But it must not be supposed that, in authorising Lionel to undertake the embassy to Waife, or in the anticipation of what might pass between Waife and himself should the former consent to revisit the old house from which he had been so scornfully driven, Darrell had altered, or dreamed of altering, one iota of his resolves against a Union between Lionel and Sophy. True, Lionel had induced him to say—

"Could it be indisputably proved that no drop of Jasper Losely's blood were in this girl's veins—that she were the lawful child of honest parents, however humble—my right to stand between her and yourself would cease." But a lawyer's experience is less credulous than a lover's hope. And to Darrell's judgment it was wholly improbable that any honest parents, however humble, should have yielded their child to a knave like Jasper, while it was so probable that his own persuasion was well founded, and that she was Jasper's daughter, though not Matilda's.

The winter evening had closed, George and Darrell were conversing in the library; the theme, of course, was Waife; and Darrell listened with vivid interest to George's graphic accounts of the old man's gentle playful humour—with its vague desultory undercurrents of poetic fancy or subtle wisdom. But when George turned to speak of Sophy's endearing, lovely nature, and, though cautiously, to intimate an appeal on her behalf to Darrell's sense of duty, or susceptibility to kindly emotions, the proud man's brow be came knit, and his stately air evinced displeasure. Fortunately, just at a moment when further words might have led to a permanent coldness between men so disposed to esteem each other, they heard the sound of wheels on the frosty ground—the shrill bell at the porch-door.



CHAPTER V.

THE VAGABOND RECEIVED IN THE MANOR-HOUSE AT FAWLEY.

Very lamely, very feebly, declining Lionel's arm, and leaning heavily on his crutch-stick, Waife crossed the threshold of the Manor-house. George sprang forward to welcome him. The old man looked on the preacher's face with a kind of wandering uncertainty in his eye, and George saw that his cheek was very much flushed. He limped on through the hall, still leaning on his staff, George and Lionel at either side. A pace or two, and there stood Darrell! Did he, the host, not spring forward to offer an arm, to extend a hand? No; such greeting in Darrell would have been but vulgar courtesy. As the old man's eye rested on him, the superb gentleman bowed low—bowed as we bow to kings!

They entered the library. Darrell made a sign to George and Lionel. They understood the sign, and left visitor and host alone.

Lionel drew George into the quaint old dining-hall. "I am very uneasy about our dear friend," he said, in agitated accents. "I fear that I have had too little consideration for his years and his sensitive nature, and that, what with the excitement of the conversation that passed between us and the fatigue of the journey, his nerves have broken down. We were not half-way on the road, and as we had the railway-carriage to ourselves, I was talking to him with imprudent earnestness, when he began to tremble all over, and went into an hysterical paroxysm of mingled tears and laughter. I wished to stop at the next station, but he was not long recovering, and insisted on coming on. Still, as we approached Fawley, after muttering to himself, as far as I could catch his words, incoherently, he sank into a heavy state of lethargy or stupor, resting his head on my shoulder. It was with difficulty I roused him when he entered the park."

"Poor old man," said George feelingly; "no doubt the quick succession of emotions through which he has lately passed has overcome him for the time. But the worst is now passed. His interview with Darrell must cheer his heart and soothe his spirits; and that interview over, we must give him all repose and nursing. But tell me what passed between you—if he was very indignant that I could not suffer men like you and my uncle Alban and Guy Darrell to believe him a picklock and a thief."

Lionel began his narrative, but had not proceeded far in it before Darrell's voice was heard shouting loud, and the library bell rang violently.

They hurried into the library, and Lionel's fears were verified. Waife was in strong convulsions; and as these gradually ceased, and he rested without struggle, half on the floor, half in Darrell's arms, he was evidently unconscious of all around him. His eye was open, but fixed in a glassy stare. The servants thronged into the room; one was despatched instantly to summon the nearest medical practitioner. "Help me—George—Lionel," said Darrell, "to bear him up-stairs. Mills, light us." When they reached the landing-place, Mills asked, "Which room, sir?" Darrell hesitated an instant, then his grey eye lit into its dark fire. "My father's room—he shall rest on my father's bed."

