It was in my will to strike him again. I was beside myself with contempt at what I took to be a fresh revelation of his cowardice.

I replied coolly enough,—"I would not murder you. Have no alarm on that score. But I can defend myself, I hope."

By this time he had reached the door and thrown it open. A waiter was passing at the time.

"Sir," said Parflete, "I have the honour to wish you good-day."

The waiter heard this remark distinctly, and saw me bow as I parted from the wretched creature.

Parflete's appearance was ghastly, but I attributed this pallor to fright and not to pain, for I believed from my heart that the wound was no more than a slight prick. I left the hotel, took a cab to my lodgings, and after reading a light Spanish novel in order to change the current of my thoughts, I passed an excellent night, sleeping at least seven hours.



CHAPTER XXVI

Lord Garrow, after much cautious consideration, had decided that Lady Sara could not absent herself from the d'Alchingens' party without exciting unfavourable comment, and so prejudicing her future relationship with the Duke of Marshire. His lordship, in his secret heart, was by no means sorry for Reckage's untimely death. An orthodox faith in a better, happier world assisted his conscience over the many difficulties which afflict a strong sense of good manners. Good manners demanded some show of grief at the young man's melancholy end; but, as his lordship pointed out to his weeping daughter, higher reflections ought to triumph over the vulgar instincts of sorrow, and an etiquette almost heathenish. "Let us be thankful," said he, "that poor Beauclerk was spared some lingering malady and the shattering disappointments of a public career. He would not wish us to mourn. And indeed, any undue mourning on your part might give a very false impression in society. You must go to the d'Alchingens'."

Hadley Lodge was built in the reign of George I. In design it resembles a little the Vice-Regal Lodge in Dublin; two wings, containing innumerable small rooms, are connected by corridors leading to the entrance hall. The chief rooms are in the centre, to which Prince d'Alchingen himself added a miniature theatre, copied from the one at Trianon. When Sara arrived, the Prince and Princess were taking tea in the gallery—an apartment so furnished with screens, sofas, writing-tables, divans, and arm-chairs that it had become the lounge, as it were, of the house. Less formal than the saloon, brighter than the library, and more airy than the boudoir, the Princess spent the greater part of her day in a favourite corner where she could command a view from four windows, enjoy the fire, see the best pictures, and hear the piano pleasantly if any guest chose to play upon it. In person she was tall and rather gaunt, with high cheek-bones, and very dark hollows under her eyes. She had the air of a mourning empress, and seriousness was so natural to her countenance, that, although she could not smile, and had never been known to laugh, she was not depressing nor was she, accurately speaking, melancholy. The style of beauty—for she had beauty—was haggard, of the kind now familiar to all English people from the paintings of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. In 1869, however, this type was still highly uncommon and little appreciated. Journals and letters of the period contain references to "that fright, Princess d'Alchingen," or "that poor creature who always looks so ill," or "that woman who makes one think of a corpse." Sara admired the Princess, and surprised all the fashionable artists of that day by insisting on her paintableness.

"How good of you to come, dear Sara!" she murmured, presenting her sallow cheek to the young girl with a touch of regal graciousness at once designed and impulsive; "I should have been lost without you. Anselm has invited a large party, and, as you know, I cannot talk to these dear people. I find them too clever, and they find me too stupid. The world is not willing to give me credit for that which I have done."

"And what is that, dearest?" asked the Prince.

"I married you!" she answered, with a quick flash of humour under her gravity. It was like the occasional sparkle in granite. "You may smile at the notion of my living on the reputation of what I might yet do," she continued, resuming her languor.

"Let us talk of pleasant things only, chere amie," said the Prince, turning to Sara; "mind you, not a word about graves and epitaphs. Mrs. Parflete has arrived. Castrillon has arrived. You need not trouble about the others. They are not—they cannot be—worth your while. But do watch Castrillon. I find that the greatest compliment he can pay to any woman is to sneer at her expense. He never permits himself the slightest epigram against those who have erred in kindness toward him. One witty but frail lady once implored him to miss no opportunity of abusing her in public. 'Otherwise,' said she, 'they will know all.' Isn't that a good story?"

"Anselm!" sighed the Princess.

"I wonder who that lady was?" said Sara.

"I dare not guess," said the Prince.

Sara had recovered from the emotion called forth by Reckage's tragic fate, and she was living now in one of those taciturn reveries which had become more and more habitual with her since the last interview with d'Alchingen. Every force in her passionate, undisciplined soul was concentrated in a wild love for Orange, and every thought of her mind was fixed on the determination to win his affection in return. There were only two real powers in the world, she told herself; these were moral force and money. Money could not affect Robert. But he was susceptible to moral force. She resolved to display such an intrepid spirit, such strength of will, such devotion that Brigit would seem a mere doll in comparison.

"What do you think," she said, turning to the Princess, "of Mrs. Parflete? Your opinion is worth everything. Orange is infatuated with her. His criticism is therefore useless. The Prince disapproves of her parentage. He is therefore prejudiced. I wish to be charitable. I, therefore, say what I hardly think. Pensee Fitz Rewes is an innocent little fool. She judges all women by herself. You, Princess, are an angel of the world. Your verdict, quickly."

The Princess paused before she attempted any reply. Then she fixed her deep, grey eyes on Sarah's excited face.

"I like her," she said, slowly.

"Is that all?"

"I think she is immature for her age, and therefore reckless. She knows everything about sorrow, and very little—at present—about happiness. So she doesn't seem quite human. She shows that indulgence toward others which is perhaps the last degree of contempt for the follies of humanity. Those who take their neighbours seriously are almost invariably severe. Mrs. Parflete, on the contrary, is all good-nature and excuses. I believe she has genius, and I am sure she will have an amazing career."

The Princess, who had always insisted on a studious rather than an active part in life, was consequently unlike the majority of her sex, who, in the bustle of social engagements, talk without ceasing, letting words take the place of ideas, and phrases serve for sentiments. All that she uttered showed a habit of thought opposed to the common method of drawing-room conversation; she rarely said the expected thing, and never, a welcome one. Sara, therefore, was disappointed at this favourable judgment of Mrs. Parflete. The jealousy which she had been able to control by hoping, in the depths of her heart, that the young actress would prove too light a creature to bind for long any masculine, stirring spirit, now saw some justification for vehemence.

"And what do you think of Robert Orange?" she asked, breathing quickly.

The Princess folded her hands, fixed her eyes again on the young girl, and answered in her usual even tones—

"He is a sentimentalist turned man of action. When this miracle can be accomplished, you may expect a very decided, even implacable, character—because it is much more difficult to crush one's poetry than to crush one's passions. The passions are more or less physical, they depend on many material conditions or accidents; but poetry, ideals, romance and the like belong to the spirit. I find a great campaign is being waged everywhere against the soul. It is a universal movement—the only things considered now are the pocket and the brain and the liver."

"Delightful!" said Sara, trying to speak calmly; "and will Orange become a liver-devotee?"

"You don't understand self-discipline, cherie," answered the Princess; "that seems a sealed mystery to most people except the Catholics and the Buddhists. Protestants never speak of it, never think of it. Their education is all for self-concealment. If I read M. de Hausee rightly, he will become no colourless, emasculated being, but certainly a man with a silent heart. When he has a grievance he will take it to God—never to his friends."

Prince d'Alchingen stifled a yawn and offered Sara a cigarette, which she refused, although she had acquired the habit of smoking during her visits to Russia.

"If you will both swear," said he, "to keep a secret, I can tell you one."

The old and the young lady flushed alike with delight at the prospect of hearing some strange news.

"It will come well," he continued, "after my wife's prophetic remarks. Mrs. Parflete went alone to Orange's lodgings on Wednesday last at six o'clock."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed the Princess.

Sara, feeling the Prince's dissecting glance burning into her countenance, grew white and red by turns.

"What a temperament! what jealousy!" thought d'Alchingen.

"How do you know all this?" she asked, thrusting her hands, which were trembling, into her ermine muff.

"I know it for a fact. The question now is—How will Parflete endure such conduct? Her bigamy may have been innocent, or at least, an unavoidable accident. But the afternoon call—well, if he can swallow that, his meekness runs a risk of being called cowardice, and his magnanimity will bear an unpleasant resemblance to dishonour."

"Yet surely—surely——" stammered Sara.

