"No, no, and I am to blame in mentioning it—Heaven knows I wish to think the best! I admit, my lord, your prejudices against me would have been just when we knew each other so well; but I was very young then and can fairly claim to have worked out an honorable redemption from the faults of my youth. Believe me, I have won more than a respectable position among men; have wealth from my own exertions enough to satisfy even your wishes. True, I have not the rank to match yours; but there was a time when you thought it no disgrace to mate with my family."

Lord Hope was moved out of his proud calm now. He lifted his hand with a suddenness that was threatening, and cried out:

"Peace, sir! I have heard enough of this!"

"But I must remind you again that Lady Hope is my only sister, and in these insults you degrade her."

"Degrade her, when she is my wife!"

These words were drawn out with proud emphasis that stung Hepworth like a wasp.

"My lord," he said, "I will bear much from you, because I once loved you, but more from the fact that you are my sister's husband and her father; but I warn you not even by a tone to cast reproach or slur upon your wife. She became such against my wishes and in spite of my protest. That lady has all the elements of greatness within herself."

"What right had you to wish or protest?"

"The self-same right that you have to drive me from your daughter. You did not heed my wishes, why expect me to prove more delicate?"

"Because I can enforce what I wish, and you could not."

"How?"

"By asking Mr. Hepworth Closs to leave Oakhurst at once, and by providing against all chance of his coming here again."

Closs turned very white, and his hand clenched and unclenched itself with passionate force.

"My lord, this is a cruel insult, which I have not deserved!"

All at once the earl turned, with some show of feeling, and looked Hepworth steadily in the face.

"Hepworth Closs, listen to me. If I seem cruel and unmanly, it is because I wish to be kind. The hand which sweeps a moth from its circling around a candle, must seem very cruel to the poor insect. I tell you, fairly, Hepworth Closs, it is not so much pride of birth or personal dislike that prompts me to deny my daughter to you. But she is heiress in entail to the Carset title and Houghton Castle, a noble title, without support, unless the old countess makes her heiress, by will, of her personal estates. By marrying your sister, I mortally offended this old lady. Rachael has been, from first to last, the special object of her dislike. Lady Clara has added to this by refusing to visit Houghton unless her stepmother is received there also. This quarrel may throw one of the richest inheritances in England out of my family, and all from my unfortunate marriage."

"Your unfortunate marriage!" exclaimed Closs, hotly.

"How could it be otherwise?" answered Lord Hope, sadly.

There was something in Hope's voice that touched Hepworth Closs with feelings akin to those he had felt for the proud young man years ago.

"This was the language I used to my sister the night before she became your wife," he said.

"Oh, my God! if she had but listened—if she had but listened!"

"Lord Hope! do I understand? Has your marriage with Rachael Closs come to this?"

"Hepworth, we will not discuss this subject. It is one which belongs exclusively to Lady Hope and myself."

"But she is my sister!"

"Between a husband and wife no relative has claims."

"Lord Hope, I was once your friend."

"I have not forgotten it. Unfortunately for us both, you were. I do not say this ungratefully. On the contrary, I am about to appeal to that old friendship once more. You ask for my daughter. To give her to a brother of Rachael Closs would be the bitterest insult I could offer the old lady at Houghton. It would close our last hopes of a reconciliation. The estates, in doubt now, would be eternally lost. I cannot afford this. Oakhurst is strictly entailed; I am heavily in debt, so heavily, that we are compelled to practise the most harassing economy. From me Clara will inherit nothing; from her grandmother worse than nothing if she dies offended with us. I am told that she is relenting—that she has been heard to speak kindly of Clara. Can you ask me to insult her over again, knowing all the wrong I have done her, all the ruin it would bring on my child?"

"What can I do?" exclaimed Closs, who felt the reason of this appeal. "How can I act generously to you—fairly to her?"

"Go away. She is young, volatile, capricious, but generous as the day. Be open with her; tell her why you leave Oakhurst and how impossible it is to return."

"But there is one wild hope for me—the possibility of gaining this old lady's consent."

Lord Hope smiled in pity of the forlorn idea.

"You may as well ask the stars of heaven to fall."

"But it may chance that I can plead my cause with her."

"Then your best argument will be that I have driven you ignominiously from Oakhurst," said Lord Hope, with fine irony in his smile. "She will forgive much to any man I am known to dislike."

"My lord, I love your daughter so entirely, that it is impossible for me to give up all hope. Leave me this one gleam, or, failing in that, give me such chances as time may bring."

Again Lord Hope answered with that keen smile.

"I withhold nothing from you but my consent."

"But, if Lady Carset gives hers?"

"Then I can safely promise mine."

Again the smile came, and pierced Hepworth like an arrow.

"Now I will intrude here no longer," he said, taking his hat from the ground where it had been lying.

"It is better so, inhospitable as you may think me for saying it. Lady Hope will be grieved, I know."

"I am her only relative," said Closs, with deep feeling.

"I know it; but we are all making sacrifices. I am, certainly, in wishing you farewell."

Hope reached out his hand. It was clear he wished Closs to go without further leave-taking. Closs understood the motion.

"I will not pain my sister with a farewell. Explain this as you please, or say that I will write—unless that is prohibited. As for the young lady, I shall never seek her again under your roof; but the time may come when I shall assert the right which every man has to choose for himself, and win the lady of his love, if he can. Meantime, Lady Clara is free as air. Tell her so."

With these words Hepworth Closs turned resolutely from the house in which he had tasted pure happiness for the first time in his life, and went away.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE WIFE AND THE DAUGHTER.

Lady Hope was in her own room when Clara came in, pale and breathless, with news of her father's return. A cry broke from the woman, so thrilling in its exquisite joy, that it won Clara even from a remembrance of the harshness with which her lover had been received. In the birth of her own love, she found intense sympathy for the intense passion that seemed to consume her stepmother like a living fire.

"Oh! mamma Rachael, do you love him so much, and is this love nothing but a torment?" she said, kneeling down at the woman's feet, and trying to draw that wild face down to hers. "He is so cruel, so cruel, I almost hate him."

Lady Hope pushed the girl from her.

"What? Hate him?"

"Then why don't he love you more?"

"He does love me; how dare you question it?"

The words were harsh, but Rachael's voice faltered in uttering them, and the gloom of a hidden doubt broke into those great black eyes. Clara saw the look, and her heart ached with sympathy.

"Then why does he stay from us so long?"

"Ah, why!" answered Rachael, and the two plaintive words sank deep into that young heart.

"And why does he treat Hepworth, your own brother, so cruelly?"

"Has he done that? Oh, no, no!"

"Yes, mamma Rachael. We both love him so much; but he is very hard with us just now. I thought he would love Hepworth for your sake."

"Ah! I thought so too. It was my last dream."

"And my first," said Clara, with girlish tears in her eyes. "He was very angry—they were both angry. I think he meant to insult Hepworth and drive him away, knowing how proud he is, and he will do it. Oh, mamma Rachael, I am so miserable!"

"Miserable!" cried Rachael, looking gloomily into that fair young face. "Poor child! you have no idea what misery is. God forbid that you ever should!"

"Is not this misery? Papa against me, Hepworth looking so proud and stormy. You. Oh! mamma, I feel for you so much. Indeed, you look more unhappy than I am; but it is hard."

"Hush, dear! That is your father's voice."

"Yes, how low and cutting. I cannot stand it. He is coming this way. I will go to my room."

For the first time in her life, Lady Clara shrank from meeting her father.

"Do not leave me yet," said Rachael, passing swiftly toward the window. "They are together still. I cannot see their faces, but they both stand up sternly in the moonlight. What can they be saying?"

"Something harsh, I know. Lord Hope, when he came up so still and stern, did not seem like my father. His face looked like marble. He would not kiss me, and—and put me aside, when I offered, as if I had done something terribly wrong, in just getting naturally in love with the most splendid fellow that ever lived. I should think he might remember when he fell so desperately in love with you himself, and have some mercy on a poor little girl." Here Clara seemed to catch a restless infection from Rachael, and joined her in a quick, unequal walk up and down the room, pausing now and then to dash the tears from her eyes, or gaze in wonder at Lady Hope's face, which bore an expression she had never seen in all its gloominess till then.

All at once Rachael paused in her walk, and taking Clara in her arms, looked at her with such earnest tenderness, that the girl hushed her sobs to listen.

"My darling, do you love him so much?"

"Better than my father; better than you. Oh! forgive me, but it is so—better than my own life. I think it is worship, not love, dearest mamma."

"Great heavens! what trouble I have brought upon us all! Oh why, why did he come here!" cried Rachael, beginning to pace the floor again, clasping her hands and tearing them apart, as if angry with herself. "They were such friends once, and loved each other like brothers. How could I think it would turn out like this? I so needed him—this one brother; had such hope in his influence, but it is all over."

"What is all over? You will not permit it? You will not let him be sent away?"

"How can I help it? What power or influence is left to me?" answered Rachael, desperately.

"Oh, mamma Rachael, will you fail me? You!"

"Hush! he is coming. I hear his step on the terrace."

How that dusky face lighted up. That woman trembled all over under the sound of that man's tread. He was coming to her, there in the room, in which they had once been so happy; coming to her, perhaps in anger. That was nothing. Anger itself would be Heaven, compared to the cold politeness that had sometimes almost frozen her to death. She turned to Clara.

"Go, my child. I will see your father alone."