When the surgeon arrived, he declared Waife to be in imminent danger—pressure on the brain. He prescribed prompt and vigorous remedies, which had indeed before the surgeon's arrival suggested themselves to, and been partly commenced by, Darrell, who had gone through too many varieties of experience to be unversed in the rudiments of leechcraft. "If I were in my guest's state," asked Darrell of the practitioner, "what would you do?"

"Telegraph instantly for Dr. F———."

"Lionel—you hear? Take my own horse—he will carry you like the wind. Off to ————; it is the nearest telegraph station."

Darrell did not stir from Waife's bedside all that anxious eight. Dr. F——— arrived at morning. He approved of all that had been done, but nevertheless altered the treatment; and after staying some hours, said to Darrell: "I am compelled to leave you for the present, nor could I be of use in staying. I have given all the aid in my power to Nature—we must leave the rest to Nature herself. That fever—those fierce throes and spasms—are but Nature's efforts to cast off the grasp of the enemy we do not see. It now depends on what degree of rallying power be left to the patient. Fortunately his frame is robust, yet not plethoric. Do you know his habits?"

"I know," answered George—"most temperate, most innocent."

"Then, with constant care, minute attention to my directions, he may recover."

"If care and attention can save my guest's life, he shall not die," said Darrell.

The physician looked at the speaker's pale face and compressed lips. "But, Mr. Darrell, I must not have you on my hands too. You must not be out of your bed again tonight."

"Certainly not," said George. "I shall watch alone."

"No," cried Lionel, "that is my post too."

"Pooh!" said Darrell; "young men so far from Death are not such watchful sentinels against his stroke as men of my years, who have seen him in all aspects; and, moreover, base indeed in the host who deserts his own guest's sick-chamber. Fear not for me, doctor; no man needs sleep less than I do."

Dr. F——— slid his hand on Darrell's pulse. "Irregular—quick; but what vitality! what power!—a young man's pulse. Mr. Darrell, many years for your country's service are yet in these lusty beats."

Darrell breathed his chronic sigh, and turning back to Waife's bedside, said to the doctor, "When will you come again?"

"The day after to-morrow."

When the doctor returned, Waife was out of immediate danger. Nature, fortified by the "temperate, innocent habits" which husband up her powers, had dislodged, at least for a time, her enemy; but the attack was followed by extreme debility. It was clear that for days, perhaps even weeks to come, the vagrant must remain a prisoner under Darrell's roof-tree.

Lionel had been too mindful of Sophy's anxiety to neglect writing to Lady Montfort the day after Waife's seizure. But he could not find the heart to state the old man's danger; and with the sanguine tendencies of his young nature, even when at the worst he clung to belief in the best. He refrained from any separate and private communication of Waife's state to Lady Montfort, lest the sadness it would not fail to occasion her should be perceptible to Sophy, and lead her to divine the cause. So he contented himself with saying that Waife had accompanied him to Mr. Darrell's, and would be detained there, treated with all kindness and honour, for some days.

Sophy's mind was relieved by this intelligence, but it filled her with wonder and conjecture. That Waife, who had so pertinaciously refused to break bread as a guest under any man's roof-tree, should be for days receiving the hospitality of Lionel Haughton's wealthy and powerful kinsman, was indeed mysterious. But whatever brought Waife and Lionel thus in confidential intercourse could not but renew yet more vividly the hopes she had been endeavouring of late to stifle. And combining together many desultory remembrances of words escaped unawares from Lionel, from Lady Montfort, from Waife himself, the truth (of which her native acuteness had before admitted glimpses) grew almost clear to her. Was not Mr. Darrell that relation to her lost mother upon whom she had claims not hitherto conceded? Lionel and Waife both with that relation now! Surely the clouds that had rested on her future were admitting the sun through their opening rents—and she blushed as she caught its ray.



CHAPTER VI.

INDIVIDUAL CONCESSIONS ARE LIKE POLITICAL; WHEN YOU ONCE BEGIN, THERE IS NO SAYING WHERE YOU WILL STOP.