In a second she grasped the mistake which had been made, and all its possible disastrous consequences to herself. Loss of reputation, the finger of scorn, and for what? Nothing, or at the worst, an indiscretion. Scandal, had there been a romantic cause, and loss of reputation, had there been a great passion to make it more memorable as a sacrifice than a disgrace, would have seemed to her defiant mind something glorious. But here was a mere unbeautiful story—sordid, if misunderstood, and a little silly, if satisfactorily explained. And it could not be satisfactorily explained. Sara knew life too well to encourage herself by supposing that the real truth about her foolish visit to Orange's lodgings could ever be told or believed. Orange himself would never betray her she knew. But what if she had been seen or recognised? The landlord, the men on the staircase—had they followed her home, or been able to pierce through her thick veil? She tried to collect her thoughts, to appear extremely interested—that was all. The effort, however, was beyond her strength. She showed her agitation, and, while it was fortunately attributed by the d'Alchingens to a wrong reason, they were close observers of every change in her face, nor did they miss the notes of alarm and nervousness in her voice.

"It will probably mean a divorce, the social ruin of Orange, and the successful debut of Madame as a comedian of the first rank," said the Ambassador.

"Does Orange know that she was seen that day?" asked Sara.

"Not yet. He will know soon enough, never fear."

"Are you sure—quite sure that it was Mrs. Parflete?" suggested the Princess.

"It must have been she," replied the Prince.

"It must have been she," repeated Sara, mechanically.

The lie seemed to come before she had time to think of it; it tripped off her tongue as though some will, other than her own, controlled her speech. But now that the untruth was spoken she determined to abide by it, so she repeated:—

"It must have been Mrs. Parflete."

"And suppose," said the Princess, "that she is able to prove that she spent the whole of Wednesday with Lady Fitz Rewes? No one could doubt the evidence of Lady Fitz Rewes."

D'Alchingen shrugged his shoulders.

"In that event—which is unlikely," he said; "M. de Hausee will have a bad half-hour with Mrs. Parflete. The idyll will be spoilt for ever, and our pretty tale for angels about a Saint and a little Bohemian will sink to its proper level. It always takes three to make a really edifying Platonic history. The third in this case is the lady who called at Vigo Street. Dans le combat, il faut marchez sans s'attendrir!"

"Who would live?" murmured the Princess, pressing a martyr's relic which she always wore on a chain round her neck.

"Suppose," continued d'Alchingen, enjoying his own cynicism, "that we have a quartette in this instance. Madame has her Castrillon, M. de Hausee has his veiled lady. Each is a pious fraud to the other. Imagine the double current of their thoughts, the deceit, the hypocrisy, the colossal lie behind them both which makes the inspiring truth a fact! It is an anecdote to be told in the Boccaccio manner—gracefully, with humour, with much indulgence ... otherwise, it might be the sort of story they tell in hell."

"I am happy to say that I have no imagination," said the Princess; "and now I shall take Sara—who must be tired—to her room."

She rose from her seat, and, drawing Sara's arm through hers, walked from the gallery, through the hall, and up the staircase, talking, the while, of a new Romney which the Prince had recently purchased.

Sara was now in her own room, but not alone, for her maid was unpacking, and the gown, petticoat, shoes, gloves, and flowers designed for that evening were being spread out upon the bed. The girl was in no humour to enjoy the finery which she had chosen with so much delight. She turned her back upon it all, and, pulling up the blind, gazed moodily out of the window till her maid's preparations were at an end. Romantic trees and a landscape, almost artificial in its prettiness, surrounded Hadley. The sun was setting in a fire, burnishing with enamel tints the long green hills which ranged as a natural fortification across the horizon, shutting out a whole country of flat fields beyond. The moon, in its first quarter, shone out above a distant steeple where the eastern sky, already blue and opalesque, promised the dawn of another day in reparation for the one then dying in scarlet splendour. But to those who are unhappy, to-morrow is a word without significance. Sara stretched out her arms instinctively toward the coming night. She wanted darkness and she wanted sleep—not the stars of the morning, not the joy of noon. What should she do? Her mad love for Orange had reached a desperate point—a point where she realised all too clearly and with bitterness, that, so far from being a source of strength, it was a curse, a malady, a humiliation—driving her into that insatiable desire of solitude where the companionship of dreadful imaginations and gloomy thoughts can rend the soul at their pleasure. As men are sometimes lured toward dangerous perils on land, or mountains, or by sea, and from thence to deeds, discoveries, and crimes unforeseen and unpremeditated, so she seemed borne along into a whirlpool of feelings which chilled the better impulses of her nature and accentuated, with acid and fire, every elementary instinct. Animal powers and spiritual tendencies alike were concentrated into one absorbing passion which reasoned only in delirium, incoherently, without issue. She was wretched in Orange's company because every moment so spent showed her that his heart was fixed far indeed from her. But the wretchedness suffered that way was stifled in the torments she endured when she wondered, miserably, in loneliness, what he was thinking, doing, saying; where he was, with whom he was, and how he was. The despair of unrequited love was thrice intensified by jealousy. "Why did he like that little adventuress, that white china Rahab?" she asked herself again and again. "It is just because she has bewitched him. It is not real love—it isn't any kind of love. She cannot care for him as I do. It isn't in her. O why, why does he fight so hard against me?"

Beautiful women seldom believe that their charms can be resisted without a fierce struggle. It was, in fact, a tranquil consciousness of beauty which gave audacity to Sara's words, and put the ordinary question of pride out of the question. Was it not rather a case of the goddess putting on humanity, of the queen condescending to a subject. La reine s'amuse was the unuttered, constant motto on her heart of hearts. The blood of Asiatic princes ran in her veins, and a sovereign contempt for manners, as opposed to passions and self-will, ruled her fierce spirit. But what should she do? A moment's reflection had shown her that Brigit could have no difficulty in proving that she was not the mysterious lady who visited Orange's lodgings. Having weighed all the disadvantages, Sara now directed her attention to the advantages she could snatch out of the dilemma. At last she hit on a bold plan. She rang a bell and a housemaid answered the summons.

"Is Mrs. Parflete in her bedroom?" asked Lady Sara; "and where is her bedroom?"

"Her bedroom is next to yours, my lady. She is in there now."

"Thank you."

Sara walked along the corridor till she reached an oak door on which was a card bearing the name she sought. She tapped, and heard Brigit herself reply—

"Come in."

The young actress was lying, in a black silk dressing-gown, on the sofa. Her hair fell loosely to her shoulders, and she had evidently been fast asleep, for her cheeks were less pale than usual, her eyes were bright, and the happiness of some pleasant dream still lingered in their expression.

"Lady Sara—how good of you to come!" she exclaimed; "I have been trying to rest. I want to play well this evening."

"You will play beautifully, of course," said Sara, submitting, even in her jealousy, to the charm and grace of her unconscious rival. "I have come on a difficult errand," she added, abruptly; "you may not understand, but I hope—I believe—you will."

She became so pale as she uttered these words that Brigit leant forward with a gesture of reassurance. In spite of her fragility she was, from the habit of self-control, a stronger spirit.

"You may be sure that I shall understand," she said.

"Forgive me, then, but some enemy has circulated a report that you went to Mr. Orange's rooms in Vigo Street last Wednesday."

A deep flush swept over Brigit's face.

"I was not there," she said.

"I know," said Sara. "I know you were not there. They made a mistake. It was I they saw—not you—it was I."

Brigit dropped her eyes but made no other movement. She seemed to grow rigid, and the hand which had been playing with the fringe of her girdle remained fixed in its arrested action.

"You? It was you? How —— you?"

"I had to see him. So I went to him. Now he can easily deny that you were there. But he won't betray me. People must think what they please. But I am telling you—because you, at least, ought to know the truth."

"And yet it is not my business!"

"What do you mean? Not your business?"

"How can it be my business to ask what lady went to—to his lodgings?"

"But you would have wondered——"

"Yes, I should have wondered. I could not have helped that."

"Mr. Orange and I have been friends, as you know, for some time. He knew me years ago before he—he met you. I was quite a little girl. I remember I used to hold his hand when I walked in the gardens by his side."

"He has often spoken of you."

"But all this does not help us now. If it were ever known that I—I was the one, the other day,—I should be ruined."

"You may be sure that no one shall know."

"I am not so selfish as I seem. I don't forget that this story will injure him—injure him terribly. They will think him a kind of Joseph Surface—a hypocrite. People expect him to be different from everybody else. A piece of gossip which they would have laughed at and taken as a matter of course from poor Beauclerk or Charles Aumerle—they would resent bitterly in Robert. The thing that grieves me, that torments me, is the fear lest this act of mine may injure him."

"It won't injure him," said Brigit. "Have no fear at all. And if you went to see him, as you say, you must have had the best of reasons for doing so. You may rely, I am sure, on his keeping your name a secret. You were kind to tell me—for he certainly would not have told me—without your consent. We never see each other now, and we never write to each other."

Her voice trembled for the first time.

"How does he look?" she asked, after a sharp struggle between her pride and a desire to hear more.

"He looks ill and worn. He over-works."

"He will suffer at Lord Reckage's death."

"But he hides his feelings. He is always reticent."