Clara went to her room. Through the window which looked out upon the lawn, she saw Hepworth Closs come out from the shadow of the cedar, and walk swiftly toward the avenue. By the proud lift of his head, and those quick steps, that seemed to spurn the earth he trod upon, she knew that he had parted from her father in anger, and threw up the window.

"Hepworth! Hepworth! Stop! Stop! and tell me where you are going!"

He did not hear her, the storm in his heart was too violent. He had been driven forth from his sister's roof with a cool politeness that was insulting. The commonest courtesies of life had been denied to him, by the man who had once been his friend. He scarcely thought of Clara, then, a sense of burning indignation swept everything else from his mind.

Clara leaned from the window, trembling with sudden apprehension. Was he really going? Had her father treated him with indignity? Was he giving her up without a struggle or a word of farewell?

While she asked herself these questions, Closs disappeared among the trees in the park, and was swallowed up in the black shadows.

"He shall not go!" cried the girl, in wild excitement. "He shall not be driven away by papa, or any one else! Where is my jacket? What has that girl done with my hat? Ah! here, and here!"

She huddled the shawl around her, tossed the little sailor's hat to her head, and, opening the chamber door so swiftly that it made no noise, darted down stairs, and, avoiding the principal entrance, reached the lawn by leaping from one of the drawing-room windows, where she paused a moment to draw breath. But no time was to be lost. At the rate Hepworth was walking, he must now be well on his way to the lodge. The avenue swept away from the house in a grand curve. She knew of a path through the trees which would lead her straight to old Badger's lodge. It was shadowy and lonesome, but what did she care for that? No deer ever bounded down that path more lightly than Clara went. She did not stop to think of propriety, or of her own object. Her heart told her that Hepworth had been driven from the house, perhaps thinking that she would sanction the outrage; for it was an outrage, even if her own father had done it. He should not go away, believing it possible for her to prove so base.

On she went, eager, breathless, with the streamers floating out from her hat, and her white sacque flying open, fairly racing through the moonlight, like a frightened fairy.

As she came in sight of the lodge, the clang of an iron gate falling into position, brought a cry of dismay from her lips. He had reached the highway. Dared she follow him there?

Clara came out into the avenue, panting for breath. She could hear his quick steps upon the road. How terribly fast he was walking toward the village. Yes, he was surely going that way.

Old Badger stood in the lodge door, shaded by a trailing drapery of ivy, and saw the young lady standing there in the moonlight, wringing her hands and absolutely crying. In his astonishment he addressed Jules confidentially, as she lay on the stepping stone at his feet.

"It is the young lady as sure as you live, old girl, and she's a following that handsome fellow as just left a golden sovereign in my hand, Jules. Something has happened up yonder, Jules. The master has come back and found out what you and I knew all the time. If that handsome brother of my lady hasn't got a ticket-of-leave, I lose my guess; but what are we to do with the young lady, old girl? That is what is a puzzling me just now."

Jules arose, stretched herself, and threw out one paw as she settled down again, when Badger broke out in a glow of admiration.

"Right, Jules. In a matter where the sects are concerned, you are true as a clock. I'll show myself; I'll help her."

Jules gave a faint yelp, which brought Clara to the door.

"Oh, Badger, you here! Go and call him back. Here is some money; run like a deer; tell him I want to speak with him—must speak with him. It's about Lady Hope; but no matter. Why don't you start, Badger? It's half an hour since I first told you."

But Badger did not start. He stood a little way from the door, examining the money she had given him, by the moonlight, and muttering to himself; when the impatient girl broke out again.

"A shilling! Was it only a shilling I gave you? How provoking! I thought it was gold. Well, start! start! and I'll make it a sovereign—two, three—only bring him back!"

Old Badger went off with a rush now. Ordering Jules to stay with the young mistress and mind the gate, he made swift progress down the road.

"I say, sir! I say! Halloo! I say!"

Hepworth checked his rapid walk, and looked back. Badger came up with a run, feeling that some extra exertion was necessary, when so much gold lay in the question.

"There is a person—well, a lady—a young lady—who wishes to have you turn back, sir. She is waiting at the lodge, sir; and I promised to bring you back, dead or alive, sir—dead or alive!"

Hepworth felt his heart give a great leap. Was it possible that Clara could have followed him? or was it Lady Hope?

"A lady!" he said, "and at the lodge?"

"A young lady—such as isn't commonly seen following young gents by moonlight; but come, sir, she is waiting."

Hepworth turned at once, and retraced his steps. Clara saw him approaching the gate, and swinging it back, ran to meet him, with tears still quivering on her anxious face.

She passed Badger, who was resolved to earn his money at least by discretion, and moved in great haste toward the lodge, never once looking back, as in honor bound, he told Jules in his next confidential conversation.

"Oh, Hepworth, how cruel! how wicked! Tell me truly, were you going without a word?"

Clara had clasped both hands over her lover's arm, and was slowly leading him back, with her face uplifted in sweet reproachfulness to his, and drawing deep, long sighs of thanksgiving that she had him there, chained by her linked hands.

"I do not know. How can I tell? Your father has dismissed me from his house."

"He has? I thought as much; and thinking so, came after you—but only to say that I love you dearly—ten times more since this has happened—and nothing on earth shall ever make me marry any other person."

Hepworth looked down into that generous face, and his own took a softer expression in the moonlight.

"Your father is against us," he said. "I think it must be open defiance, or separation—at any rate, for a time."

Clara's face clouded. She loved her father, and was a little afraid of him as well; but that was nothing to the passionate attachment she felt for Hepworth Closs. She would have defied the whole world rather than give him up; but open disobedience was a terrible thing to her. All at once she brightened.

"Some day, you know, I shall be my own mistress. We can wait. I am so young. When I am Countess of Carset, come and claim me. No one can stand between us then."

She spoke firmly, and with the dignity of deep feeling, standing upright and looking bravely into his face, as if she were a peeress already, and was ready to pledge all the honor of a long race of ancestors for the faith that was in her.

"Ah, if you were only the bright, handsome girl you seem, with no dignity to keep up, no belongings but your own sweet self, how grateful I should be! From this night, Clara, we would never part."

"Oh, if it were! If I hadn't anything to expect! But, no! My old grandmother will be sure to leave me everything she has, just out of spite, when all I want on earth is my liberty, and the love that belongs to me. How I should like to—"

"To what, Clara?"

"Nothing—only I was thinking how jolly it would be just to tie on my hat, button my jacket, and go off with you to America, where people can't die and leave you titles and things; but it is of no use thinking of such a thing. It would break mamma Rachael's heart; and she needs me so much."

Hepworth caught his breath. The thought had been in his mind. But for his sister, I think he would have proposed it.

"Do not tempt me, darling. We cannot abandon her."

"Oh, no," answered Clara, pouting a little, "I didn't mean anything of the kind. Of course, we have got to part now; I know that."

She clung to his arm more closely, and made him walk slower. Both their faces grew pale and sad in the moonlight. She could not speak because of the sobs that came swelling into her throat. He was silent from a bitter sense of bereavement. After those few weeks of entire happiness, was he to be driven into the cold world again, leaving the angel of his paradise behind?

They were drawing near the gate now. Hepworth would not pass into the boundaries of a man who had wounded him so grievously, so he paused by the park-wall, snatched her to his bosom, kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair, blessing her with his soul, promising to find her again, to be faithful, begging her to love him and no one else, until he broke away from her and fled down the highway, dashing the tears from his eyes as he went.

She called after him. She ran a few paces with her arms extended, entreating him to come back; but he would not hear. All his brave manhood had been taxed to its utmost. He knew well enough that to go back was to take the girl with him, and he was not selfish enough for that.

So poor Lady Clara watched him, till he passed quite away into the shadows, with her back against the wall, and her hands hanging down loose, as they had fallen after her last cry. Then she crept slowly back through the gate, which Badger had left open, and away into the depths of the park, crying as if her heart would break.

Badger saw her through the diamond-shaped panes of the lodge-window, and muttered:

"Poor thing, she has forgot the gold; but never mind, it will come."



CHAPTER XVII.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

Lady Hope stood in the middle of the room, breathless. The supreme joy of her husband's presence drove every other feeling from her heart. She forgot her brother, her step-child, everything, in the one thought that he was near her. But, was it certain that he would come? How many months, nay, years, had passed since he had entered that room, once so dear to him that no other apartment in that spacious mansion seemed pleasant? She had allowed nothing to be changed since those days. Year by year those silken hangings and crimson cushions had lost their brightness and grown threadbare; but he had pressed those cushions and been shaded by the curtains, and that gave them a brightness and glory to her which no stuffs of India or cloth of gold could replace.

She knew that he was offended, and doubted. But would he come? His step grew slow; he paused. Would he retreat at last, and leave her there, in an agony of disappointment?

No—after a moment's hesitation, the steps advanced. The very certainty of his approach suffocated her. She had not deemed herself so weak. All the strength left her frame.

She sank down upon a couch near the window. The moonlight fell over her like a veil of silver tissue, and through it she looked like the Rachael Closs of New York.

Lord Hope tore away the silvery veil with his presence, for the shadow of his tall person fell across it, throwing the woman back into darkness.

But the light which he took from her slanted across his face, and softened it back to youth. Rachael reached forth her arms.

"Oh, Norton! have you come back again?"

Her voice vibrated between passion and pathos. Her trembling limbs rustled the silken garments around her.