Waife's first words on recovering consciousness were given to thoughts of Sophy. He had promised her to return, at farthest, the next day; she would be so uneasy he must get up—he must go at once. When he found his strength would not suffer him to rise, he shed tears. It was only very gradually and at intervals that he became acquainted with the length and severity of his attack, or fully sensible that he was in Darrell's house; that that form, of which he had retained vague dreamy reminiscences, hanging over his pillow, wiping his brow, and soothing him with the sweetest tones of the sweet human voice—that that form, so genial, so brotherlike, was the man who had once commanded him not to sully with his presence a stainless home.

All that had passed within the last few days was finally made clear to him in a short, unwitnessed, touching conversation with his host; after which, however, he became gradually worse; his mind remaining clear, but extremely dejected; his bodily strength evidently sinking. Dr. F——— was again summoned in haste. That great physician was, as every great physician should be, a profound philosopher, though with a familiar ease of manner, and a light off-hand vein of talk, which made the philosophy less sensible to the taste than any other ingredient in his pharmacopoeia. Turning everybody else out of the room, he examined his patient alone—sounded the old man's vital organs, with ear and with stethoscope—talked to him now on his feelings, now on the news of the day, and then stepped out to Darrell.

"Something on the heart, my dear sir; I can't get at it; perhaps you can. Take off that something, and the springs will react, and my patient will soon recover. All about him sound as a rock—but the heart; that has been horribly worried; something worries it now. His heart may be seen in his eye. Watch his eye; it is missing some face it is accustomed to see."

Darrell changed colour. He stole back into Waife's room, and took the old man's hand. Waife returned the pressure, and said: "I was just praying for you—and—and—I am sinking fast. Do not let me die, sir, without wishing poor Sophy a last good-bye!"

Darrell passed back to the landing-place where George and Lionel were standing, while Dr. F———- was snatching a hasty refreshment in the library before his return to town. Darrell laid his hand on Lionel's shoulder. "Lionel, you must go back to London with Dr. F———-. I cannot keep you here longer. I want your room."

"Sir," said Lionel, aghast, "while Waife is still so ill! You cannot be thus unkind."

"Inconsiderate egotist! would you deprive the old man of a presence dearer to him than yours? George, you will go too, but you will return. You told me, yesterday, that your wife was in London for a few days; entreat her to accompany you hither; entreat her to bring with her the poor young lady whom my guest pines to see at his bedside—the face that his eye misses."



CHAPTER VII.

SOPHY, DARRELL, AND THE FLUTE-PLAYER. DARRELL. PREPARES A SURPRISE FOR WAIFE.

Sophy is come. She has crossed that inexorable threshold. She is a guest in the house which rejects her as a daughter. She has been there some days. Waife revived at the first sight of her tender face. He has left his bed; can move for some hours a day into an adjoining chamber, which has been hastily arranged for his private sitting-room; and can walk its floors with a step that grows daily firmer in the delight of leaning on Sophy's arm.

Since the girl's arrival, Darrell has relaxed his watch over the patient. He never now enters his guest's apartment without previous notice; and, by that incommunicable instinct which passes in households between one silent breast and another, as by a law equally strong to attract or repel—here drawing together, there keeping apart—though no rule in either case has been laid down;—by virtue, I say, of that strange intelligence, Sophy is not in the old man's room when Darrell enters. Rarely in the twenty-four hours do the host and the fair young guest encounter. But Darrell is a quick and keen observer. He has seen enough of Sophy to be sensible of her charms—to penetrate into her simple natural loveliness of character—to feel a deep interest in her, and a still deeper pity for Lionel. Secluding himself as much as possible in his private room, or in his leafless woods, his reveries increase in gloom. Nothing unbends his moody brow like Fairthorn's flute or Fairthorn's familiar converse.