"O, to see him and talk with him—that would be such a joy for me."

"You must be very sad, often," said Sara, coldly.

"Yes, often," answered Brigit. "And I was so happy during the short time we were together that now it seems no part of my life—no part of it. I say this because I wish you to know that nothing can make us love each other less—that all this misery and separation—which may last as long as we live—has made no difference and can make no difference to us. And if I never see him again, or speak to him again, he will always be certain that I am his—unalterably, for ever his."

"You are little more than a child. You have a great career before you—who can say what may happen in the future? Women without careers change their minds—their tastes. These things are out of one's own control, and in your case——"

"My mind may change, but my soul cannot. I may dance, I may amuse myself, I may have friends. Make no mistake. I can tell you all that is in me. I find life beautiful. The theatre enchants me. I could work there all day. I have no illusions about it—the paint, the machinery, the box-office, the advertisements—the vulgarity are familiar enough to me. But I find a box-office, and machinery, and vulgarity everywhere, though they are called by other names."

Sara coloured and looked away.

"I am getting stronger now," continued Brigit. "I can lift up my head and see the world as it is. I like it—yes, with all its griefs and its horrors—I like it. When one is ill or sentimental one hates it, because it wasn't made for the sick, and it was not created us a playground for lovers. One may love—yes, but one must work. I intend to love and work at the same time."

"Many find that these two occupations clash! There is a time in love—just as there is a period in life—when it seems enough in itself. It is independent of circumstances and persons. O, but that time soon passes! As you learn more, you look for more. And work is no cure for dissatisfaction. If you can live through it you will just be a machine with one refrain—'I know nothing! I have nothing! I am nothing!'"

The two young girls did not look at each other. Brigit could recognise an agitation of the soul in the imperceptible sadness of the voice, and she guessed poor Sara's secret.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I must suffer all that. How can you be sure that I have not suffered it already? At any rate, I hope this confidence will increase your kindness toward me."

"I have no kindness toward you—none at all," said Sara. "I have no kindness toward any living creature. I should like to die and come to an end. I wasn't born to put up with make-shifts. Other women may be resigned to that paltry way of existing. If they can't have what they want, they will take what they don't want; they will take what they hate, and grin—yes, they will grin and bear it. And after a little while, because they become gradually drunk with suffering, they begin to think they are noble. They are not noble. They are fools, fools, fools!"

"I shan't accept make-shifts," answered Brigit. "I intend to keep all my ideals, but they are all unfinished at present. I have just the outlines and beginnings of them—nothing else."

"I am not talking about ideals. I am speaking of realities. I don't want to be happy, but I do wish to be one of four things: either perfectly alive, or perfectly, utterly dead; either a pure spirit, or a faultless animal. This dead-and-alive, body-and-soul mixture which passes for a well-disciplined human being is loathsome to me. It is a tissue of lies and hypocrisies."

"Perhaps I should have that feeling, too, if I had no faith in God. He assumed humanity—not despising it."

"You know I do not believe that splendid story—so it doesn't help me. I compare life as I feel it with life as it is, and the inequality fills me with disgust. The example of Christ is too sublime. He was human only in His sufferings. He bore our burdens and He shared our agonies. He was deceived, despised, rejected: the first torture and the firstfruits of His Passion was the treachery of a disciple. When I am sorrowful and wretched, He seems Real to me and vivid. But when I am well and wildly happy, He seems far away and unreal—an invisible God, watching mortals with a certain contempt. Now the Pagans had a Divinity for every mood, so they never felt depressed or lowered in their own self-esteem. We have a God for two moods only,—great sorrow, and great exaltation. For the rest we have to beat our breasts and call ourselves miserable sinners. All the good people I know enjoy spiritual peace only—without any fear of remorse—when they are tired out or moaning with physical pain. I don't say this to shock you; I should like to have a religion if I could be convinced of it without fasting, without long illnesses, and without abandoning all hope of earthly, common joys. Most Christians take a middle way, I know; they prattle about their immortal souls, and behave as though they had nothing but bodies. I can't take part in such a gross farce."

Brigit sighed deeply, and did not reply at once.

"It is all very hard, I know," she answered; "but from the lowest abyss one can still see the sky overhead. People's hearts are touched by the spectacle of sin or the spectacle of suffering. Our Lord could not sin, therefore He reached our sympathies by His Death and Sorrows. Of course, if this life here were all, and this world were the only one, and we were animals with less beauty than many of the inanimate things in nature, and as much intelligence at best as the bees and birds and ants—then the Pagan way might be quite admirable. But this isn't the case, and so—and so——"

Sara laughed.

"We are a grotesque compromise between gods and creatures," she said; "those of us who find this out get a little impatient with the false position. You are less sentimental than I am. You take what I call the hard view. It is too frigid for me. But I am making you late. All good luck to-night!"

She waved her hand, and, returning to her own room, realised that she had missed the object of her conversation. The attempt to excite Brigit's jealousy had failed.

Nothing is so infectious as despair. Brigit sat quivering under the echo of Sara's last words: "You take what I call the hard view." Was it, then, such an easy matter to bury love in perpetual silence, to let nature yield to fate, to stifle every human craving? The mention of Robert's name and the news that he looked ill and careworn had stirred all the unshed tears in her heart; she could not think, she could not move, she could but realise that she had no right to be with him. And sorrow seemed her province. There, surely, she and he might meet, join hands, and speak once more face to face. She had not written to him since that parting at Miraflores. But she would write now. This was her letter—

MY DEAREST LIFE—You are my dearest and you are my life—so let me say it now, even if I never say it again. I could be glad (if any gladness were left in me) at your grief for Lord Reckage's death, because it gives me an excuse for breaking my word and writing to you. This is selfish, but nobody knows how much I have suffered, or how much I suffer daily, hourly. I try to believe that it would have been worse if we had never owned our love, never met again after our first meeting. Darling, I can't be sure. Sometimes I wish I had been born quite numb. I dare not complain, and yet it is impossible to feel contented. Always, always there is a dreadful pain in my heart. Every moment is occupied, for when I am not working, I sleep, and when I wake, I work. I would rather spend one perfect day with you and die, than live on without you. This is the truth. If I had any choice that would be my choice. But I know you want me to be courageous, and I myself want you to see that a woman's love can be as strong as a man's. Women are supposed to make men weak—they are supposed to be chains and hindrances. This shan't be said of me. You wouldn't say it: you wouldn't think it: yet in history I find that while a few have been saved by women, more have been ruined by them. And where the women have saved the men they loved, it has been done by great renunciations and sacrifices—not at all by selfishness and joys. When I can remember this (I forget it too easily), I can almost persuade myself that I don't long to see you, to hear your voice, to be with you again on the boat—going on and on toward Miraflores. But I never persuade myself of this entirely—never, never. I do long to see you, Robert: I do want to be with you. I envy the servant in your lodgings, and the friends you meet. And I—who love you so dearly—may not go near you. I am going to act to-night—as if I were not acting all day, every day! I haven't said one word about you. But you couldn't be so wretched as I am, because you have yourself, you know what you are doing, saying, and thinking. Now if I could cease altogether and become, say, your hand or your foot, no one would expect you to renounce me. I might be useful, and it would certainly be no scandal if I accompanied you everywhere! I won't say any more.

BRIGIT.

She addressed an envelope and sealed the letter within it. Then, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she read her part for the comedy that evening. When Esther entered with her dressing-gown, she held up her hands in dismay.

"O Madame," said she, "I thought you were going to play an amusing piece!"

"It will be very amusing," said Brigit, "but this is the way to rehearse it."



CHAPTER XXVII

The Marquis of Castrillon, meanwhile, was pirouetting sublimely before the long mirror in his dressing-room, while his valet, a sour-faced individual, looked on in great but gloomy interest. The Marquis was superbly dressed in a Louis Seize costume—an exact reproduction of the one worn by that monarch on his wedding-day—and he presented a very fine figure. In features, expression, colouring, and manner it would have been difficult to find, or imagine, a more fascinating puppet. An unsurpassable actor of noble parts, he seemed created to play the hero in deeds, the poet in thoughts, the lover on all occasions. Confident of his attractions, he appeared quite free from vanity: each fresh attitude became him better than the last: no light could do less than show the classic beauty of his head and body. When he laughed, one could admire his magnificent teeth; when he looked grave, one could enjoy the splendid serenity of his brow and the passion in his deep brown eyes. It was said that his legs alone would have made the plainest man a dangerous rival, that his well-cut mouth would have made a monster irresistible.

"So you don't think," said he, as he executed a final bow and kicked off his shoes because a buckle stuck into his instep—"so you don't think, Isidore, that Her Imperial Highness loves me?"

"I know she doesn't," replied his man. "I am not going to say that I see more than I see."