He stood looking at her, not sternly, but with grave sadness. It was nearly two months since they had met, but he did not advance, or even reach out his hand. Then she cried out, in a burst of bitter anguish:

"Oh, Norton, will you not speak to me?"

"Yes, Rachael," he said, very gently. "I came to speak with you."

Lord Hope advanced through the window. No lights were burning, for in her sadness Rachael had thought the moonbeams enough.

She moved upon the couch, looking in his face with pathetic entreaty.

He sat down after a moment's hesitation, and took her hand in his.

Awhile before that hand had been cold as ice, but now a glow of feverish joy warmed it, and her slender fingers clung around his with nervous force. She was afraid to loosen her clasp, lest he should leave her again.

"Ah, Norton! you have been away so long, so long!"

"Has that made you more unhappy, Rachael?"

"More unhappy? God help me! have I any happiness beyond your presence?"

"I sometimes think that we two might be less—"

Lord Hope paused. The hand in his seemed turning to marble.

"In mercy, do not say that, Norton! Surely you cannot return love like mine with hate so cruel!"

"We will not talk of hate, Rachael. It is an unseemly word."

"But you are angry with me?"

"No, the time has gone by when I can be angry with you, Rachael."

"Oh! have some mercy upon me, Norton, and tell me how I have lost your love—for you did love me."

"God only knows how well!" answered the man, with a throe of bitter passion breaking up the calm he had maintained.

"Tell me, then—tell me again! It is so long since I have had a happy thought! I will not be put off so! Now that you are here, in this room, with my hand in yours, I will not let you go! Tell me, Norton—oh, tell me why it is that you have changed so completely? This question haunts me. I dream of it in the night; I think of it all day long. Answer me. Though the truth cleave my heart, I would rather hear it! Why have you ceased to love me? Why is it that you can leave me so?"

"Rachael, I will answer you so far as this: I have not ceased to love you."

The woman uttered a cry, and fell down upon her knees at her husband's feet, in a storm of wild and happy tears. He raised her up, bent forward as if to kiss her, but drew back with a heavy sigh. She felt him recoil, and the shudder which chilled him reached her also.

"You love me, and yet shrink from my touch! Ah, me! what has dug this gulf between us?"

"It is the work of our own hands," he said, with strong emotion. "It is your curse and mine that we must love each other, Rachael—love each other, and yet be apart."

"Apart! Oh! will there be no end—no season—"

"Yes, Rachael, when we can both repent that we ever did love each other. Then, perhaps, a merciful God may forgive us the great sin which has been our happiness and our torment."

"But you love me? You do love me?"

"A thousand times better than my own miserable life!"

"And you speak of torment! Who shall ever dare say that word again to Rachael Closs? When they do, I will answer, 'He loves me! he loves me!'"

The woman sprang up, exulting. Her hands were clasped, her face was radiant. It seemed impossible that unhappiness should ever visit her again.

"Poor woman! Poor, unhappy woman!"

Hope took her hand in his, and drew her down to his side. She was shaking like a leaf in the wind. For the moment, her joy seemed complete.

"I cannot believe it! Say again, 'Rachael, I love you.'"

"Have I not said that it is your curse and mine?"

"Oh, Norton! how cruel, with that sweet word sinking into my heart, after pining and waiting for it so long! Do not withhold it from me, or think of it as a curse."

"Hush, Rachael! You are only exulting over Dead Sea fruit. It is all ashes, ashes. Words that, up to this time, I had forbidden to my lips, have been said, because of a terrible danger that threatens us. Rachael, did you know of the letter Hepworth sent me?"

Rachael was a brave woman, even in her faults, and would not deny anything.

"Yes, he wrote the letter here," she said.

"And you sanctioned his pursuit of my daughter?"

"Yes, Norton. I loved him; he was my only relative. That he might live near me was the last forlorn hope of my life. Before you condemn me, remember how few people exist in this world for me to love. I have no friends. I was so cold, so dreary! There was nothing left to me but your child and this one brother. How could I part with either of them? That was to be utterly alone!"

Lord Hope checked this pathetic plea. It shook his resolution, and that with a vigor she could not understand. He looked her steadily in the face.

"Rachael Closs, could you have given up my child to that man?"

Rachael fixed her wild eyes on the face turned upon her so sternly.

"Why, why?"

"Had you no thought of the ruin it would bring upon her?"

"Ruin? Did you say ruin?"

"Could you see that innocent girl's hand in his without thrills of painful recollection?"

"Why, he loves her; she loves him."

"So much the more painful."

"What do you mean?"

Her lips were white now, and the teeth gleamed and chattered between them.

"Have you no dread that he will bring that one event perpetually before us?"

Rachael shook her head.

"Does nothing tell you that he was mixed up in that tragedy?"

"What should tell me of that? It was the crime of a miserable old woman."

"Still you understand nothing of that which is a continual pain to me."

A burst of hysterical laughter answered him. The nerves of that woman were undoubtedly giving way.

"You are mocking me. It is only fiends who torment their victims. You are my husband, and should know better!"

"Rachael Closs, control yourself!"

"I am not Rachael Closs!" cried the woman, fiercely. "You would not have treated her so. It is Lady Hope you are putting to torture. Oh, Norton! what have I done to you? What have I done to you that you should mock me so?"

"I wish to save my child—to save myself."

"Well, is that all? She shall never speak to Hepworth again. Yes, what is my brother, or anybody in the world, compared to one smile from my husband?"

"And you will help me to reconcile Clara to that which must be?"

"I will do anything, everything that you wish, only do not leave me again."

"But I must sometimes go out."

"And I cannot go with you. Rachael Closs is not good enough for your high-born friends. Lady Carset has put her ban on your wife, and the nobility of England accept it. But for this I might have been the companion of your visits, the helpmate of your greatness—for I have the power. I could have done so much, so much in this great world of yours, but that old woman would not let me. It is cruel! it is cruel! You would have loved me now as you did at first, but for her."

Lord Hope took Rachael's hand in his.

"Ah, Rachael!" he said, "if you could but understand the love which can neither be cherished nor cast away, which pervades a whole life, only to disturb it! Between you and me must ever come the shadow of a woman we cannot talk of, but who stands eternally between us two. Even in the first days of our passionate delirium I felt this viperous truth creeping under the roses with which we madly hoped to smother it. The thought grew and grew, like a parasite upon the heart. It clung to mine, bound it down, made it powerless. Oh, would to God the memory of that one night could be lifted from my soul! The presence of your brother here has brought it back upon me with terrible force. But, thank God, he is gone!"

"Gone! What, my brother? Am I never to see him again?"

"Not unless you wish to drive your husband from his own house. I will not be reminded, by any one connected with that night, that it was the mad passion of our love which drove that most unhappy woman from her home, her country, and, at last, into her grave!"

Rachael sat with her glittering eyes fastened on his face. She longed to ask a question; but it seemed to freeze upon her lips. But, at last, she spoke:

"Do you repent that love, then?"

"No! no! Would to God I had the power to repent! but I cannot, Rachael, with you by me!"



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE STORMY NIGHT AND SUNSHINY MORNING.

Lady Clara found her way into the house unnoticed, and stole back to her own room, weary and heart-sick from the excitement she had passed through.

For more than an hour she sat by her window looking out upon the moonlight which flooded the lawn, and the dense black shadows of the trees beyond.

The stillness gradually hushed her sobs into a sad calm, and, without other light than that which came from the moon, she crept into her bed, and lay there, as if buried in a snow-drift, cold and shivering from exhausting emotions and exposure to the night air.

She could not sleep, but lay thinking of the man who had been driven from the house that night, wondering where he was, and when, upon the earth, she would meet him.

All at once she started up and uttered a faint cry. Some one had passed swiftly through her door, and was approaching the bed. She saw the face, as it crossed the window, and sank to the pillow again.

"Mamma Rachael, is it you?" she gasped.

Lady Hope sat down on the edge of the bed. She seemed deathly cold; but there was a far-off look in her eyes, as the moonlight fell upon them, which seemed unnatural to the girl.

Clara put back the bed-clothes and reached out her arms; for Lady Hope was in her night-dress, and her feet were uncovered.

"Come into bed, mamma Rachael; you shiver so."

Lady Hope took no heed, but arose slowly from the bed, and, going to a dressing-table, poured some water from a ewer that stood there, and began to wash her hands.

Clara could see her in the moonlight, and sat up in the bed, afraid and wondering.

"Mamma, mamma Rachael," she faltered, terrified by the sound of her voice, "why are you staying out in the cold like that?"

Lady Hope shook the drops from her fingers, and leaving the table, began to pace the floor. At last Clara sprang from the bed and took hold of her.

Every nerve in the woman's body seemed to quiver under that touch; she uttered a shrill cry, and clung to the girl to save herself from falling.

"Come to the bed with me, mamma. Your hand is cold; it touches mine like snow. That is right; put your arms around me. Poor, poor mamma! how your heart struggles! There, there; the chill is going off. We will get each other warm; for we love each other, you and I, mamma Rachael; nothing on this earth can change that!"

Rachael allowed herself to be taken to the bed; but she trembled violently.

"You are troubled about Hepworth; but I have promised—I do promise. Papa, nor all the world to help him, could change me. Besides, there is another thing; we both love him; that would make us cling together, if nothing else," said Clara.

"Ah, there it is—there it is! Hepworth is gone, and neither you nor I must ever see him again!" answered Rachael.