It has been said before that Fairthorn knew his secrets. Fairthorn had idolised Caroline Lyndsay. Fairthorn was the only being in the world to when Guy Darrell could speak of Caroline Lyndsay—to whom he could own the unconquerable but unforgiving love which had twice driven him from the social world. Even to Fairthorn, of course, all could not be told. Darrell could not speak of the letter he had received at Malta, nor of Caroline's visit to him at Fawley; for to do so, even to Fairthorn, was like a treason to the dignity of the Beloved. And Guy Darrell might rail at her inconstancy—her heartlessness; but to boast that she had lowered herself by the proffers that were dictated by repentance, Guy Darrell could not do that;—he was a gentleman. Still there was much left to say. He could own that he thought she would now accept his hand; and when Fairthorn looked happy at that thought, and hinted at excuses for her former fickleness, it was a great relief to Darrell to fly into a rage; but if the flute-player meanly turned round and became himself Caroline's accuser, then poor Fairthorn was indeed frightened; for Darrell's trembling lip or melancholy manner overwhelmed the assailant with self-reproach, and sent him sidelong into one of his hidden coverts.

But at this moment Fairthorn was a support to him under other trials—Fairthorn, who respects as he does, as no one else ever can, the sanctity of the Darrell line—who would shrink like himself from the thought that the daughter of Jasper Losely, and in all probability not a daughter of Matilda Darrell, should ever be mistress of that ancestral hall, lowly and obscure and mouldering though it be—and that the child of a sharper, a thief, a midnight assassin, should carry on the lineage of knights and warriors in whose stainless scutcheons, on many a Gothic tomb or over the portals of ruined castles, was impaled the heraldry of Brides sprung from the loins of Lion Kings! Darrell, then, doing full justice to all Sophy's beauty and grace, purity and goodness, was more and more tortured by the conviction that she could never be wife to the man on whom, for want of all nearer kindred, would devolve the heritage of the Darrell name.

On the other hand, Sophy's feelings towards her host were almost equally painful and embittered. The tenderness and reverence that he had showed to her beloved grandfather, the affecting gratitude with which Waife spoke of him, necessarily deepened her prepossessions in his favour as Lionel's kinsman; and though she saw him so sparingly, still, when they did meet, she had no right to complain of his manner. It might be distant, taciturn; but it was gentle, courteous—the manner which might be expected, in a host of secluded habits, to a young guest from whose sympathies he was removed by years, but to whose comforts he was unobtrusively considerate—whose wishes were delicately forestalled. Yet was this all that her imagination had dared to picture on entering those grey walls? Where was the evidence of the relationship of which she had dreamed?—where a single sign that she was more in that house than a mere guest?—where, alas! a token that even Lionel had named her to his kinsman, and that for Lionel's sake that kinsman bade her welcome? And Lionel too—gone the very day before she arrived! That she learned incidentally from the servant who showed her into the room. Gone, and not addressed a line to herself, though but to condole with her on her grandfather's illness, or congratulate her that the illness had spared the life! She felt wounded to the very core. As Waife's progressive restoration allowed her thoughts more to revert to so many causes for pain and perplexity, the mystery of all connected with her own and Waife's sojourn under that roof baffled her at tempts at conjecture. The old man did not volunteer explanations. Timidly she questioned him; but his nerves yet were so unstrung, and her questions so evidently harassed him, that she only once made that attempt to satisfy her own bewilderment, and smiled as if contented when he said, after a long pause: "Patience yet, my child; let me get a little stronger. You see Mr. Darrell will not suffer me to talk with him on matters that must be discussed with him before I go; and then—and then—Patience till then, Sophhy."

Neither George nor his wife gave her any clue to the inquiries that preyed upon her mind. The latter, a kind, excellent woman, meekly devoted to her husband, either was, or affected to be, in ignorance of the causes that had led. Waife to Fawley, save very generally that Darrell had once wronged him by an erring judgment, and had hastened to efface that wrong. And then she kissed Sophy fondly, and told her that brighter days were in store for the old man and herself. George said with more authority—the authority of the priest: "Ask no questions. Time, that solves all riddles, is hurrying on, and Heaven directs its movements."