"It may be that she cannot love," said the Marquis, "and I don't think less of her on that account. These sentimental girls become very monotonous and sickening. The women whom men love the longest are prim, stand-off women. Have you noticed that, Isidore?"

"No, I haven't noticed that. I haven't noticed much love lasting long for any kind of person."

"There's something in your stupidity which refreshes me. I have a strong notion to marry Her Imperial Highness. I could make her happy."

"Not you."

"I tell you I could. She has the oddest effect upon me. No other woman has ever affected me in such a way. I feel when I am with her as though we were well matched. If I were a King, I would make her my Queen. I might love others, but I should always say, 'Remember the Queen. The Queen must be remembered, and honoured, and obeyed in all things.' Sometimes I see myself—with her—at a kind of Versailles: every one standing up as we enter: Her Majesty very pale and tall and wonderful in a blue velvet robe and pearls, I would adore her with a passion as constant as it was respectful. I should ask in return une amitie la plus tendre. Isidore, she is an angel. The sweetness of her soul is in her face—in the very sound of her voice. I am a little too material to be so sublime in my sentiments as M. de Hausee, but I could be unusually faithful to that charming, beautiful creature. Isn't there a crease under my left arm? Hold the glass for me."

Isidore held the glass while Castrillon, with knit brows, studied the back view of his coat.

"The coat is perfect," said Isidore; "you have no heart or you would never find fault with such a back."

"Would you call me heartless?"

"I couldn't call you anything else," replied the valet, bluntly.

"Then why have you been with me, cat-fish, ever since I was born?"

The Marquis had a stock of names for his servant, none of which he employed unless he felt in a good humour. Owl-pig, hog-mouse, ape-dog, rat-weasel, and cat-fish were the highest expressions of his amiability toward the man who had been his ill-tempered, dishonest, impudent, and treacherous attendant all the years of his life.

"You know, mule-viper," he continued, "that no one else would keep you for five minutes. You are a liar, a thief, and a traitor. Yet I endure you. I agree that I must be either heartless or an idiot to put up with such a rogue."

Isidore grew livid, muttered blasphemies under his breath, and put pink cotton-wool in the toes of his master's dancing-shoes. Castrillon then kicked him into the adjoining room and resumed his gymnastic exercises. At the end of half an hour, the man re-entered carrying a note fastidiously between his left thumb and forefinger.

"Is that for me?" asked the Marquis, who was in the act of turning a double somersault with much agility.

"It is for Monsieur."

"Then read it aloud while I stand on my head."

Isidore tore it open and began to read as follows:—

"Do not misjudge me——"

"Stop!" exclaimed Castrillon, falling upon his feet at once; "that is from a woman. Why didn't you say so?"

"It is from Madame Parflete," replied Isidore.

"Impossible!" said Castrillon, snatching it from his hand; "impossible!"

He read the letter, flushed to the roots of his hair, and kicked Isidore for the second time.

"You beast!" said he; "where did you get this? It is her writing, but she never wrote it—never on God's earth! Where did you get it?"

"It was given to me by one of her servants."

"Why the devil do you tell me such lies?" exclaimed the young man in a fury; "it's some d——d practical joke in the most infernal bad taste, and, by God! I have a mind to shoot you."

Castrillon was not given to the utterance of vain threats, and his anger was so great that the wretched Isidore, shaking, whining, and cursing, edged round the room with his back to the wall and his eyes fixed on his master.

"Stand still, will you?" continued the Marquis; "I want to hear a little more. How much were you paid for giving me this twaddle? Answer me that."

"Two guineas!"

"Two? I'll bet you had twenty. Stand still, I tell you, or I'll kick you again. Do you expect me to believe that Mrs. Parflete's servant gave you twenty guineas?"

"No, I don't," answered Isidore. "I don't expect you to believe anything. But if that isn't Madame Parflete's writing, whose writing is it?"

"That is just what I mean to find out," replied Castrillon, "and that is why I won't shoot you till it suits my convenience."

Isidore, who had a venomous attachment to the Marquis, burst into tears. For many generations their respective ancestors had stood in the relation, each to the other, of tyrant and dependent. Isidore's father had robbed, cheated, deceived, and adored Castrillon's father; the fathers of these two reprobates had observed the same measure of whippings and treacheries, and so it had been always from the first registered beginnings of the noble and the slavish house. But an Isidore had never been known to leave a Castrillon's service. The hereditary, easy-going forbearance, on the one hand, which found killing less tedious than a crude dismissal, and the hereditary guilty conscience, on the other, which had to recognise the justice of punishment, kept the connection rudely loyal.

"I detest you," said Castrillon; "I hate the sight of you."

Isidore blubbered aloud, and accepted the information as a turn for the better in the tide of his master's wrath.

"Who gave you that letter?"

"Well, if you must know, it was Signor Mudara."

"Mudara? Then Mudara wrote it. I'll wring his neck."

"I'll wring his neck, too—if he has tried any of his games on me," sobbed Isidore. "But it may not be a game. You are always so hasty."

Castrillon read the letter through once more.

"I can't believe that she wrote it," he said. "I'll swear she didn't."

"And why?"

"Because the style is not in keeping with her character, blockhead! She does not ask me—or any one else—to visit her at two o'clock in the morning."

A revolting smile made the valet's loose-hanging, sullen lips quiver with emotion.

"No, that is not Madame's style. She is too clever. But does that affect the opportunity!"

"What opportunity?"

"You have the letter. It is for Madame herself to deny the handwriting—not you. Why should you, of all people, think it a joke? Why not act upon it? Why not ask her what it means?"

"At two in the morning? I have no wish to compromise Madame—not the least. She is too rich to compromise. She is the sort of lady one marries. Tell Mudara, with my compliments, he must understand gentlemen before he can play successful tricks upon them."

"I will take my oath that I am not sure it is a trick," answered Isidore.

Castrillon studied the letter for a third time.

"Here and there," he said, "it has the ring of her voice, and the words are the words she uses."

"With such a justification in my pocket, I know what I should do," mumbled Isidore.

"So do I. But you are the scum of the earth, and what you would, or wouldn't do, could only interest the hangman."

The Marquis locked the note in his dressing-case, and handed his keys, with his usual simplicity, to Isidore.

"I do not propose to tire myself with this nonsense before the play," said he. "Get my raw eggs and milk."

* * * * *

At nine o'clock that evening, a brilliant company were gathered in the Salle de Comedie. Most of the Foreign Ambassadors, and about fifty illustrious personages of great social importance, were present. Prince d'Alchingen had resolved that the daughter of Henriette Duboc should have every opportunity of making a successful debut in England. He had sprinkled most judiciously among his guests a few accredited experts in various departments of knowledge, and these he hoped would lead appreciation into the right channel by explaining, at fit intervals, just why Mrs. Parflete was beautiful and just where her art had its especial distinction. The play itself—La Seconde Surprise de l'Amour—by Pierre de Marivaux, was quite unknown to the audience. Brigit and Castrillon had appeared in it at Madrid, and descriptions of their success were whispered through the room. The story of her birth, her unhappy marriage, her adventures in Spain, and her relations with De Hausee had quickened curiosity to the highest pitch. Was she really so young? was she really so pretty? was she going on the public stage, or would she remain an accomplished, semi-royal amateur? No one referred openly to the late Archduke Charles, but the facts that Madame Duboc had been his Canonical wife, that Mrs. Parflete was the one child of their union, kept the whole aristocratic assembly thrilled with the sense of taking part in something as distinguished as a Court function, as exciting as a Court scandal, and as bewildering as a Court conspiracy. A string orchestra—conducted by Strauss himself—played French melodies of the eighteenth century. Would there be any dancing? would she sing? Henriette Duboc had been compared, as a dancer, to La Guimard, said Sir Piers Harding to the Duchess of Lossett. And who was La Guimard? asked the Duchess. And was Mrs. Parflete at all like her mother? And did she bear the extraordinary resemblance, of which so much had been made, to Marie Antoinette? Sir Piers felt bound to own that the likeness was remarkable. And this de Hausee—what of him? Had Sir Piers seen the odd announcement, about his name and antecedents, in the Times? The Duchess didn't know what to think. It was all so very odd, but most interesting, of course. Was M. de Hausee, by any chance, in the audience? No. Well, perhaps it was better taste on his part to keep away. The bell rang. All eyes turned toward the blue satin curtains; they moved: the lights were lowered; the violins played a languorous air: with a rustle—not unlike that caused by the movement of wings—the curtains were drawn back and disclosed an empty garden. Then, following the stage direction, the Marquise entered "tristement sur la scene." The entrance was made quietly, and, for a breathless second, no one realised that the heroine of the evening had at last appeared. Her Grace of Lossett began to fear she felt a little disappointed when, in the nick of time, a great poet, who sat near her, murmured, "Divine."

