon his shoulder, as he started up from his knees to support her sinking figure. She was in his arms, unconscious—the image of death.

He kissed her on the brow.

"My soul, I will owe nothing to thy helplessness," he whispered. "Thy free will shall decide whether I live or die."

Another sound had mingled with the rushing waters as her senses left her—the sound of knocking at a distant door. It grew louder and louder momently, indicating a passionate impatience in those who knocked. The sound came from the principal door, and there was a long corridor between that door and Fareham's room.

He stood listening, undecided; and then he laid the unconscious form gently on the thick Persian carpet—knowing that for recovery the fainting girl could not lie too low. He cast one agitated glance at the white face looking up at the ceiling, and then went quickly to the hall.

As he came near, the knocking began again, with greater vehemence, and a voice, which he knew for Sir John's, called—

"Open the door, in the King's name, or we will break it open!"

There was a pause; those without evidently waiting for the result of that last and loudest summons.

Fareham heard the hoofs of restless horses trampling the gravel drive, the jingle of bit and chain, and the click of steel scabbards.

Sir John had not come alone.

"So soon; so devilish soon!" muttered Fareham. And then, as the knocking was renewed, he turned and left the hall without a word of answer to those outside, and hastened back to the room where he had left Angela. His brow was fixed in a resolute frown, every nerve was braced. He had made up his mind what to do. He had the house to himself, and was thus master of the situation, so long as he could keep his pursuers on the outside. The upper servants—half a dozen coach-loads—had been packed off to London, under convoy of Manningtree and Mrs. Hubbock. The under servants—rank and file—from housemaids to turnspits, slept in a huge barrack adjoining the stables, built in Elizabeth's reign to accommodate the lower grade of a nobleman's household. These would not come into the house to light fires and sweep rooms till six o'clock at the earliest; and it was not yet four. Lord Fareham, therefore, had to fear no interruption from his own people.

There was broad daylight in the house now; yet he looked about for a candle; found one on a side-table, in a tall silver candlestick, and stopped to light it, before he raised the lifeless figure from the floor and lifted it into the easiest position for carrying, the head lying on his shoulder. Then, holding the slender waist firmly, circled by his left arm, he took the candlestick in his right hand, and went out of the room with his burden, along a passage leading to a seldom-used staircase, which he ascended, carrying that tall, slim form as if it had been a feather-weight, up flight after flight, to the muniment room in the roof. From that point his journey, and the management of that unconscious form, and to dispose safely of the lighted candle, became more difficult, and occupied a considerable time; during which interval the impatience of an enraged father and a betrothed husband, outside the hall door, increased with every minute of delay, and one of their mounted followers, of whom they had several, was despatched to ride at a hand-gallop to the village of Chilton, and rouse the Constable, while another was sent to Oxford for a Magistrate's warrant to arrest Lord Fareham on the charge of abduction. And meanwhile the battering upon thick oaken panels with stout riding-whips, and heavy sword-hilts, and the calling upon those within, were repeated with unabated vehemence, while a couple of horsemen rode round the house to examine other inlets, and do picket duty.

The Constable and his underling were on the ground before that stubborn citadel answered the reiterated summons; but at last there came the sound of bolts withdrawn. An iron bar dropped from its socket with a clang that echoed long and loud in the empty hall, the door opened, and Fareham appeared on the threshold, corpse-like in the cold raw daylight, facing his besiegers with a determined insolence.

"Thou most infernal villain!" cried Sir John, rushing into the hall, followed closely by Denzil and one of the men, "what have you done with my daughter?"

"Which daughter does your honour seek? If it be she whom you gave me for a wife, she has broken the bond, and is across the sea with her paramour?"

"You lie—reprobate! Your wife had doubtless business relating to her French estate, which called her to Paris. My daughters are honest women, unless by your villainy, one, who should have been sacred, as your sister by affinity, should bear a blighted name. Give me back my daughter, villain—the girl you lured from her home by the foulest deceit!"