"But we will! He loves us. I will marry him some day, if I live."

"Oh, no, no! That can never be! Never! never!"

Rachael was fearfully agitated. Clara tore her form from those clinging arms.

"What! you?—you turned against us—you!" she exclaimed, pushing Rachael back from her pillow, and sitting up in the moonlight. "Has my father driven us all crazy?"

"Hush, child, hush! I have been thinking of that. It seems to me that I am mad already. Be kind; oh, be kind! Do not urge me on. To-night I have had such thoughts!"

The girl was frightened; for Rachael was bending over, and the fire of her great black eyes seemed hot as it was terrible.

"Great Heavens!" she cried, "what has my father done to you?"

Rachael had exhausted herself. She lay down, panting for breath; her lips were apart; the edges of her teeth were visible; she did not answer.

Clara forgot her own cause of offence, and laid her hand over those wide-open, burning eyes.

"Poor mamma Rachael! now try and sleep. I never saw you so nervous before. Did you know it? you were walking in your sleep."

The cool touch of that hand soothed the woman. Clara felt the eyelids close under her palm; but a heavy pulse was beating in the temples, which resisted all her gentle mesmerism for a long time; but, after a while, the worn frame seemed to rest, and Clara sank down in weary sleepiness by her side.

When she awoke again Lady Hope was gone. It was the dark hour of the morning; the moon had disappeared from the heavens; the shadows, in diffusing themselves, spread out into general darkness.

"Ah, I have had a weary dream," she murmured; "I have heard of such things, but never had anything dark upon my sleep before. How real it was! My father home, Hepworth gone, my mother in this bed, trembling, moaning, and, worst of all, against me and him. Ah, it was a terrible dream!"

She turned upon her pillow, full of sleepy thankfulness, and the next instant had deluded herself into a tranquil sleep.

A rapid fall of hoofs upon the avenue shook the stillness. Nearer and nearer they came; then a clang of the great bronze knocker at the principal entrance awoke her thoroughly.

The girl listened; her dream was fast taking shape, and she knew that it was a reality. Had this untimely arrival anything to do with it? A knock at her chamber-door, and her father's voice answered the question.

She was to get up, and prepare for a journey at once; her maid was packing already.

What was it? What had happened? Lord Hope forgot that he had not told her. The old Countess of Carset had sent for her. She must prepare to start at once for Houghton.

Clara sprang up, ready to offer battle to the old countess a second time in behalf of her stepmother.

While she was being dressed, Lord Hope stood in the corridor without, reading the delicate, upright characters in which the old countess clothed her thoughts.

"MY LORD:—Circumstances have happened of late which convince me that I have been hasty and unjust to your wife, and have taken offense too readily from the independence exhibited by your child, my grand-daughter. It is my desire to atone for this, as the men and women of our house have ever atoned for injustice. The infirmities of old age, and more than ordinary ill-health forbid me to visit Oakhurst, which might, perhaps, be properly expected of one who admits herself to have been in the wrong; but, perhaps you and Lady Hope will permit Lady Clara to come to me here a few weeks, in which time, I trust, she will learn to know and love her grandmother.

"Presuming upon your generosity, I have sent my steward and my own maid, that she may have proper protection on her journey. After my grand-daughter has been at Houghton long enough to feel that it is to be her home in the future, I shall expect the pleasure of a visit from you and Lady Hope.

"LOUISA, Countess of Carset."

Never, since the day in which he brought the first Lady Hope home, a bride, had such intense satisfaction filled the earl's heart as this letter brought him.

Involved, as he was, with pecuniary difficulties, harassed about his daughter, humiliated by the silent rejection by which the nobility in the neighborhood had repudiated his wife for so many years, this concession so nobly made by the old countess, was an opening of good fortune which promised a solution of all these difficulties. It had, in truth, lifted a heavy burden from his life.

With the letter in his hand Lord Hope went to his wife's dressing-room, where he found her, hollow-eyed, and so nervous that a faint cry broke from her as he entered the room.

She felt the loss of her brother terribly, notwithstanding what seemed to be a ready concession to the harsh treatment he received, and her sleep, as we know, had been restless and broken in the night.

She was cold and shivering, though the weather was warm, and had wrapped a shawl, full of richly-tinted colors, over her morning-dress, and sat cowering under it like some newly-caught animal.

Lord Hope felt that his inhospitable expulsion of her brother, and the cruel conversation that had followed it, was the cause of this nervous depression, and his heart smote him. With the letter open in his hand he went up to her chair, and bending over it, kissed Rachael on the forehead.

A smile broke over those gloomy features; the heavy eyes lighted up; she lifted her face to his.

"Oh, you do love me—you do love me!"

"My poor Rachael! how can you permit words that sprang out of the gloomy memories which Hepworth brought to trouble you so? Come, smile again, for I have good news for you—for us all."

"Good news! Is Hepworth coming back?"

"Forget Hepworth just now, and read that."

Lady Hope took the letter and read it through. When she gave it back, her face was radiant.

"At last—at last!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Norton, this will lift me to my proper place by your side. Now, now I will make you proud of me! These patricians shall learn that all great gifts do not spring from birth—that genius has a nobility which can match that given by kings."

Rachael started up in her excitement, flung the shawl away, and stood a priestess where she had just cowered like a wounded animal.

"Now we shall be all the world to each other, and walk through this proud life of yours, fairly mated. Great Heavens! after a night like the last, who could have expected such a morning? But Clara, you will let her go?"

"She is preparing to go now."

"My girl—my bright, beautiful girl! She has always been the angel in my path. But for her, this might never have come. But we cannot give her up—not entirely. You will not consent to that?"

"If we do, it will be only for a time, Rachael. The countess is very old."

"Yes, it will not be for long, and we can trust Clara. I will go to her now. She will need my help, and every minute she stays under this roof is a grain of gold which I must not lose. Oh! Norton, this is glorious news that you have brought me! What can have wrought this change in the old countess? I am going to Clara now."

As Lady Hope opened the door, Clara stood upon the threshold, ready for her journey. She knew that this letter was the first that her father had received from Lady Carset for years, and was curious to know its meaning. She could not remember when Lady Carset's name had been spoken in that house without bitterness, and was astonished to hear the cheerful animation with which it was spoken now.

"Am I really to go, papa? Do you wish it? Is mamma Rachael willing? Let me read the letter, please."

Lord Hope gave her the letter, and replied as she was reading it:

"Yes, my child, it is but right. The old lady is your nearest female relative."

Here Clara reached out her hand to Lady Hope, but kept her eyes on the letter, reading and listening at the same time.

"And you think it best, mamma?" inquired Clara, folding the letter. "What a delicate, stately hand the old lady writes! You don't object?"

"Object, Clara! No, no. I long to part with you, for the first time in my life."

"In some things," said Lord Hope, "the old lady has been cruelly dealt by. Say this from me, Clara. The concessions must not rest all on one side."

"Of course, papa; I will tell her, if you desire it. But why did she not ask you and mamma at once? It is awful lonesome going to that grim old castle by myself."

"It is only for a few weeks," answered Rachael, hastily. "But, dear child, you must not let this old lady stand between you and us. She may have more to give, but no one on earth can ever love you like us."

"Don't I know it? Is that the carriage? Dear me, how things are rushed forward this morning! Am I all right, mamma Rachael? Kiss me once more. What! tears in your eyes? I won't go a step if you don't stop crying! What do I care for Lady Carset, a cross old thing, and old as the hills!"

"Clara, I hear the carriage."

"So do I, papa; but what's the use of hurrying?"

"I wish your grandmother to know that I hold no enmity by my promptness in sending you."

"Oh, is that it? Well, good-bye, mamma Rachael. One more kiss—again—again! Now, good-bye in earnest."

Lady Hope left the room to hide her tears. Clara followed her father to the carriage.

"Poor, poor mamma! How pale and ill she was last night! Oh, papa, do kiss her good-bye for me just once again, when you go back."

Lord Hope turned a smiling look upon the girl, and she added, half in excuse:

"It breaks my heart to leave her so."

Lord Hope did not answer, but folded a cloak around his daughter, helped her into the carriage, and took a seat himself.

Margaret was already seated by the coachman.

"I understand well enough that I am not to travel with my young lady on her journey," she said; "but, so far as her way lies toward London, I am going. My sister wants me there, and I do just as lief be in a tomb as stay at Oakhurst when Lady Clara is away. So, as she is willing, I shall just leave her at the junction, and go up to London. That I can do in spite of the crabbed old thing at Houghton, who wants her at first all to herself."

This was said in confidence to the coachman, who muttered something under his breath about feeling uncommonly lonesome when Mistress Margaret was away from Oakhurst.

Directly after this the carriage drew up at the station, where a grim-looking woman of fifty stood ready to receive the young lady from the hands of her father.

It was not often that Lord Hope was known to exhibit any violent emotion; but Clara felt that he gave way a little when she threw her arms around his neck in parting—and Badger, after he opened the gate to let his master pass through, observed to Jules that something out of the common must be going on up yonder, for all night people had been going in and out like ghosts, and the master seemed like another man.



CHAPTER XIX.

AFTER THE FAILURE.

When Caroline reached home, after that involuntary retreat from the theatre, she went to her own room with Eliza, and falling upon the bed, lay perfectly still, so exhausted and crushed, that she scarcely breathed. She had disgraced herself, and she had seen him.