But at this point we may quote from the Memoirs of Lady Julia Babington:—

Mrs. Parflete's personal appearance caused an immediate furore. Many disagreed about her claims to perfect beauty, but these hostile feelings did not last longer than five minutes. She was an extremely pretty woman; rather tall for her slight proportions, but elegant to a surprising degree. The extraordinary charm of her acting, her voice, her countenance, and her accent were delightful. It would have been impossible to display more grace, simplicity, and ingenuousness than she did: she gave several touches of pathos in a manner to make one cry, and to quite enchant all who bad taste enough and mind to appreciate her inimitable talent.

And again in the Letters of Charlotte, Lady Pardwicke, we read:—

If Mrs. Parflete can be called handsome, it is certainly a figure de fantasie. She has a clear complexion, is young, tall; her manners are doucereuses, for, besides being a beauty, she has pretensions, I understand, to bel-esprit. The majority of those present were undeniably captivated by her peculiar fascination.

Augustus Barfield has the following remarks in his famous Journal:—

There were no two opinions about the success of the debutante. We had been led to expect a good deal, but fortunately every description proved inaccurate, so, while she utterly failed to realise any single preconceived idea, she had the great advantage of appearing as some one wholly new. Rumour had prepared me equally for a St. Elizabeth, a Mademoiselle Mars, a Marie-Antoinette, a Recamier, or a Sophie Arnould. She resembled none of these ladies—being far more tragic in her nature than the rather sensual Queen of France, and she is clearly an uncommon individual in her own right. The women will squabble about her looks; the men will have views about her figure: all must agree that her fortune on the stage is assured. A more pleasing performance I never saw. Love, innocence, tenderness, grief, joy, petulance, uncertainty, modesty, despair—every feminine attribute, in fact, showed to admiration in her expressive features. Voice, bewitching. Gestures, exquisite. All, in fact, was truly enjoyable. I would not have missed the evening on any account.

Orange, it is true, had not joined the general company. But Prince d'Alchingen for reasons of his own, however, had offered the young man a seat in the one small box which had a gilded grille before it and was so made that it seemed part of the massive decoration.

"You cannot be seen," said the Prince; "I won't tell her that you are present; and I give you my word of honour that I won't tell anybody—not even my wife."

The temptation was irresistible. Robert accepted the invitation, and as he watched the play, it seemed to him that he had never known Brigit till that evening. He had seen her in dreams—yes; and talked to her in dreams, yes; but now at last she lived—a real creature. Lost in the part, she was able to throw aside the self-restraint which had given her always a cold, almost sexless quality. Her face betrayed a hundred changing emotions: the youth, strength, and passion so severely repressed in her own life came out, though still controlled, with full and perfect harmony in her art. It was one of those consummate revelations of temperament which, in silent or inactive lives, never come till the last hours before death—when in one look or one utterance all the time lost and all the long-concealed feelings take their reparation from existence. But with those who may express their true characters through the medium of some creative faculty, the illuminated moment comes at a psychic crisis—not to enforce the irony of death but to demonstrate and intensify the richness of humanity. The knowledge which depends upon suffering, and, in a way, springs from it, is good, yet it must always be incomplete. Happiness has its light also, and in order to get the right explanation of any soul, or to understand the eternal meaning of any situation, one must have had at least a few glad hours, felt the ecstasy of thoughtless joy, drifted a little while with the rushing, unhindered tide. As Robert, behind the grille, watched the animated, beautiful girl who seemed to typify the very springtime of the world, he felt he had peered too long at love and life through bars. He would have to break them, get on the other side, and join in the dazzling action. How unreal and far-away seemed all grief, remorse, or anxiety from that brilliant scene! Brigit was laughing, singing, dancing—fulfilling, surely enough, her real vocation. What! at seventeen, was she to sit pale, silent, tearful, and alone? At his age, was he to look on—with a dead heart and unseeing eyes, murmuring words of tame submission to a contemptuous Fate? His whole nature rose up in revolt, and the self he had once abdicated rushed back to him, howling out taunts which were not the less bitter because they were false. Not pausing to wonder whether the present were a profanation of the past, or the past an insipid forecast of the present, he was conscious only that a change—perhaps a terrible change—had taken place in his mind—a change so sudden and so violent that it had paralysed every power of analysis and reflection. Imaginative love—made up of renunciation and spirituality, gave way to the fierce desire to live, to silence the intolerable wisdom of the conscience, and learn folly for a space. He was madly jealous of Castrillon, who gazed into Brigit's eyes and uttered his lines with the most touching air of passionate devotion. She seemed to respond, and, in fact, their joint performance had that delicate, irresistible abandon—apparently unconscious and unpremeditated—which is only possible between two players who are not in love with each other. Where there is actual feeling, there is always a certain awkwardness and want of conviction (partly caused by the inadequacy of the diagram in comparison with the reality), and the charm, so far as art is concerned, is wholly lost. An acted love was the only love possible between Brigit and Castrillon; hence its sincerity on the stage, where, as a merely assumed thing, it harmonised perfectly with its artificial surroundings—the canvas landscape, the painted trees, the mechanical birds, and the sunlight produced by tricks of gauze and gas. But Orange did not stop to consider this. It was enough and too much to see his "sad spirit of the elfin race" completely transformed. Was this the child-like, immature being of their strange visit to Miraflores? That whole episode seemed a kind of phantasy—a Midsummer Night's music—nothing more, perhaps something less. The very title of the play—The Second Surprise of Love—carried a mocking significance. Sometimes the soul speaks first, sometimes the senses first influence a life, but the turn, soon or late, must inevitably come for each, and the man or woman, sick of materialism, who begins to suspect that the unseen world and its beauty is an inheritance more lasting and more to be desired than all the vindictive joys of this prison-house, has no such bitterness as the idealist who finds himself brought into thrilling touch with the physical loveliness, the actual enchantment, the undeniable delight of certain things in life. The questions, "What have I missed? What have I lost? What birthright have I renounced?" are bound to make themselves heard. They beat upon the heart like hail upon the sand—and fall buried in the scars they cause. Things of the flesh may and do become dead sea fruit; but things of the spirit often become stale and meaningless also. What is more weary than a tired mind? What joys and labours are more exhausting than those of the intellect, and the intellect only? Does an idle week in summer ever beget more lassitude or such disgust of life as a month—alone with books—in a library? Dissatisfaction and satiety, melancholy and fatigue show as plainly in the pages of a Kempis as they do in Schopenhauer, as they do in Lucretius, as they do in St. Bernard, as they do in Montaigne, in Marcus Aurelius, in Dante, in St. Teresa. They are, indeed, the ever-recurrent cries in human feeling, the ever-recurrent phases in human thought. Uninterrupted contentment was never yet found in any calling or state; the saints were haggard with combats; sleep, the most reposeful state we know, has its fearful sorrows, hideous terrors, pursuing uncertainties. Robert's spirit, stimulated by jealousy, played round these reflections, common enough at all times, but, as all common things, overwhelming at the first moment of their complete realisation. The original frame of his mind joined a defiance of formal precedent and an intense openness to every fine pleasure of sense with an impatience of all that makes for secrecy and an abhorrence of the substitutes which are sometimes basely, sometimes madly, accepted in default of true objects. He could not desire the star and find solace in the glow-worm—pursue Isolde and lag by the way with Moll Flanders. It was true that he had resolved to put stars and Isolde alike from his life. It was true that he had bound himself to certain fair ambitions beyond the determinations of calculation and experience. It was true that he had resolved to sacrifice this world to the next. He knew the claims which the world to come has upon us. But did he know the world he was renouncing? How that doubt opened the way to further doubts! Was he a fool for his pains? Was an enfeebling and afflicting of the natural man so necessary to the exaltation of the soul? Was the soul in itself so weak that it could only rest decently in a sick body? Could it only wish for something greater than this earth can give by being artificially saddened?