"You cannot see the lady to-day, gentlemen; even though you threaten me with your weapons," pointing with a sardonic smile to their drawn swords, "and out-number me with your followers. The lady is gone. I am alone in the house to submit to any affront your superior force may put upon me."

"Our superiority can at least search your house," said Denzil. "Sir John, you had best take one way and I another. I doubt I know every room and passage in the Abbey."

"And your yeoman's manners offer a handsome return for the hospitality which made you acquainted with my house," said Fareham, with a contemptuous laugh.

He followed Denzil, leaving Sir John to grope alone. The house had been deserted but for a few days, yet the corridors and rooms had the heavy atmosphere of places long shut from sunshine and summer breezes; while the chilling hour, the grey ghostly light, added something phantasmal and unnatural to the scene.

Denzil entered room after room—below stairs and above—explored the picture-gallery, the bed-chambers, the long low ball-room in the roof, built in Elizabeth's reign, when a wing had been added to the Abbey, and of late used only for lumber. Fareham followed him close, stalking behind him in sullen silence, with an unalterable gloom upon his face which betrayed no sudden apprehensions, no triumph or defeat. He followed like doom, stood quietly on one side as Denzil opened a door; waited on the threshold while the searcher made his inspection, always with the same iron visage, offering no opposition to the entrance of this or that chamber; only following and watching, silent, intent, sphinx-like; till at last, fairly worn out by blank disappointment, Denzil turned upon him in a sudden fury.

"What have you done with her?" he cried, desperately. "I will stake my life she has not left this house, and by Him who made us you shall not leave it living unless I find her."

He glanced downward at the naked sword he had carried throughout his search. Fareham's was in the scabbard, and he answered that glance with an insulting smile.

"You think I have murdered her, perhaps," he said. "Well, I would rather see her dead than yours. So far I am in capacity a murderer."

They met Sir John in Lady Fareham's drawing-room, when Denzil had gone over the whole house, trusting nothing to the father's scrutiny.

"He has stabbed her and dropped her murdered body down a well," cried the Knight, half distraught. "He cannot have spirited her away otherwise. Look at him, Denzil; look at that haggard wretch I have called my son. He has the assassin's aspect."

Something—it might be the room in which they were standing—brought back to Angela's betrothed the memory of that Christmas night when aunt and niece had been missing, and when he, Denzil, had burst into this room, where Fareham was seated at chess; who, at the first mention of Angela's name, started up, white with horror, to join in the search. It was he who found her then; it was he who had hidden her now; and in the same remote and secret spot.

"Fool that I was not to remember sooner!" cried Denzil. "I know where to find her. Follow me, Sir John. Andrew"—calling to the servant who waited in the hall—"follow us close."

He rushed along a passage, ran upstairs faster than old age, were it ever so eager, could follow. But Fareham was nearly as fast—nearly, but not quite, able to overtake him; for he was older, heavier, and more broken by the fever of that night's work than his colder-tempered rival.

Denzil was some paces in advance when he reached the muniment room. He found the opening in the wainscot, and the steep stair built into the chimney. Half way to the bottom there was a gap—an integral part of the plan—and a drop of six feet; so that a stranger in hurried pursuit would be likely to come to grief at this point, and make time for his quarry to escape by the door that opened on the garden. Memory, or wits sharpened by anxiety, enabled Denzil to avoid this trap; and he was at the door of the Priest's Hole before Fareham began the descent.

Yes, she was there, kneeling in a corner, a candle burning dimly on a stone shelf above her head. She was in the attitude of prayer, her head bent, her face hidden, when the door opened, and she looked up and saw her betrothed husband.

"Denzil! How did you find me here?"

"I should be a poor slave if I had not found you, remembering the past. Great God, how pale you are! Come, love, you are safe. Your father is here. Angela, thou that art so soon to be my wife—face to face—here—before we leave this accursed pit—tell me that you did not go with that villain, except for the sake of your sick sister—that you were the victim of a heartless lie—not a party to a trick invented to blind your father and me!"