Alas, alas! he had witnessed her defeat, her bitter humiliation!

Why had she not told him before, that her mother was an actress, a singer, of whose reputation he had heard; that her own destiny must be guided by this woman, and could hardly have a higher aim than she had already reached. He would think that she had deceived him, and she had, but with no premeditation. She had honestly intended to tell him everything, but the suddenness of their departure from Italy had rendered all explanation impossible. What could she do but hide herself forever from him and the whole world? She forgot the bursts of applause that had followed the first effort of her voice, and sank everything together in one sweep of bitter shame.

"My darling! my poor darling!"

It was Brown who had crept into her room, crest-fallen and drooping, like a man stunned by some heavy blow. Caroline started up.

"Oh! my friend! You are sorry for me, yet I have disappointed you so; my heart aches! my heart aches! but what can I do?"

"Never mind," answered the tender-hearted man. "It was the fright, stage fright—a terrible thing; but it seldom comes twice. Why, that woman, your mother I mean, broke down over and over again, but the parts were so small, no one observed it enough to clap or hiss, while you sang like an angel, up to the very minute you fainted. I never saw anything like it."

Caroline sank back to her pillow, moaning. She was still in her theatrical costume, and its glitter sickened her.

"Don't take on so," persisted the kind musician. "It was not a failure. No one will consider it so. On the contrary, it can be made to tell, and your next appearance will be an ovation."

Caroline started to her elbow again.

"My next appearance! and you say that! You! you! Oh! Mr. Brown, I did not think you would turn against me!"

"Turn against you, my child?" Tears trembled in the man's voice, and the words quivered on his lips as he added: "My poor darling. Do you not know that old Brown would die for you?"

"Then keep me from the stage; snatch me from a life that I loathe. I tell you, all this is against my nature. I have no genius to carry me forward, no ambition, no hope. Oh! that is gone, quite."

"But it is an honorable profession," faltered Brown, in his distress. "Think how many noble geniuses have found immortality on the stage."

"I know it, I know it well; but they were led that way, heart and soul, while I have no wish for fame or anything that it could bring. What does a woman want with immortality—above all, a poor young girl like me, whose very heart trembles in her bosom, when a crowd of strange eyes are turned upon her, as they were on me to-night?"

"But you will soon get over that."

"No. I never shall. This one night has broken up my life, and well nigh killed me. Let what may come, I will starve rather than tread that stage again."

"Hush! dear, hush! This passion will make you worse."

"But I mean it, Eliza, and I say it here and now, when you and Mr. Brown, the only friends I have on earth, are standing by. Think for me, Eliza, and you also, my kind, kind guardian!"

"Ah, if I had the power," said Brown, answering Eliza's appealing look with a mournful shake of the head; "but the madame will never give her up."

"She must," said Caroline, kindling with desperate opposition: "I am not her slave. God does not give up the soul and conscience of a child to her mother."

"Especially one who never did a thing for her child, but left her for others to bring up," broke in Eliza, uttering a bitter truth, in her angry pity for the girl. "Mr. Brown, all that I have got to say is this: you and I must stand by this young cretur, let her do what she will. She is more our child than hers. I stand by that. If she don't want to put on this splendiferous dress again, why it shall not come within a rod of her. If her heart is set against singing on the stage, we are not the people to see her dragged there against her will. You stand by me, I'll stand by you, and we'll roll ourselves like a rock in that woman's way, if she attempts to force our child into the theatre again."

"But how can we oppose her? She has the power. We have not, at this moment, five pounds among us."

Eliza's face fell as if it had been suddenly unlocked.

"No more we have, and in a strange country, too," she said, dolefully.

Here Caroline joined in.

"But I can teach. If I please all those people, surely I can teach."

"Sure enough!" said Eliza, brightening a little. "What do you say to that, Mr. Brown?"

"We must take time. Perhaps there will be no cause for trouble. When it comes in earnest, you shall not fight alone, Eliza. So comfort yourself, my child. The old man would rather beg for bread on the highway than see you forced to anything that is so distasteful. Now try and sleep."

Brown bent down and smoothed the girl's hair with his hand. Then he turned from her with tears in his eyes, and crept out of the room.

Caroline followed him with wistful eyes until the door closed. Then she turned to Eliza.

"Oh! Eliza, do this one thing for me, if you can. Let, let no one come in to-night. I can endure no more."

"They'll have to knock me down and trample on me if they do, that is all," answered the hand-maiden. "My gracious! How I wish we were in our own little house again up in Sing-Sing."

"Oh! if we were!" sighed the girl. "Why did we ever leave it?"

"Because we were a couple of born fools, that's why!" answered the maid. "Born fools! and I the biggest, the oldest, the most outrageous fool of all! Wasn't we independent? Couldn't you have took scholars, and I washing by the dozen? Hadn't we the sweetest little garden in that whole town? such cabbages, such onions, and lettuce headed like cabbage, and tender as—as flowers! Whenever I get sick over these French dishes, I think of that garden, and the cow, and the shoat that knew me when I came to the pen with corn in my apron, and gave a little grunt, as if I'd been his sister. Then my heart turns back to the old home, like a sunflower, and I say to myself, You perposterous old maid, you! what did you let that poor young thing come from under that honest roof for? You was old enough to know better, if she wasn't; but you had an idea of seeing the world, of dressing up and being a lady's maid, of hearing whole crowds of young men stamp and clap and whistle over that innocent young cretur. You didn't think that she might faint dead away, and—and be brought home heart-broken. Home, indeed! as if this box of gilding could be a home to any American woman! It's perposterous!"

Here Eliza broke off with a half-uttered word on her lips, for her speech had brought the old home back so vividly to the heart-sick girl that she was sobbing upon her pillow like a child.

A little bustle down stairs, a knock at the door, and, as Eliza ran forward, Olympia pushed it open and came in.

She saw Caroline prostrate on the bed, with that delicate robe wrapped around and crushed under her, and the lace shawl falling from the pillow to the carpet, like a trail of frost.

The sight urged her into one of those quick passions that sometimes threw her whole household into consternation.

"Heavens! what extravagance!" she cried. "Does the creature know that lace like that is worth its weight in diamonds? A silk robe, too, which could not be purchased out of Paris, tumbled up in a wad, and one mass of wrinkles! I see! I see! the revenues of a duke would not meet such extravagance! Get up! Get up, I say! and if you must make a goose of yourself, do it at less cost!"

"Hush, madam! she's sick! She's broken-hearted!" retorted Eliza, turning fiercely red and planting herself before the shrinking girl.

"Well, she must break her heart in something less costly than a French dress worth thirty pounds, and point lace that cannot be got at any price! Just get up, my young lady, and do your crying in less expensive costume! The proper dress for tragedy is white muslin, but just now a night-gown will do."

Caroline arose without a word, and began to undress herself. She no longer shrank or trembled, for the indignant blood rushed to the surface, and pride gave her strength. Eliza took the robe as she cast it off, and folded it with an emphatic sweep of her hand.

"A pretty mess you have made of it," said Olympia, tossing the lace aside with her foot, and tearing it on the buckle of her shoe, "with your perverse obstinacy—broken up the most splendid debut I ever saw on any stage, and making yourself and your failure the town's talk! if the critics had not been my friends, the whole thing would have been utter ruination; and here you are, with cheeks like flame, looking as haughty as a duchess."

"I am not haughty or perverse," said Caroline, wiping the hot tears from her eyes, "but weary and ill."

"Ill! with that color?" sneered Olympia.

"It is fever," Eliza broke in. "Ten minutes ago she was white as the pillow. You are making her worse and worse, I can tell you that."

"And I can tell you that impudent tongue will lose you a good place within the next ten minutes, if it is not bridled and well curbed. I stand no nonsense from servants. Understand that!"

Caroline cast an imploring glance on her maid, who dashed both hands down upon the dress she was folding, and ground her teeth in silent rage, as Olympia finished the threat with a little snap of her slender fingers.

"What was the matter with you? I have had no chance to ask, with your countesses and duchesses swarming about, as if you had some acquaintances that your own mother could not reach! What came over you? I will know!"

"I was faint and frightened," said Caroline, in a low voice. "The whole thing broke me down."

"But there was something else. I will know it!"

Caroline was silent.

"Will you speak, miss?"

"I have nothing more to say. You could see how ill I was."

"But not the cause; it is that I wish to understand."

Caroline sat down on the side of her bed and remained silent, with her eyes on the floor. She had no answer to give.

"Will you tell the truth, or must I search it out? I was watching you; I saw your eyes and the man whose glance struck you down."

Caroline gave a start, and covered her face with both hands.

"What have you in common with young Lord Hilton?"

The hands dropped from that burning face, and two great, dilating eyes, in which the tears stood, were turned on the angry woman.

"Young Lord Hilton! I do not know him."

The words came faintly from the girl's lips—she was bewildered.

"Why did he drop his glass and bend over the box with that look in his face, then? Why did you start and trample back on your train? Why did you give him that piteous glance just as your eyes closed? The audience might not have seen it, but I did, I did."

"I—I do not understand," faltered the girl.

"Do not understand, miss!"

"How should I, not knowing the person you speak of?"

"Don't lie to me, girl! I am an old bird, and have had my own flights too often not to understand a look when I see it. You have met that man before—I don't know where or how, but you have."