Such questions have their answers, but they do not occur very readily to young men hopelessly in love and half out of their wits with jealousy. He might have taken refuge in prayer, but at that moment he did not want to pray. He wanted to think about himself, to be himself throughout the entire reach of his consciousness, to lose himself in the tempest of emotion which seemed to drive out, beat, and shatter every hindrance to its furious sweep. A smouldering fire is for a while got under, and yet by suppression is but thrown in, to spread more widely and deeply than before. So his fatal affection, perhaps pitilessly fought down in the first instance—asserted its power—its power for evil. Not to love was not to live. He was dead while he lived. He could not find peace in an invisible world of which he did not see any more even a shadow round about him. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? He did not believe that. What miserable scruples to torment, blind, and pollute the soul! Pascal has written that there are thousands who sin without regret, who sin with gladness, who feel no warning and no interior desire not to sin. They doubted, hated, loved, acted, felt, and thought just as they pleased. Perhaps they were not happy, but if they received the punishment of wrong-doing, the wrong at least was committed out of fetters and joyously. It is not until men find themselves assailed by a strong wish that they perceive how very still and very small, all but inaudible, the still, small voice can be. A moment comes when one ceases to think—one wills, and if one is able and the will is sufficiently determined, the purpose is carried into effect. Temptations to steal, to lie, to deceive, to gamble, to excess in drink and the like cannot approach a certain order of mind. But the craving for knowledge and a fuller life—either in a spiritual or the human way—is implanted ineradicably in every soul, and while it may rest inert and seem nullified in a kind of apathy, the craving is there—to be aroused surely enough at some dangerous hour. And of all the dangerous hours in life, the hour of disappointed love is the most critical. Calm spectators of mortal folly who have been satisfactorily married for twenty years and more, who have sons to provide for and daughters to establish, cherish a disdain of love-stories and boast that they have no patience with morbidity. Love—which put them into being and keeps the earth in existence—seems to all such a silly malady peculiar to the sentimental in early youth. So they put the First Cause—in one of its many manifestations—in the waste-paper basket, asking each other what will become of Charles if he cannot find a rich wife, and poor Alice, if she cannot entrap a suitable husband. But there are others who look on life with some hope of understanding it truly, in part, at any rate, and these know, perhaps by experience, perhaps by sympathy, that whereas bodily disturbances may pass away leaving little or no effect upon the general health, all mental tumults are perpetual in their consequences: they never die out entirely, and they live, sometimes with appalling energy, sometimes with gnawing listlessness, to the end of an existence. Robert, in the judgment of his intellect and his senses, had found his ideal. Brigit did not belong to "the despised day of small things"; she was the woman of his imagination—the well-beloved, and having gained her, was he to say—Farewell? It seemed so. Meanwhile, the graceful, swaying dialogue rippled between the players on the stage; the smiling audience, hushed with interest, gazed at the delightful beings before them; the exquisite Marquise had uttered her two last speeches—

"Je ne croyois pas l'amitie si dangereuse."

and—

"Je ne me mele plus de rien!"

Lubin brought the performance to an end by the final utterance—

"Allons de la joie!"

The curtain fell—to rise again a dozen times. Orange did not hear the door of the box being opened. Prince d'Alchingen came in and put a hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Would you like to see her?" he whispered. "I can arrange it. No one need know."

But the training of a lifetime and constant habits of thought were stronger still than any mood.

"No," said Robert, shortly, "I won't see her. I must get back to London at once."



CHAPTER XXVIII

The Prince looked at him in astonishment.

"You can't get to London to-night," said he; "there are no trains."

"I can walk."

"It is thirty-five miles."

"I am accustomed to long walks."

"At any rate you will have some supper first—in my little breakfast-room. Don't refuse, because I want you to meet Castrillon."

"Castrillon! I should like to meet Castrillon."

"Then I will tell him. You and he can take supper together. He doesn't want to join the big party. He has the artist's detestation of the chattering mob. How well he plays! And what a triumph for—Madame!"

"A great triumph."

"This corridor leads to my tiny cupboard—the merest cupboard! Follow me." They went through several doors and up several small staircases till they reached a small apartment furnished in old blue damask, heavily fringed with tarnished gold and silver decorations.

"A few souvenirs of my hereditary castle in Alberia," explained the Prince; "they relieve my sense of exile."

He walked across the floor and tapped on what appeared to be a portion of the wall.

"We are here," said he.

The secret door was opened, and Castrillon, still wearing his costume as the Chevalier, joined them. If one may believe Prince d'Alchingen's account of this unfortunate meeting, the young men greeted each other with composure. D'Alchingen declares that he studied Orange to the depths of his soul, and he does him the justice to say that he did not make a movement or utter a word which denoted the least emotion. There was not any sort of alteration in his countenance, and he led the conversation with a tranquillity and a gaiety really enchanting. When the supper was served, His Excellency had no hesitation in leaving the rivals together—so convinced was he that they would remain on good terms.

"M. de Castrillon," said Orange, when the Prince had gone, "I cannot sit down at supper with you. We have to settle an old score."

Castrillon bowed:

"I am here to learn your wishes. I have heard from several sources that you wished to see me. If you have anything to say, pray say it quickly, because—I have an appointment with Mrs. Parflete."

"Will you do me the favour to leave that lady's name out of the discussion?"

"I see no reason why I should do you favours, M. de Hausee. But I am quite ready to atone for my indifference by any course of action which could satisfy the most scrupulous delicacy."

"There is but one course of action open to us."

"I shall be happy to have the honour of meeting you on your own terms. But," he added, contemptuously, "we are both wasting our time over a worthless woman. She was seen leaving your lodgings on Wednesday last. I have just heard this. And I received, before the play began this evening, a letter from her fixing a rendez-vous for two o'clock. If you doubt me I can show you the letter. I am as much disappointed as you are. She has fooled us both. Before God I could have sworn she was a religious and modest woman."

His chagrin was so genuine that it was impossible to doubt his good faith.

"It is a lie," said Orange; "she was never at my lodgings."

"I don't call you a liar, M. de Hausee, but I can prove my words, whereas it might be difficult to prove yours. I can show you the letter."

"She never wrote it."

Castrillon sat on the edge of the table, and poured out some wine.

"That is what I said," he replied, "when I read it. So long as we are going to fight, let it be because we hate each other, and not because we have both been deceived by the same prude."

"In other words," said Orange, quietly, "you wish to drive a good bargain, knowing that whether you utter one insult or twenty, I can but fight you once."

"A l'outrance, however," answered Castrillon, dipping a biscuit into the glass.

"Yes, a l'outrance."

"This being the case, let me tell you a few of my ideas. You find life very hard. I find it altogether amusing. I don't love a woman the less when I cease to honour her. I don't honour a man the less when I detest him. If you should kill me, M. de Hausee, it will be the most respectable occurrence in my immortality. But if I should kill you, it will be the vile conclusion of an exemplary career."

"Your conversation is most entertaining, Monsieur. I am, unhappily, in no mood to listen to it. May I ask you to meet me to-morrow with your second at three o'clock at Calais? We can then go on to Dunkerque and settle this difference."

"I am perfectly agreeable."

They arranged a few more details and parted. The interview, which took place in French, is not easily reproduced in English. Orange wrote one account of the scene, and Castrillon confided another to Prince d'Alchingen, and the above is probably as nearly as possible a faithful description of what actually passed.

Robert left Hadley Lodge, and plunged through the darkness toward London. He reached Vigo Street about seven o'clock in the morning. It was Sunday, and the streets were silent. He let himself into the house with a latch-key, and groped his way up the creaking unlit staircase. On entering his room, the draught between the open window and the door set all his papers whirling from his writing-table, and, by a strange accident, dislodged his crucifix from its nail. It fell to the ground, and when he picked it up, the small Figure was broken. This accident seemed an ill omen, but he put it from his thoughts, and scrawled a hasty letter to Charles Aumerle, asking him to be his second. This he delivered himself at Aumerle's chambers in St. James's Place, saying that he would call for an answer at nine. But Aumerle, ever fond of adventures, was at Vigo Street at half-past eight.

"If you are bent upon it," said he, "I will do everything in my power to see it through. I think you are quite right. Every one will say the same."

The two left for Calais by the first boat that morning. Castrillon, and Isidore, and a young Frenchman, M. de Lamoignon, were on board also. At Calais the two seconds conferred, and the duel was arranged to take place in a field near Dunkerque on the following morning. On the following morning, the four men met. The combatants were placed at fifteen paces from each other. They fired simultaneously and Castrillon fell—mortally wounded.



CHAPTER XXIX

Brigit returned on Monday to Pensee at Curzon Street. It was the anniversary of Lord Fitz Rewes's death. The two women went to Catesby, where they visited his grave together, prayed together, and, in the quiet evening, sat by the library fire.

"This is a great contrast for you after all the excitement on Saturday night," said Pensee. "You are full of surprises, Brigit. Few young girls, having made such a brilliant success, would care to spend their time with poor, dull women like me. They would naturally wish to enjoy the triumph."

Brigit's eyes filled with tears.

"I know what you mean, cher coeur," she answered, "but there are no triumphs for any artist. We suffer and we work—sometimes we are able to please. But we suffer and work because we must; whereas we please by the merest accident."

"That is true, no doubt. One might as well speak of a successful saint as a successful artist. Every saint is not canonized, and every artist is not praised. But surely appreciation is a help."

"Yes, dearest; and I am grateful for it. And it gives encouragement to one's friends!"