Her very heart was shut up, except where it could gush forth—nor even then with full tide—in letters to Lady Montfort. Caroline had heard from George's wife, with intense emotion, that Sophy was summoned to Darrell's house, the gravity of Waife's illness being considerately suppressed. Lady Montfort could but suppose that Darrell's convictions had been shaken—his resolutions softened; that he sought an excuse to see Sophy, and judge of her himself. Under this impression, in parting with her young charge, Caroline besought Sophy to write to her constantly and frankly. Sophy felt all inexpressible relief in this correspondence. But Lady Montfort in her replies was not more communicative than Waife or the Morleys; only she seemed more thoughtfully anxious that Sophy should devote her self to the task of propitiating her host's affections. She urged her to try and break through his reserve—see more of him; as if that were possible! And her letters were more filled with questions about Darrell than even with admonitions and soothings to Sophy. The letters that arrived at Fawley were brought in a bag, which Darrell opened; but Sophy noticed that it was with a peculiar compression of lip, and a marked change of colour, that he had noticed the handwriting on Lady Montfort's first letter to her, and that after that first time her letters were not enclosed in the bag, but came apart, and were never again given to her by her host.

Thus passed days in which Sophy's time was spent chiefly in Waife's sick-room. But now he is regaining strength hourly. To his sitting-room comes George frequently to relieve Sophy's watch. There, once a day, comes Guy Darrell, and what then passed between the two men none witnessed. In these hours Waife insisted upon Sophy's going forth for air and exercise. She is glad to steal out alone-steal down by the banks of the calm lake, or into the gloom of the mournful woods. Here she not unfrequently encounters Fairthorn, who, having taken more than ever to the flute, is driven more than ever to outdoor rambles, for he has been cautioned not to indulge in his melodious resource within doors lest he disturb the patient.

Fairthorn and Sophy thus made acquaintance, distant and shy at first on both sides; but it gradually became more frank and cordial. Fairthorn had an object not altogether friendly in encouraging this intimacy. He thought, poor man, that he should be enabled to extract from Sophy some revelations of her early life, which would elucidate, not in favour of her asserted claims, the mystery that hung upon her parentage. But had Dick Fairthorn been the astutest of diplomatists, in this hope he would have been equally disappointed. Sophy had nothing to communicate. Her ingenuousness utterly baffled the poor flute-player. Out of an innocent, unconscious kind of spite, on ceasing to pry into Sophy's descent, he began to enlarge upon the dignity of Darrell's. He inflicted on her the long-winded genealogical memoir, the recital of which had, on a previous occasion, so nearly driven Lionel Haughton from Fawley. He took her to see the antiquary's grave; he spoke to her, as they stood there, of Darrell's ambitious boyhood—his arid, laborious manhood—his determination to restore the fallen line—the very vow he had made to the father he had so pityingly revered. He sought to impress on her the consciousness that she was the guest of one who belonged to a race with whom spotless honour was the all in all; and who had gone through life with bitter sorrows, but reverencing that race, and vindicating that honour; Fairthorn's eye would tremble—his eyes flash on her while he talked. She, poor child, could not divine why; but she felt that he was angry with her—speaking at her. In fact, Fairthorn's prickly tongue was on the barbed point of exclaiming: "And how dare you foist yourself into this unsullied lineage—how dare you think that the dead would not turn in their graves, ere they would make room in the vault of the Darrells for the daughter of a Jasper Losely!" But though she could not conceive the musician's covert meaning in these heraldic discourses, Sophy, with a justness of discrimination that must have been intuitive, separated from the more fantastic declamations of the grotesque genealogist that which was genuine and pathetic in the single image of the last descendant in a long and gradually falling race, lifting it up once more into power and note on toiling shoulders, and standing on the verge of age, with the melancholy consciousness that the effort was successful only for his fleeting life; that, with all his gold, with all his fame, the hope which had achieved alike the gold and the fame was a lying mockery, and that name and race would perish with himself, when the earth yawned for him beside the antiquary's grave.

And these recitals made her conceive a more soft and tender interest in Guy Darrell than she had before admitted; they accounted for the mournfulness on his brow; they lessened her involuntary awe of that stateliness of bearing which before had only chilled her as the evidence of pride.