"You speak of a person I never saw or heard of," answered the girl, trembling with inward doubt; "how can I tell you anything about him?"

Olympia almost believed her, and, for once, her acute penetration was baffled; but a doubt remained, and she turned to Eliza.

"If you know anything about this, tell me now; it will be better for her and for you."

"I haven't anything to tell, Mrs. Olympia; not a thing!"

"Was any one admitted to the house near Florence?"

"Yes, ma'am, there was."

"Well, a young gentleman?"

"Yes; one young un, and another, older."

"Who were they?"

"The man who taught her how to speak Italian and the music fellow."

"Only those two?"

"Not another soul came or went while we stayed in that house."

"And she conversed with no one on the way?"

"Not a soul."

Olympia turned to go out. She was not convinced; having no truth in herself she found no power of faith in others; but, for the time, the blunt honesty of the servant and proud sincerity of the girl silenced her, and she went out, muttering:

"I shall get at the bottom of it yet."

Then Caroline turned to Eliza:

"Can it be? I saw no other."

"I haven't a doubt of it," said Eliza. "I always mistrusted him for an Englishman."



CHAPTER XX.

LORD HILTON TAKES SUPPER WITH OLYMPIA.

She had fallen ill. The prima donna of a single hour was lying in Olympia's bijou of a house, struggling with a nervous fever. The whole town had been made aware of the mournful fact; for the manager had spread the news broadcast through the journals, thus displacing disappointment with such overwhelming sympathy as the distress of beauty and genius is sure to excite. For more than a week, now, the prevailing topic had been this young girl; first the promise of a brilliant debut, then the momentary triumph and sudden breakdown; now came the news of her illness, true, in so much that she was seriously ill, but exaggerated into a romance which gave her out as dying with a shock of a too sensitive nature.

Olympia sang gloriously to crowded houses. In the romance woven around this young girl her parentage had been hinted at, and the practiced woman of the stage had managed to turn the public rumor into popularity for herself.

She had taken up the opera where Caroline had sunk down, and carried it triumphantly forward, filling the world with admiration of herself and sympathy for the girl.

On the morning when Caroline's illness was made public, some young men were seated in the window of a club-house, and one of them threw down the Times with an impatient movement.

"So we are not to have this new singer again to-morrow night or the next," he said. "Here is Olympia's name in the bills, while the other is ill with something on the brain or nerves."

"All a sham, to enhance the public interest, I dare say," answered another, taking up the journal. "There is nothing these musical people will not do for popularity. But it really was not needed here; the girl has beauty enough to carry her forward, even without her glorious voice. For my part, I am all in a fever to see her again."

A young man sat in this circle, apparently occupied by the panorama drifting through the streets. As the conversation went on, the color came and went in his face, and his eyes began to burn; but he said nothing, while the others went on:

"Who is the girl? what is her real name? Some say she is an American; others, that she is Olympia's own daughter, to whom all names are alike; but, then, where was the woman Olympia born? Now and then a word drops from the pretty lips which is purely American; but then she has been all over the world, and has gathered something from all nations, so that one can never make a true guess about her."

"Does this girl look like her?" inquired one of the young men, who had not been at the opera last night.

"No, not exactly," was the answer. "She is taller, more queenly, in fact; quite a different style. This new girl is superb."

"While Olympia is simply bewildering, changeable as the sky, erratic as a comet. We all understand Olympia."

The young man, who had kept silent till now, joined in the conversation, but his voice was constrained, and a little husky.

"Who is this woman, Olympia?"

The other young men laughed at the question.

"Who is Olympia? Why, the most bewitching, unprincipled, delightful bit of wickedness that has been thrown on the world for years. Don't tell us that you are to learn anything of Olympia at this time."

"I have heard of her, and seen her too, but only as a singer. What I ask is about her life, her principles, her character as a woman."

"And you ask that of us, my dear fellow? What nonsense! Have we not said that she is an actress?"

"Well, what then? An actress may be well-principled, honest, honorable, and modest, too, as any woman living. I asked if this woman, Olympia, the patroness, mother, or what you will, of this new singer, is one of these?"

"Don't ask any of us to endorse or condemn Olympia. We know that she gives the most delicious little suppers in the world, sings like a siren, smiles like an angel, and gets more and more fascinating as she grows older, as fruit ripens with age. No one ever thinks of asking her how old she is, or where she was born. It is enough that her beauty is in its summer, her voice perfect, and that she, who perhaps reigned over our fathers, holds us as her slaves. As for honor, dignity, principle, and all that, my dear fellow, who ever expects such things in a woman like our Olympia?"

"Yet she has had the training of this new singer."

"Training? Why it is said that the girl is really her own daughter."

"I heard you say as much," answered the young man, drily.

Then another voice broke in.

"You seem so much interested in these people, Hilton,—why not go and see for yourself? I will introduce you."

"When?"

"To-night. The Olympia has a little supper after the opera."

"But I thought the young lady was ill."

"Oh! that will make no difference. Olympia is a woman to enjoy herself, if Death sat next door. She will be certain to have her little supper. Will you go? Is it an engagement? If so, I will send her a note."

"Yes, I will go."

That night Olympia held high festival at her pretty house, which overlooked one of the loveliest parks in London. Among her guests was young Lord Hilton, the grandson of one of the proudest old earls in the kingdom.

Olympia was delighted at the presence of this man, who had never before been lured into her circle.

She had another reason for her satisfaction. The look which had disturbed her still preyed on her mind. She had a keen desire to learn how far it had relation to the young girl who lay ill up-stairs. In order, if possible, to inform herself, she selected the young man to sit next her at table, and artfully led the conversation to the night of Caroline's failure.

"You were present," she said, "that night. Was ever success more perfect, or failure more complete? It drove me wild!"

"I was present," said Hilton, very quietly, for he felt her eyes upon him with that slow, sidelong glance that has so much cunning in it, and this put him on his guard.

"She was coming out so magnificently," said Olympia, still vigilant, but with the white lids drooping over her eyes, "when, all of a sudden, her voice broke, and she fell. It must have been something in the audience."

"Perhaps," said the young man; "but what? I was looking at her all the time, and saw nothing. In fact, the house was very still. I have seldom seen a crowd so breathless."

Olympia turned one long glance on that face, and saw it was immovable in all the strong, but finely-cut features. Her suspicions grew weaker now, and she gave her attention more generally to the guests, who were becoming a little impatient of the exclusive attention paid to Lord Hilton; but the craft of this woman was as deep as her feelings were superficial. She could not quite throw off the idea that, in some way, this very person had been the cause of her defeat, and that his visit to her house that night would end in some effort to obtain an interview with the young creature who lay so ill up-stairs.

But she was mistaken. Hilton asked no questions, made no effort to draw her out, but drifted into the general conversation pleasantly enough, until the supper was near its close, and the wines had begun to do their work.

Then the entertainment swept into an orgie; tongues were loosened, eyes brightened and swam in moisture.

Snatches of bacchanalian songs broke from the laughing lips of Olympia.

She had been in a little awe of her new guest; but now her real nature broke out. Her wit sparkled like the champagne with which her red lips were continually moist; her eyes shone under the droop of those long white lids. She grew confidential with the young noble, and was easily led by the cool, versatile man, into conversation that she would have stubbornly avoided earlier in the evening. In one of her bold snatches of song she rounded off with a rollicking impromptu, which carried all the richness and force of her voice with it. This threw the whole company into a tumult of applause, but Hilton sat quietly and looked on, with a smile of supreme contempt quivering about his lips.

"Ha," said Olympia, filling his glass with her own hands, "you neither drink nor care for my singing. It is only the youth and beauty of my daughter that can move Lord Hilton."

Her daughter! The face of the young man turned white, and his lips closed sharply. He looked at the woman by his side, the flushed cheeks, the soft, slumbrous eyes, with absolute repulsion. He hated the very thought that the young creature he had found, like a bird, in that sweet Italian home, could belong in anything to a woman like that. Still, she had, in her reckless inadvertency, called her daughter, and though the very idea drove the blood to his heart, it was only by a cold pallor that the shock this one word had given to him was visible.

"Your daughter is very beautiful," he said, in a low voice.

"Did I call Caroline my daughter? Oh, well, it is no matter—the truth will out sometime, though I would rather wait till her success is assured. When she becomes famous, I shall glory in claiming her; but let me warn you, it is a secret as yet. You will understand. One does not care to own a girl as tall as that while the gloss is on one's hair. Nothing but the most wonderful success will induce me to acknowledge her before the world."

"But if she is your child—"

"I have said that she is my child; but it is a secret, and I did not mean to talk about it. Tell me, now, did you discover no likeness?"

"I did not observe."

"Still, they think her so beautiful."

Lord Hilton made no answer. The conversation had become irksome to him; but some person at the table took the last word from Olympia's lips and repeated it aloud.

"Beautiful! You must be speaking of our new prima donna. In my opinion she is perfect; but you, Lord Hilton, have only seen her from the stage—can form no idea of her loveliness, or of her voice either. There was nothing, the other night, that could compare with her singing at our little supper here. Besides, her beauty, to be appreciated, must be seen close. There is not a fault in her face or form, I can assure you."

Lord Hilton's face flushed angrily, then a slow whiteness crept over it again, and he bent his head, unable to speak. The task he had imposed on himself had become terribly painful.