"Let us suppose that they had not cared for your acting, dear child. What then?"

"I should have known that it was my vocation just the same. Don't believe that I shan't have my full share of doubts and struggles. This little first step makes me the more anxious about my next."

The older woman looked at her, and sighed deeply.

"You are too young to know life so well! I am sure you have suffered more severely than any of us—who say more and cry more. Your face has changed a good deal in the last day or two. In one way, it isn't so pretty as it was."

"No one can look quite so plain as I can look, Pensee," she answered, laughing.

"Let me finish what I had in my mind! You are not so pretty—not so much like a picture. But when I see you now, I don't think about your features at all. I watch your expressions—they suggest the whole world to me—all the things I have thought and felt. Rachel's face is like that. I am sure now that you were meant to be an actress. I have been very stupid. How I wish I understood you better, and could be more of a friend. I don't understand Robert entirely. Do you?"

"Yes, I understand him."

"I wonder how you came to love each other. I suppose it happened for the best. But it seems such a pity"—she paused and then repeated the words—"it seems such a pity that all doesn't come right—in the old-fashioned way."

"It has come right, dear," said Brigit; "perfectly right."

"You try to think so."

"I know it. His father sinned, and my father sinned. We were born for unhappiness. Unhappiness and misgivings are in our very blood."

"But how unjust!"

"No, dearest, on the contrary, it is strict justice. The laws of the universe are immutable. You might as well ask that fire should only burn sometimes—that it may be water, or air, or earth to suit sentimental occasions."

"I don't like to see you so sensible—it's—it's unlikely."

Brigit smiled at the word—a favourite one with Pensee when persons and events differed from the serene, unreasoned fiction which she called her experience.

"How can you call anything unlikely?" asked the girl. "I ought never to have been born at all, and Life has made no provision for me. She is boisterous and homely—like a housekeeper at an inn. She doesn't know me, and she has prepared no room for me. But I may rest on the staircase—that's under shelter at least."

"What whimsical ideas, darling!"

"Ah, to feel as I feel, you must have had my parents. You mustn't suppose that I woke up one morning and saw the reason for all my troubles. The reason did not come as though it were the sun shining into the room. Oh, no! I found no answer for a long, long time. But I feel it now. My father could not take me into his world, and my mother's world—I could not take. They wished to know that I was protected, so they found some one who knew the story, and knew both worlds. I was grateful, because I didn't understand. And when I understood I was still grateful, but I couldn't accept the terms. My marriage was not so terrible as many marriages. Yet it was terrible enough. Don't let us talk of it, Pensee. It is hopeless to quarrel with logic. Science is calm—as calm as the hills."

"And Robert?" said the older woman. "What about Robert?"

"His father was a Dominican. The Church will have her own again. Be quite sure of that!

'Thy justice is like the great mountains. Thy judgments are a great deep.'

In God's way, all will come right. Every debt must be paid."

Although they had arranged to journey back to London the following day, the woods and gardens looked so fair, the peace of that house was so great, that they lingered there till Wednesday. Brigit was unusually silent. She sat for hours at the library window looking across the Channel toward France, her countenance drawn and white, all its loveliness departed.

Once she spoke—

"I know that Robert is in sorrow."

"Are you anxious? Shall I write?" asked Pensee, secretly troubled also.

"No, I am not anxious. There is sorrow, but I am not anxious."

Her room adjoined Pensee's, and, in the night, Pensee, sleepless, heard her walking to and fro, with even steps, till sunrise. When they met in the morning, Brigit seemed to have aged by ten years. Her youth returned, but the character of her face had altered for ever. She was never called pretty again. It was said that she varied and depended wholly on her moods. She could make herself anything, but nature had given her little more than a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth—indifferent good. Lady Fitz Rewes was appalled at the transformation. Remembering stories of the last dreadful touches of consumption, she feared for the girl's health. "She will die before long," she thought. But death can occur more than once in one life. The passing away of every strong emotion means a burial and a grave, a change, and a resurrection. The tearful, dusty, fiery, airy process must be endured seventy times seven and more, and more again—from everlasting to everlasting. And the cause is nothing, the motives are nothing, the great, great affliction and the child's little woe pass alike through the Process—for the Process belongs to the eternal law, whereas the rest is of the heart's capacity.

The way to the city—through the beautiful south of England, beautiful at all seasons of the year and sad also at all seasons—brought something which resembled calm to both their minds. Dwellings closely packed together destroy, or disturb, the finer vision of the grandeur, sternness, and depth of life. At Catesby, the solitude and the waves exercised their power over the spirit, diverting it from trivial speculations to awe and wonder. There, where the unseen could move freely and the invisible manifest itself on the perpetual rocks, the towering trees, the still green fields, and the vast acres of the sea, one could hear the dreaming prophet proclaim the burden of the Lord; and the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill-stones and the light of the candle mattered not. But the kingdom of all the worlds—the worlds and habitations not made with hands—rose up as the real theatre of man's destiny and the fit measure of his achievements. It is that sense of the eternity of consequences—and that sense only—which can satisfy the human heart. Time is too short, this planet is too small, and this mortal body is too weak for the surging thoughts, the unintelligible desires of the soul. Nothing less than infinity can hallow emotions: their passingness—which seems the rule in the fever and turmoil of city life—is not their abatement but their degradation. Change they must, but perish utterly they may not.

The women travellers, as the lights of the capital grew more numerous, and the roar of the traffic louder and more constant, drew back within themselves, assuming, unconsciously, the outward bearing—fatigued, sceptical, and self-distrustful—of the town-bred. When they reached Curzon Street, the two heaps of letters, the telegrams and cards on the hall-table symbolised crudely enough the practical side of daily affairs. One name—an unknown one—among the many engraved on the white scraps caught Brigit's attention at once:

The Rev. J. M. Foster.

"That gentleman is a priest, Madam," said the butler; "he will call again this evening. I told him that we expected you and her Ladyship about seven."

For some reason she felt alarmed. All that day and the night before she had been agitated by an inexplicable dread of strange tidings. She went to her room, but, without removing her travelling cloak or her hat, she sat down on the edge of her bed, waiting for some summons. Presently it came. Father Foster was in the library with Lady Fitz Rewes. Would Mrs. Parflete see him? She went down, and Pensee stood watching for her at the open door.

"My poor child!" she said, with a sob in her voice, as she drew Brigit into the room. "My poor child," she repeated, "Father Foster has come to tell us that—that Mr. Parflete died last night."

The priest stepped forward with the decision, and also the stern kindness, of those accustomed to break hard messages.

"He was injured in a quarrel, and died from the effect of the wound. He declined to give any particulars of the affair, and I fear we must call it a mystery. He asked me to say that his last words to you were these: Amate da cui male aveste—Love those from whom ye have had evil."

He looked at her compassionately as he spoke, wondering, no doubt, how great the evil had been.

"Can I go to him?" asked Brigit; "where is he?"

"Where he died—in his room at the hotel."

"I will go with you," said Pensee. She held Brigit's hand, and exchanged a long glance with Father Foster.

"Did you say," she asked, "that he left any letters or papers?"

"He destroyed all his papers, but he has left one letter addressed to you. He wished me to say, in the presence of Mrs. Parflete, that this had reference to some false report about her visiting Mr. Orange's lodgings. Mr. Parflete saw the lady who went to Vigo Street, and he did not know who she was. One thing, however, he did know: he had never seen her before."

Brigit inclined her head, but remained motionless, where she first halted when she entered the room.

"Did he die in pain?" she asked.

"I am afraid he suffered greatly."

"Was his mind at peace?"

"I believe so—from my heart."

"He had less to fear from God than man."

"The justice of God is severe," said the priest, "but He can never make mistakes. The hardest cruelties in this life are the mistakes which we commit in judging others—perhaps in judging ourselves."

"The carriage is at the door," whispered Pensee, touching Brigit's arm. "Shall we go?"

Nothing was said during the drive to the hotel near Covent Garden. Brigit sat with closed eyes and folded hands while Lady Fitz Rewes, lost in thought, stared out of the window. At last the horses stopped.

"This is the place," said Father Foster.

A large gas-lamp hung over the entrance, and two Swiss waiters, with forced solemnity, ushered the party through the hall and up the staircase. They tapped at a door, listened, from force of habit, for an answer which never came, and then turned the handle. Parflete's bed had been moved to the centre of the room. There was a table covered with a white cloth, on which four candles burnt. By the window there was a chair littered with illustrated newspapers.

"The nurse has just gone down to his supper," explained one of the waiters, "but le mort est bien convenable."

The dead man had been dressed in a rose-silk shirt embroidered with forget-me-nots. Upon his crossed arms lay a small ivory crucifix. In place of his wig he wore a black velvet skull-cap. The face was yellow: the features seemed set in a defiant, ironical smile. Hardship, terror, remorse, and physical agony had left their terrible scars upon his countenance.