"I doubt I have not all my senses yet," she said, putting her hand to her head. "I was told my sister wanted me, and I came. Where is Lord Fareham?"

The terror in her countenance as she asked that question froze Denzil. Ah, he had known it all along! That was the man she loved. Was she his victim—and a willing victim? He felt as if a great gulf had opened between him and his betrothed, and that all his hopes had withered.

Fareham was at his elbow in the next moment. "Well, you have found her," he said; "but you shall not have her, save by force of arms. She is in my custody, and I will keep her; or die for her if I am outnumbered!"

"Execrable wretch! would you attempt to detain her by violence? Come, madam," said Denzil, turning coldly to Angela, "there is a door on those stairs which will let you out into the air.

"The door will not open at your bidding!" Fareham said fiercely.

He snatched Angela up in his arms before the other could prevent him, and carried her triumphantly to the first landing-place, which was considerably below that treacherous gap between stair and stair. He had the key of the garden door in his pocket, unlocked it, and was in the open air with his burden before Denzil could overtake him.

He found himself caught in a trap. He had his coach-and-six and armed postillions waiting close by, and thought he had but to leap into it with his prey and spirit her off towards Bristol; but between the coach and the door one of Sir John's pickets was standing, who the moment the door opened whistled his loudest, and brought Constable and man and another armed servant running helter-skelter round an angle of the house, and so crossing the very path to the coach.

"Fire upon him if he tries to pass you!" cried Denzil.

"What! And shoot the lady you have professed to love!" exclaimed Fareham, drawing himself up, and standing firm as a rock, with Angela motionless in his arms.

He dropped her to her feet, but held her against his left shoulder with an iron hold, while he drew his sword and made a rush for the coach. Denzil sprang into his path, sword in hand, and their blades crossed with a shrill clash and rattle of steel. They fought like demons, Fareham holding Angela behind him, sheltering her with his body, and swaying from side to side in his sword-play with a demoniac swiftness and suppleness, his thick dark brows knitted over eyes that flamed with a fiercer fire than flashed from steel meeting steel. A shriek of horror from Angela marked the climax, as Denzil fell with Fareham's sword between his ribs. There had been little of dilettante science, or graceful play of wrist in this encounter. The men had rushed at each other savagely, like beasts in a circus, and whatever of science had guided Fareham's more practised hand had been employed automatically. The spirit of the combatants was wild and fierce as the rage that moves rival stags fighting for a mate, with bent heads and tramping hoofs, and clash of locked antlers reverberating through the forest stillness.

Fareham had no time to exult over his prostrate foe; Sir John and his servants, Constable and underlings, surrounded him, and he was handcuffed and hauled off to the coach that was to have carried him to a sinner's paradise, before any one had looked to Denzil's wound, or discovered whether that violent thrust below the right lung had been fatal. Angela sank swooning in her father's arms.



CHAPTER XXVI.

IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH.

The summer and autumn had gone by—an eventful season, for with it had vanished from the stage of politics one who had played so dignified and serious a part there. Southampton was dead, Clarendon disgraced and in exile. The Nestor and the Ulysses of the Stuart epic had melted from the scene. Down those stairs by which he had descended on his way to so many a splendid festival, himself a statelier figure than Kings or Princes, the Chancellor had gone to banishment and oblivion. "The lady" had looked for the last time, a laughing Jezebel, from a palace window, exultant at her enemy's fall; and along the river that had carried such tragic destinies eastward to be sealed in blood, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, had drifted quietly out of the history he had helped to make. The ballast of that grave intellect was flung overboard so that the ship of fools might drift the faster.