Olympia was not particularly pleased with this high praise of another, though all her ambitious hopes lay in the success of the person on whom these encomiums were lavished. She began to shake up the sparkles in her wine by swaying the glass to and fro with her hand, and a sullen frown crept over her face.

"She is obstinate as a mule," she muttered; "tall and proud as Lucifer—not at all like me. But they will rave about her beauty, just as if she were more likely to live than to die."

"What did you say?" cried Lord Hilton, sharply; "die! die! Is there any danger? Is she so ill?"

Olympia lifted her sleepy eyelids and flashed a suspicious glance at him.

"Ah!" she exclaimed; "are you there! I thought so."

"You are not answering me," was the cold reply.

"You asked if there existed any danger, and I answer, yes. Did you think we were practicing stage effects in the journals? My poor Caroline is ill—very ill."

"And what made her ill?"

"What made her break down, after such glorious promise? Why, after she sang before my friends here, as fresh as a lark, and drove them all so wild that I, Olympia, was almost overlooked? There never were such expectations; but see how it ended—a total failure, and brain fever."

"Did you say brain fever?"

The young man scarcely spoke above a breath.

"Yes, it is on the brain, or the nerves, I am not quite sure which; but the doctors look terribly grave when I ask them about her, and speak as if she would die."

"Would to God she might die!" exclaimed the young man, trembling from head to foot with a burst of agitation that would not be suppressed longer.

"What—What?" exclaimed Olympia, starting back in affright. The glass fell from her hold, and a rivulet of amber-hued wine flashed along the snow of the table-cloth while she sat gazing upon the young lord.

"Excuse me; I was thinking of something else," he said, with a strong effort of self-control. "May I presume on your favor, and steal away, now? The rest will not miss me, I think."

Olympia nodded her head hastily. The spilled wine was dripping on her dress, so she started up, and Lord Hilton withdrew while she was shaking the drops from its silken folds, and creating general confusion by her laughing outcries.

Lord Hilton looked back as he crossed the passage, and shuddered at the picture of riotous luxury that supper-table presented.

"And she was among them, in a scene like that," he said, as the door closed after him.



CHAPTER XXI.

ON THE WAY TO HOUGHTON CASTLE.

At the junction of the railroad where Margaret changed cars for London, a young man, who had just arrived by the train, took the seat left vacant, and arranged himself comfortably for a protracted journey. Lady Clara watched him with some interest, and more than once caught a glance from his fine eyes as they wandered from the pages of his novel and dwelt upon her own bright face. Clara had been left to her own devices while preparing for her journey, and the antique attendant who had been sent to protect her was grievously scandalized by the jaunty little sailor's hat and double-breasted jacket which she had selected for her travelling costume. But the woman had been bred to almost abject subservience, and had no idea of venturing upon spoken criticism or advice. She was greatly troubled, however, about the impression this singular costume might produce on her old mistress, and felt really shocked when she saw the half-puzzled, half-amused expression of their fellow-passenger's face, as his eyes first encountered the future countess.

By-and-by the old woman fell into deeper consternation, for she began to remember that handsome face, in spite of the brown beard that curved like a bow over the upper lip, and swept down toward his bosom in soft, silken waves that a child would long to bury its little hands in.

"It is Lord Hilton, the grandson of the old earl," she muttered, in silent consternation; "and to see her like this, after all the mistress has been planning, is terrible to think of."

The young man had been so much occupied with the younger and prettier face that any regard for that of the old servant was impossible; but after a while his eyes fell on those hard outlines, and he gave a start of recognition which made the old lady move restlessly in her seat.

"Why, Mrs. Judson, is it possible that I find you so far from home!" he exclaimed. "What can possibly have come over the old lady that she is willing to part with you for a journey long or short?"

"My lady is not so well as we were when you left this neighborhood for foreign parts, my lord. Indeed, I am much afraid you will find her greatly altered. She is now almost entirely confined to her room."

"I am sorry to hear that. Lady Carset is, after all, an aged woman; but it would be mournful to see her broken down. Let me think. She is quite as old, if not older, than my grandfather, is she not?"

"There is not a year between them, I have heard my father say," answered Judson, with a prim consciousness of the delicate subject they had trenched upon; "not that I know of myself."

"Certainly not. But my grandfather—it is some weeks since I heard of him."

"The earl is quite well, my lord. He was at the castle only last week, and spent a long morning with my lady."

"Indeed!" muttered the young man. "That probably accounts for my summons home."

"She had been uncommonly anxious for a long time, and at last sent for him to come and see her."

"Very natural. They are old friends."

"Then, my lord, she sent me on this journey—not that I came alone. The steward is on the train. My lady would not permit her grand-daughter to travel with but one attendant."

"Her grand-daughter?"

"I beg pardon, my lord, but this young lady is Lord Hope's daughter."

Hilton lifted his hat and met Lady Clara's look of smiling surprise with a courteous bend of the head, but her quick eye caught the sudden glow that swept his face, and wondered at it. She wondered still more when a grave expression followed the blush; and, instead of making himself agreeable, he opened the novel that lay on the seat, and seemed to be occupied by its pages, though she remarked, with an inward chuckle, that he never turned a page.

After a while the young man laid down his book, wearily, and Clara saw his chest heave slowly as he breathed a long, deep, but unconscious sigh.

"He is in trouble, like me," was her quick thought. "Perhaps his grandfather is a hard, cruel old man, and drives everything he loves out of doors, without caring how he may feel about it, or perhaps—"

Clara might have gone on conjecturing all sorts of possibilities; but that moment the train stopped at a small town, and close by the station she saw an old woman, with a pile of crimson-cheeked peaches and some pears on a table beside her. An exclamation broke from her, and she leaned eagerly forward just as the carriage-door was unlocked.

"Oh, how splendid! such peaches! such pears!" she exclaimed, feeling in the pocket of her sacque for some loose money, which she usually carried there. "Oh! Margaret—"

Here she turned to the woman next her, and blushed with vexation when she remembered that Margaret was no longer there to take her commands.

"Dear me! I forgot. No matter. Oh, mercy! what have I done?"

She had done nothing but what was most likely to obtain her object, for Lord Hilton had pushed open the door, leaped out, and in a minute or two returned with his hands full of the peaches and pears she had craved so. She was blushing scarlet when he came back and dropped the luscious fruit into her lap, as if they had been acquainted fifty years.

"Oh, you are too kind! I did not mean—I did not expect; but please eat some yourself. Here is a splendid one. Mrs. Judson, take pears or peaches, just as you like—delicious!"

The mellow sound of this last word was uttered as her white teeth sank into the crimson side of a peach, and for the next minute she said nothing, but gave herself up to a child-like ecstasy of enjoyment, for the road was dusty, and this luxurious way of quenching her thirst was far too sweet for words. Besides, her companions were just as pleasantly employed. She saw the young man wiping a drop of amber juice from his beard, and wondered where the Abigail found her self-command as she watched her slowly peeling one of the finest pears with a silver fruit-knife which she took from her traveling satchel.

"Splendid, aint they?" she said, at length, leaning forward and tossing a peach-stone out of the window, while she searched the golden and crimson heap with her disengaged hand for another peach, mellow and juicy as the last. "I had no idea anything on earth could be so delightful. We had breakfast so early, and I do believe I was almost hungry. Oh, how pleasant it must be when one is really famished!"

Here Clara cast another peach-stone through the window, and began to trifle with a pear, just as Judson cut a dainty slice from the fruit she had been preparing. Clara laughed, and reached a handful of fruit over to the gentleman who had made her a gift of the whole. He received it cheerfully—in fact, it was quite impossible for any man under thirty to have spent a half hour in that young girl's society without feeling the heart in his bosom grow softer and warmer.

"What a lovely day it is!" she said, tossing off her hat, and leaning forward, that the wind might blow on her face, which at the moment had all the sweet blooming freshness of a child's. "I wonder if the country is as green and fresh as this, where we are going?"

"Ah, I can answer you. It is far more beautiful. Houghton Castle is among the hills. The park is like a forest, and in the valley you can see a river, winding in and out like gleams of quicksilver. A grand old place is Houghton Castle, let me answer you, Lady Clara."

Clara shook her head, and drew back in her seat.

"I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that the dear old lady could just take the title and the castle with her."

She seemed very much in earnest, and pulled the sailor's hat down over her eyes, to conceal the tears, that were filling them with moisture.

Lord Hilton was surprised. He had certainly intended to interest the young lady by a description of the noble place that would some day be hers.

"Ah, wait till you have seen Houghton. It is one of the finest old strongholds in the kingdom. The only wonder is that Cromwell, that magnificent old hypocrite, happened to spare it. When Lady Carset stands upon her own battlements, she can scarcely see the extent of her lands. A very wealthy lady is the old countess."

Clara all at once began to wonder how it happened that the man was giving her so much knowledge about her own near relative. How did he know that her information did not equal his own?

"You live near Houghton, I suppose?" she said.

"Yes; when the flag is up, we can see it plainly enough from my grandfather's place."

Clara brightened out of her momentary depression. If she were compelled to stay long at Houghton, it would be pleasant to meet this handsome and pleasant young man. How kind he had been about the fruit. With what genial sunshine his eyes dwelt upon her, as he sought to interest her about the place to which she was going. Judson was not so well pleased. She had some doubts of the propriety of permitting these young persons to drop into such familiar conversation, with no more impressive introduction than the chance courtesies of a railroad car.