Brigit, overcome at the sight of these awful changes, fell weeping on Pensee's shoulder.

"Thank God!" she whispered, "he has no more to fear from men."

When she grew calmer, she knelt down by the body, and told them that she would watch there that night.

"Madness!" exclaimed Lady Fitz Rewes.

"No, no! I wish to do it."

The priest stated a few objections, but she remained firm in her resolve.

"He was my father's friend," she said, quietly.

They both noticed that she never once referred to Parflete as her husband.

"If you stay, Brigit, I too will stay," said Pensee.

"That, dearest, you must decide for yourself. In any case, I cannot leave him. Tell the nurse not to come back. And let me be alone here for a little while."

Lady Fitz Rewes and Father Foster went downstairs to the coffee-room, and made a pretence of eating dinner. The two talked about the deplorable marriage, the Orange affair, Brigit's talents. Of course, she was very young. But Rachel—the great Rachel—made her first triumph at seventeen.

"One doesn't like to say it," observed Pensee, "but this death seems providential. If she marries Orange, she will give up the stage. Poor child! At last it really looks as though she might be happy—like other people."

"Like other people," repeated the priest, mechanically.

"I must send word to my housekeeper that I intend to remain here all night. And I should like our letters—I had no time to look at them."

A messenger was despatched, and they resumed their former conversation.

"I am afraid," said Pensee, "that poor Mr. Parflete was dreadfully wicked."

The priest sighed, and made some remarks about the dead man's intellectual brilliancy:

"He had great learning."

"Tell me, Father, with all your experience, do you understand life?" asked Pensee, abruptly.

"Let me take refuge in a quotation—

'Justice divine Mends not her slowest pace for pray'rs or cries.'

I can understand that at least," answered the priest.

"How odd that you should speak of justice. Brigit was talking in the same strain only yesterday. It's a gloomy strain—for a young girl."

"I don't think so. One shouldn't sentimentalise. Life goes on, it doesn't halt: it's a constant development. I haven't much patience with——"

He stopped short.

"Pray finish the sentence."

"Well, I haven't much patience with those who want to linger, and look back, and cheat time. One must get along."

Pensee felt annoyed, and began to talk coldly about the housing of the poor, and winters which she had spent in Florence.

"Here are your letters," exclaimed her companion suddenly.

She turned them over with languid interest, murmuring unconsciously to herself the names of her correspondents.

"From dear Ethel. Why is she in Edinburgh? I hope her father isn't ill again. Alice. Uncle. Mrs. Lanark. Mary Butler. Prince d'Alchingen. That tiresome Miss Bates. Mr. Seward." She paused and flushed deeply. "Robert."

Then she turned to Father Foster with shining eyes.

"This letter," said she, "is from Mr. Orange. Don't you admire his handwriting?"

"A beautiful hand, certainly."

"I wonder what he has to say, and why he is abroad. Isn't that a foreign stamp?"

"The post-mark is Paris."

"So it is. Will you excuse me if I read it."

She broke the seal, and read the contents, while every vestige of colour left her face.

"I can't make it out," she said; "there must be another letter for Brigit. Will you look?"

He untied the packet, and recognised presently Orange's handwriting on an envelope.

"You seem rather displeased," said Pensee; "you think this is all very strange. It—it isn't a common case."

"No case is common."

"Well, you must help me to decide whether I ought to give her this letter at once. I can't take so much responsibility."

"Neither can I. She is a perfectly free woman now, at any rate."

He did not approve of the situation, and he made no attempt to conceal his feelings. His face became set. Pensee thought she detected a certain reprimand in the very tone of his voice.

"It isn't a common case," she repeated again. "He says he is on his way to Rome—to the Jesuits—for a long Retreat, if they will take him. If he knew—what has happened—he might change his mind."

"What! you would have him turn back?"

"Oh, don't be so hard."

"I am not hard," he added more gently. "But would this woman, if she really loved him, wish him to turn back? And, if there is anything in him, could he ever be happy in any stopping short of the fullest renunciation—once resolved on that renunciation?"

"Ah, don't put it that way to her. She has had so much trouble already. Your Church seems so selfish. Forgive me, but I do resent these celibate views. They are unnatural."

"I shan't interfere. Take her the letter by all means. She must decide for herself."

Pensee rose from the table, and went up the stairs to the room where Brigit still knelt by Parflete's dead body.

"Dearest," said Lady Fitz Rewes, "I think you ought to read this letter. I have had one also. Robert thinks of taking a great step, and perhaps——"

Her glance met Brigit's.

"No," said Brigit, under her breath: "no."

Then, with trembling hands, she read the letter once, twice, three times.

"Say something," said Pensee, touching her. "Say something, Brigit."

She smiled and held the letter to the candle flame. It caught fire and burnt away quickly while she held it.

"Mind your hand—it will catch your hand."

"I don't feel it," said Brigit. She bore the scar of that burn always.

"Say something," implored Pensee.

"He is on his way to Rome. He asks me not to write to him. Castrillon is dying. They fought a duel."

"But of course you will write—now. You must write."

"Hasn't my love done harm enough already? I will never see him again. I shall never write to him again."

"You can't mean that. You can't realise what you are saying. People will like him all the better for fighting Castrillon."

"Oh, it isn't the duel, Pensee. He sees his way clearly. He has always tried not to see it. I, too, have tried not to see it. But all that is at an end now."

"And he will renounce his career."

"Everything! Everything!"

Pensee threw up her hands, and left the room. Father Foster was standing under a gas-jet at the end of the corridor reading his office. He looked at Lady Fitz Rewes.

"She won't stand in his way?" he asked quietly.

"She won't stand in his way," she answered. "I hope you realise what that means—to her."

"I hope I can realise what it means to both of them," said he.



CHAPTER XXX

In 1879, a distinguished author who was engaged in writing a history of the Catholic Movement in England, begged Mr. Disraeli, then Earl of Beaconsfield, for some particulars, not generally known, of Robert Orange's life.

He replied as follows:—

HUGHENDEN MANOR, Nov. 28, 1879.

MY DEAR F.,—You ask me for an estimate of Monsignor Orange. Questions are always easy. Let me offer you facts in return. The Castrillon duel was a nine days' wonder—much discussed and soon forgotten. Castrillon left a letter with his second, M. de Lamoignon, to the effect that he had offered Orange "intolerable insults" which "no man of honour" could have suffered. Mrs. Parflete's name did not transpire, but Prince d'Alchingen and others gave speculation no industry on the matter. We were at no loss to know the real cause of the quarrel. Orange applied for the Chiltern Hundreds and went into strict retreat for six months. During that time he saw no friends, wrote no letters, read none. I remember his conduct was severely criticised, because the death of Parflete opened out other possibilities of action. He was not a man, however, whom one could order to be this, that, or the other; still less could one reproach him for not being this, that, or the other. It was his faith to believe that salvation rests on the negation and renunciation of personality. He pushed this to the complete suppression of his Will, tenderly considered. I need not detain you on the familiar dogmas of Christianity with regard to the reign of nature and the reign of grace. Your view may be expressed thus:—

"Puis-qu'il aime a perir, je consens qu'il perisse,"

and you will think that Orange said of Mrs. Parflete, as Polyeucte of his wife:—

"Je ne regarde Pauline Que comme un obstacle a mon bien."

This would be an injustice. Orange was, to me, a deeply interesting character. I saw little of him after he entered the priesthood, but his writings, his sermons, and the actual work he accomplished proved conclusively enough that he was right in following—and we were wrong in opposing—his true vocation. The Church received her own again. Rome did not smile at him at first. A de Hausee, however, never yet tapped long at any gate. The family—which had been stirred to fury by his father's trespass—welcomed the son as a prodigal manque. His aunt, the Princess Varese, left him half of her large fortune. He lived himself in great seclusion and simplicity, and died, as you are aware, of over-work last year. The one friend he corresponded with and occasionally saw was Lady Fitz Rewes. Sara de Treverell did not marry the Duke of Marshire, but three years before Orange's death she took the veil, and is now a Carmelite nun. Many people were amazed at this, but I was not. Mrs. Parflete, Orange never saw again after the night of her performance at Prince d'Alchingen's. Her career continues. From time to time a rumour reaches me that she is about to marry a nobleman, an author, her manager, or an American millionaire. Quite a mistake. She, too, is a visionary, and, I should say, respectable. If you have not seen her act, seize the first opportunity. If you think of writing more than the merest sketch of Orange's strange career, may I suggest the following motto from the Purgatorio?—

"Cast down the seed of weeping and attend."

Yours very sincerely, my dear F.,

BEACONSFIELD.

UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.



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