But in Westminster Hall, upon this windy November morning, nobody thought of Clarendon. The business of the day was interesting enough to obliterate all considerations of yesterday. The young barristers, who were learning their trade by listening to their betters, had been shivering on their benches in the Common Pleas since nine o'clock, in that chilly corner where every blast from the north or north-east swept over the low wooden partition that enclosed the court, or cut through the chinks in the panelling. The students and juniors were in their usual places, sitting at the feet of their favourite Common-law Judge; but the idlers who came for amusement, to saunter about the hall, haggle for books with the second-hand dealers along the south wall, or flirt with the milliners who kept stalls for bands and other legal finery on the opposite side, or to listen on tiptoe, with an ear above the panelled enclosure, to the quips and cranks or fierce rhetoric of a famous advocate—these to-day gravitated with one accord towards the south-west corner of the Hall, where, in the Court of King's Bench, Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, of Fareham, Hants, was to be tried by a Buckinghamshire jury for abduction, with fraud, malice, and violence, and for assault, with intent to murder.

The rank of the offender being high, and the indictment known to involve tragic details of family history, there had been much talk of the cause which was on the paper for to-day; and, as a natural consequence, besides the habitual loungers and saunterers, gossips, and book-buyers, there was a considerable sprinkling of persons of quality, who perfumed the not too agreeable atmosphere with pulvilio and Florentine iris powder, and the rustle of whose silks and brocades was audible all over the Hall. Not often did such gowns sweep the dust brought in by plebeian feet, nor such Venetian point collars rub shoulders with the frowsy Norwich drugget worn by hireling perjurers or starveling clerks. The modish world had come down upon the great Norman Hall like a flock of pigeons, sleek, iridescent, all fuss and flutter; and among these unaccustomed visitors there was prodigious impatience for the trial to begin, and a struggle for good places that brought into full play the primitive brutality which underlies the politeness of the civillest people.

Lady Sarah Tewkesbury had risen betimes, and, in her anxiety to secure a good place, had come out in her last night's "head," which somewhat damaged edifice of ginger-coloured ringlets and Roman pearls was now visible above the wooden partition of the King's Bench to the eyes of the commonalty in the hall below, her ladyship being accommodated with a seat among the lawyers.

One of these was a young man in a shabby gown and rumpled wig, but with a fair complexion and tolerable features—a stranger to that court, and better known at Hicks's Hall, and among city litigators, with whom he had already a certain repute for keen wits and a plausible tongue—about the youngest advocate at the English Bar, and by some people said to be no barrister at all, but to have put on wig and gown two years ago at Kingston Assizes and called himself to the Bar, and stayed there by sheer audacity. This young gentleman, Jeffreys by name, having deserted the city and possible briefs in order to hear the Fareham trial, was inclined to resent being ousted by an obsequious official to make room for Lady Sarah.

"Faith, one would suppose I was her ladyship's footman and had been keeping her seat for her," he grumbled, as he reluctantly rose at the Usher's whispered request, and edged himself sulkily off to a corner where he found just standing-room.

It was a very hard seat which Mr. Jeffreys had vacated, and her ladyship, after sitting there over two hours, nodding asleep a good part of the time, began to feel internal sinkings and flutterings which presaged what she called a "swound," and necessitated recourse to a crystal flask of strong waters which she had prudently brought in her muff. Other of Lady Fareham's particular friends were expected—Sir Ralph Masaroon, Lady Lucretia Topham, and more of the same kidney; and even the volatile Rochester had deigned to express an interest in the case.

"The man was mistaken in his metier," he had told Lady Sarah, when the scandal was discussed in her drawing-room. "The role of seducer was not within his means. Any one could see he was in love with the pale sister-in-law by the manner in which he scowled at her; but it is not every woman who can be subjugated by gloom and sullenness, though some of 'em like us tragical. My method has been to laugh away resistance, as my wife will acknowledge, who was the cruellest she I ever tackled, and had baffled all her other servants. Indeed she must have been in Butler's eye when he wrote—

'That old Pyg—what d'ye call him—malion That cut his mistress out of stone, Had not so hard a hearted one.'