True, she had known the young man when he was quite a child, and liked him, as well as her prim habits and narrow channel of thought would permit; but nothing in her experience had taught her how to act in an emergency like that.

The young people had given her no opportunity for reflection, but plunged into an acquaintance at once. The whole thing troubled her greatly, but what could she do?

There they sat, face to face, eating peaches together, talking of the scenery, laughing now and then, again and again half quarreling, as if a dozen years had ripened the acquaintance between them. It quite took away her appetite for the fruit, and she clasped her little silver knife, with a helpless sigh, and dropping both hands into her lap, wondered what on earth she could do, and of course did nothing.

The young people forgot all about the prim Abigail, and went on with their conversation; but after awhile a shade of sadness crept over both those young faces. Their hearts wandered off into serious reveries, and for a time they became unconscious of each other's presence.

Clara was thinking of that night, which now seemed far, far away, but was, in fact, scarcely twenty-four hours back in her life—of the words that were spoken, the promises given, and sealed with kisses, which seemed burning on her lips even yet.

Oh! where was he now, the man whom she loved so entirely, and whose humiliation made her heart ache, and burn with sorrow and wrath every time she thought of it? Would he hold to his faith with her, after such scornful treatment from her father? Where would he go? Where was he now? He had been a wanderer always, and had found himself sufficient to himself.

After he saw her the first idea of rest and a permanent home had opened new vistas of hope to him. He had found the one thing that had hitherto been denied to his existence—found it only to be driven from the light that had dawned upon him, like a trespassing dog.

Clara's heart swelled as she thought of all this, and all at once the prim Abigail was astonished out of all propriety by a burst of sobs from the corner in which Clara had retreated.

The young man looked up and came out of his own melancholy thoughts, just as Mrs. Judson had drawn forth her smelling-bottle and was pressing it upon the girl, who averted her face and sobbed out, piteously:

"Oh! let me alone—please let me alone!"

Judson retreated backward to her place in the opposite corner, while the young man motioned her to remain quiet, and let the pretty creature sob out her grief unmolested.

At last Clara had wept her sudden burst of sorrow away, and became conscious of her own strange conduct. She pushed back her hat, drew the soft gauze streamers across her eyes, and burst into a sobbing laugh, exquisitely childlike, but which Judson could not in the least understand.

"I'm afraid I am getting homesick," she said. "I never was so far from Oakhurst before, and, until this morning, you know, I had never seen either of your faces, but all that need not make such an absurd baby of me."

Mrs. Judson unfolded a fine pocket handkerchief and held it toward the girl, with the most anxious look possible to imagine.

"Wipe your eyes, dear young lady, wipe your eyes. We are coming to Houghton, and I would not have you seen with that face for the world."

"Yes," said the young man, looking out, "yonder is Houghton Castle."



CHAPTER XXII.

THE OLD COUNTESS.

"I will see her now, Judson." The old lady of Houghton came out from her dressing-room as she said this.

She had a little cap of gossamer lace and silver ribbon on that shaking head, and tied a girdle of silken cord around the floating folds of her cashmere morning robe, which would better have concealed the attenuated figure underneath, had it been permitted to float loose, as it had done. But the dainty old lady still felt a stir of feminine pride in her toilet, and though the exertion took away all her strength, she had made these pretty additions to her dress, rather than meet her grandchild, for the first time, in the disarray of an invalid.

"I will see her now, Judson."

She repeated this, panting for breath, as she sank down to the couch in her favorite tower-chamber, and took the delicate handkerchief of lace and cambric, on which Judson had just dropped some pungent perfume.

Judson left the room; directly the red curtain parted again, and behind the grim waiting-maid came a young girl, flushed with excitement and rosy with perfect health, but so strangely dressed that the old countess uttered a little exclamation of surprise, mingled perhaps with a little displeasure. The jaunty hat with its blue streamers, the double-breasted jacket, glittering with buttons, took away her breath.

Lady Clara hesitated a moment, took off her hat hurriedly, like a naughty boy, and came forward with an easy step, as if she had been in a forest, and the high heels of her pretty boots trampling down wood moss, instead of the tangle of flowers in that sumptuous carpet.

The old lady sat gazing on her full half a minute. The girl flushed crimson under the steady look of those brown eyes, turned around and gave her hat a toss to Judson, who let it fall in her astonishment at the audacious act, and came forward, half-indignant, half-crying.

"Grandmother!"

As that fresh, young voice fell upon her, the old countess reached forth her hand.

"My child!"

The old voice was faint, but kind. Lovely as that young creature was, she brought sadness and disappointment with her. The prejudice of years is not easily swept away from the mind of an aged woman, whatever her strength of character may be. This girl was the step-daughter of the governess she had so long detested, and she seemed to bring the atmosphere of a hated place with her. Perhaps she had expected a more stately bearing in her daughter's child.

A chair had been drawn up to the couch by the thoughtful Judson, and the countess made a gentle motion that her grand-daughter should occupy it.

Clara sat down, feeling nervous and very miserable; for those eyes followed her with mournful curiosity, which the high-spirited girl mistook for criticism.

"I dare say that I am not so handsome or so good as my poor mother was, but she loved me dearly, everybody says that, and for her sake you might be glad I am here, grandmother, especially as you sent for me."

As Clara said this, tears swelled from those blue eyes that had been slowly filling, and dropped to her cheeks like rain upon damask roses. This appeal, so childlike in its passion, lifted the old countess out of her seeming apathy. She arose, laid her hands on that young head and kissed the flushed forehead.

The moment Clara felt the touch of those tender lips, she threw both arms around the shadowy old woman, and broke forth.

"Oh, grandmother, grandmother, don't stop to think about it, but let me love you! I want to so much, for without that I shall be awfully homesick."

The old lady's heart beat as it had not done for years. Never, since her only child went forth from those proud walls a bride, had any one dared to claim her love, or speak to her as one free soul speaks to another. In the haughty isolation of her rank, she had almost forgotten that equality could ever be claimed of her. The very audacity of this cry for affection stirred the old lady's pride like a trumpet.

"There speaks the Carset blood," she said, appealing to the grim hand-maiden who stood by; "always ready to give and bold to claim just rights. My grandchild is of the true stock, you see. God bless her and love her as I will!"

"There, now, that is very kind of you, grandmamma, and you are just the dearest, sweetest and queenliest lady that ever made a poor girl happy, when she was, in fact, homesick as death. The truth is, mamma Rachael spoils me so completely with her great love, and—but, oh! I forgot you can't bear mamma Rachael. Dear me! I am always getting into scrapes. Does that belong to the Carset blood, I wonder?"

The waiting-maid stood petrified when the old countess broke into a soft, pleasant laugh, at what she deemed the insolent familiarity of this speech. "Did you hear that?" she exclaimed, wiping the moisture from her eyes, and increasing the vibrations of her head.

"Who but a Carset would dare ask such questions? Getting into scrapes, child; why there never was a family so reckless or so independent. That is, I speak of the males, remember! the ladies of the house—but you will see in the picture gallery, and judge for yourself. No commonplace women can be found among the Carset ladies. Some of them, my child, have intermarried with Royalty itself. You are the last of the line, Lady Clara."

Clara turned pale. She thought of Hepworth Closs, and how far he was removed from royalty; but with no thought of faithlessness in her heart. She was very sure that the next Lord of Houghton would wear neither crown or coronet—but, like a wise girl, she sat still and said nothing.

The old countess was very feeble. Notwithstanding the excitement, which left a tremulous pink on her withered cheeks, the strength began to fail from her limbs. Gathering up her feet upon the couch, she closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, Lady Clara was bending toward her with a look of tender anxiety that went to the old lady's heart. A soft smile stole over her lips, and she held out her hand.

"Go to your room, my child."

Clara stooped down and kissed that delicate mouth with her own blooming lips.

"Sleep well, grandmother," she whispered; "I will come back again by-and-by, after I have seen the other ladies in the picture-gallery."

Clara picked up her hat, and was going out on tip-toe, when Judson laid a long, lean hand on her arm, and addressed her in one of those shrill whispers, which penetrate more surely than words.

"Don't wear that thing into my lady's presence again," she said. "Did you see her eyes, when they first fell upon it?"

"What, my poor little hat? Has grandmamma really taken a dislike to that? I am so sorry."

The old countess opened her eyes, and rose on one elbow among her cushions.

"Let the child alone, Judson. The hat is well enough, and she looked very pretty in it."

"Nobby, isn't it, grandmamma?" said Clara, tossing the hat to her head, and shaking down the blue streamers; "and I'm so fond of it."

"Judson," said the old countess, "do not attempt to judge for your mistress at this time of day. No one but a Carset could wear a thing like that, without looking vulgar; but you saw what an air she gave it."

Judson was astounded. She had absolutely trembled, when that round hat came into the room, in defiance of the faint protest which she had ventured to make.

"I was afraid, my lady, that a dress like that might set you against the young lady."

"Set me against my own grandchild, and she so unmistakably a Carset! I am surprised, Judson."

"I am sure there was no idea in my mind of giving offense. She is a pretty young lady enough."

"Pretty! Are you speaking of that charming young creature, with the air of a duchess and the heart of a child, only to say that she is pretty?"

"Did I say pretty, my lady, when I think her so beautiful?"

"All the more beautiful, Judson, for not being so tall as some of the ladies of our house. She owes nothing to size. Perhaps you have remarked, Judson, that those of the purest Carset blood have never been large women."