While Fairthorn and Sophy thus matured acquaintance, Darrell and Waife were drawing closer and closer to each other. Certainly no one would be predisposed to suspect any congeniality of taste, intellect, experience, or emotion, between two men whose lives had been so widely different—in whose faults or merits the ordinary observer would have seen nothing but antagonism and contrast. Unquestionably their characters were strikingly dissimilar, yet there was that in each which the other recognised as familiar to his own nature. Each had been the victim of his heart; each had passed over the ploughshare of self-sacrifice. Darrell had offered up his youth—Waife his age; Darrell to a Father and the unrequiting Dead—Waife to a Son whose life had become his terror. To one man, NAME had been an idol; to the other, NAME had been a weed cast away into the mire. To the one man, unjoyous, evanescent glory—to the other, a shame that had been borne with a sportive cheerfulness, dashed into sorrow only when the world's contumely threatened to despoil Affection of its food. But there was something akin in their joint experience of earthly vanities;—so little solace in worldly honours to the triumphant Orator—so little of misery to the vagrant Mime while his conscience mutely appealed to Heaven from the verdict of his kind. And as beneath all the levity and whim of the man reared and nurtured, and fitted by his characteristic tendencies, to view life through its humours, not through its passions, there still ran a deep undercurrent of grave and earnest intellect and feeling—so too, amidst the severer and statelier texture of the once ambitious, laborious mind, which had conducted Darrell to renown—amidst all that gathered-up intensity of passion, which admitted no comedy into Sorrow, and saw in Love but the aspect of Fate—amidst all this lofty seriousness of soul, there was yet a vivid capacity of enjoyment—those fine sensibilities to the pleasurable sun-rays of life, which are constitutional to all GENIUS, no matter how grave its vocations. True, affliction at last may dull them, as it dulls all else that we took from Nature when she equipped us for life. Yet, in the mind of Darrell, affliction had shattered the things most gravely coveted, even more than it had marred its perceptive acknowledgment of the sympathies between fancies that move to smiles, and thoughts that bequeath solemn lessons, or melt to no idle tears. Had Darrell been placed amidst the circumstances that make happy the homes of earnest men, Darrell would have been mirthful; had Waife been placed amongst the circumstances that concentrate talent, and hedge round life with trained thicksets and belting laurels, Waife would have been grave.

It was not in the earlier conferences that took place in Waife's apartment that the subject which had led the old man to Fawley was brought into discussion. When Waife had sought to introduce it—when, after Sophy's arrival, he had looked wistfully into Darrell's face, striving to read there the impression she had created, and, unable to discover, had begun, with tremulous accents, to reopen the cause that weighed on him—Darrell stopped him at once. "Hush—not yet; remember that it was in the very moment you first broached this sorrowful topic, on arriving here, and perceived how different the point of view from which we two must regard it, that your nerves gave way—your illness rushed on you. Wait, not only till you are stronger, but till we know each other better. This subject is one that it becomes us to treat with all the strength of our reason—with all the calm which either can impose upon the feelings that ruffle judgment. At present, talk we of all matters except that, which I promise you shall be fairly discussed at last."

Darrell found, however, that his most effective diversion from the subject connected with Sophy was through another channel in the old man's affections, hopes, and fears. George Morley, in repeating the conversation he had overheard between Waife and Jasper, had naturally, while clearing the father, somewhat softened the bravado and cynicism of the son's language, and more than somewhat brightened the touches of natural feeling by which the bravado and cynicism had been alternated. And Darrell had sufficient magnanimity to conquer the repugnance with which he approached a name associated with so many dark and hateful memories, and, avoiding as much as possible distinct reference to Jasper's past life, to court a consultation on the chances of saving from the worst the life that yet remained. With whom else, indeed, than Jasper's father could Darrell so properly and so unreservedly discuss a matter in which their interest and their fear were in common?—As though he were rendering some compensation to Waife for the disappointment he would experience when Sophy's claims came to be discussed—if he could assist in relieving the old man's mind as to the ultimate fate of the son for whom he had made so grand a sacrifice, Darrell spoke to Waife somewhat in detail of the views with which he had instructed Colonel Morley to find out and to treat with Jasper. He heard from the Colonel almost daily. Alban had not yet discovered Jasper, nor even succeeded in tracing Mrs. Crane! But an account of Jasper's farewell visit to that den of thieves, from which he had issued safe and triumphant, had reached the ears of a detective employed by the Colonel, and on tolerably good terms with Cutts; and it was no small comfort to know that Jasper had finally broken with those miscreant comrades, and had never again been seen in their haunts. As Arabella had introduced herself to Alban by her former name, and neither he nor Darrell was acquainted with that she now bore, and as no questions on the subject could be put to Waife during the earlier stages of his illness, so it was several days before the Colonel had succeeded in tracing her out as Mrs. Crane of Podden Place—a discovery effected by a distant relation to whom he had been referred at the famous school of which Arabella had been the pride, and who was no doubt the owner of those sheepskin account-books by which the poor grim woman had once vainly sought to bribe Jasper into honest work. But the house in Podden Place was shut up—not a soul in charge of it. The houses immediately adjoining it were tenantless. The Colonel learned, however, from a female servant in an opposite house, that several days ago she had seen a tall, powerful-looking man enter Mrs. Crane's street-door; that she had not seen him quit it; and that some evenings afterwards, as this servant was closing up the house in which she served, she had remarked a large private carriage driving away from Mrs. Crane's door; that it was too dark to see who were in the carriage, but she had noticed a woman whom she felt fully sure was Mrs. Crane's servant, Bridgett Greggs, on the box beside the coachman.