Even Lady Rochester will admit I conquered without heroics," upon which her ladyship, late mistress Mallett, a beauty and a fortune, smiled assent with all the complacency of a six-months' bride. "To see a man tried for an attempted abduction is a sight worth a year's income," pursued Rochester. "I would travel a hundred miles to behold that rare monster who has failed in his pursuit of one of your obliging sex!"

"Do you think us all so easily won?" asked Lady Sarah, piqued.

"Dear lady, I can but judge by experience. If obdurate to others you have still been kind to me."

* * * * *

Lady Sarah had nearly emptied her flask of Muscadine before Masaroon elbowed his way to a seat beside her, from which he audaciously dislodged a coffee-house acquaintance, an elderly lawyer upon whom fortune had not smiled, with a condescending civility that was more uncivil than absolute rudeness.

"We'll share a bottle in Hell after the trial, mon ami," he said; and on seeing Lady Sarah's look of horror, he hastened to explain that Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, were the cant names of three taverns which drove a roaring trade in strong drinks under the very roof of the Hall.

"The King's Attorney-general is prosecuting," answered Sir Ralph, replying to a question from Lady Sarah, whose inquiries betrayed that dense ignorance of legal technicalities common even to accomplished women. "It is thought the lady's father would have been glad for the matter to be quashed, his fugitive daughter being restored to his custody—albeit with a damaged character—and her elder sister having run away from her husband."

"I will not hear you slander my dearest friend," protested Lady Sarah. "Lady Fareham left her husband, and with good cause, as his after-conduct showed. She did not run away from him."

"Nay, she had doubtless the assistance of a carriage-and-six. She would scarce foot it from London to Dover. And now she is leading grand train in Paris, and has taken almost as commanding a place as her friend Madame de Longueville, penitent and retired from service."

"Hyacinth, under all her appearance of silliness, is a remarkably clever woman," said Lady Sarah, sententiously; "but, pray, Sir Ralph, if Mistress Angela's father has good reason for not prosecuting his daughter's lover—indeed I ever thought her an underhand hussy—why does not Sir Denzil Warner—who I hear has been at death's door—pursue him for assault and battery?"

"Nay, is so still, madam. I question if he be yet out of danger. The gentleman is a kind of puritanical Quixote, and has persistently refused to swear an information against Fareham, whereby I doubt the case will fall through, or his lordship get off with a fine of a thousand or two. We have no longer the blessing of a Star Chamber, to supply state needs out of sinners' pockets, and mitigate general taxation; but his Majesty's Judges have a capacious stomach for fines, and his Majesty has no objection to see his subjects' misdemeanours transmuted into coin."

And now the business of the day began, the panelled enclosure being by this time crowded almost to suffocation; and Lord Fareham was brought into court.

He was plainly dressed in a dark grey suit, and looked ten years older than when Lady Sarah had last seen him on his wife's visiting day, an uninterested member of that modish assembly. His eyes were deeper sunken under the strongly marked brows. The threads of iron-grey in his thick black hair were more conspicuous. He carried his head higher than he had been accustomed to carry it, and the broad shoulders were no longer bent in the Stafford stoop. The spectators could see that he had braced himself for the ordeal, and would go through the day's work like a man of iron.

Proclamation was made for silence, and for information, if any person could give any, concerning the misdemeanour and offence whereof the defendant stood impeached; and the defendant was bid to look to his challenges, and the Jury, being gentlemen of the county of Bucks, were called, challenged, and sworn.

The demand for silence was so far obeyed that there followed a hush within the enclosure of the court; but there was no cessation of the buzz of voices and the tramp of footsteps in the hall, which mingled sounds seemed like the rise and fall of a human ocean, as heard within that panelled sanctuary.

The lawyers took snuff, shuffled on their seats, nudged each other and whispered now and then, during the reading of the indictment; but among Lady Fareham's friends, and the quality in general, there was a breathless silence and expectancy; and Lady Sarah would gladly have run her hat-pin into a snuffy old Serjeant close beside her, who must needs talk behind his hand to his pert junior.