Alban had been to the agent employed by Mrs. Crane in the letting of her houses, but had not there gained any information. The Colonel believed that Mrs. Crane had succeeded in removing Jasper from London—had, perhaps, accompanied him abroad. If with her, at all events for the present he was safe from the stings of want, and with one who had sworn to save him from his own guilty self. If, however, still in England, Alban had no doubt, sooner or later, to hunt him up.

Upon the whole, this conjectural information, though unsatisfactory, allayed much anxiety. Darrell made the most of it in his representations to Waife. And the old man, as we know, was one not hard to comfort, never quarrelling irrevocably with Hope.

And now Waife is rapidly recovering. Darrell, after spending the greater part of several days, intent upon a kind of study from which he had been estranged for many years, takes to frequent absences for the whole day; goes up to London by the earliest train, comes back by the latest. George Morley also goes to London for a few hours. Darrell, on returning, does not allude to the business which took him to the metropolis; neither does George, but the latter seems unusually animated and excited. At length, after one of these excursions, so foreign to his habits, he and George enter together the old man's apartment not long before the early hour at which the convalescent retires to rest. Sophy was seated on the footstool at Waife's knee, reading the Bible to him, his hand resting lightly on her bended head. The sight touched both George and Darrell; but Darrell of the two was the more affected. What young, pure voice shall read to HIM the Book of Hope in the evening of lonely age? Sophy started in some confusion, and as, in quitting the room, she passed by Darrell, he took her hand gently, and scanned her features more deliberately, more earnestly than he had ever yet seemed to do; then he sighed, and dropped the hand, murmuring, "Pardon me." Was he seeking to read in that fair face some likeness to the Darrell lineaments? If he had found it, what then? But when Sophy was gone, Darrell came straight to Waife with a cheerful brow—with a kindling eye.

"William Losely," said he.

"Waife, if you please, sir," interrupted the old man. "William Losely," repeated Darrell, "justice seeks to repair, so far as, alas! it now can, the wrongs inflicted on the name of William Losely. Your old friend Alban Morley supplying me with the notes he had made in the matter of your trial, I arranged the evidence they furnished. The Secretary for the Home Department is one of my most intimate political friends—a man of humanity—of sense. I placed that evidence before him. I, George, and Mr. Hartopp, saw him after he had perused it—"

"My—son—Lizzy's son!"

"His secret will be kept. The question was not who committed the act for which you suffered, but whether you were clearly, incontestably, innocent of the act, and, in pleading guilty, did but sublimely bear the penalty of another. There will be no new trial—there are none who would prosecute. I bring back to you the Queen's free pardon under the Great Seal. I should explain to you that this form of the royal grace is so rarely given that it needed all the strength and affecting circumstance of your peculiar case to justify the Home Secretary in listening, not only to the interest I could bring to bear in your favour, but to his own humane inclinations. The pardon under the Great Seal differs from an ordinary pardon. It purges the blood from the taint of felony—it remits all the civil disabilities which the mere expiry of a penal sentence does not remove. In short, as applicable to your case, it becomes virtually a complete and formal attestation of your innocence. Alban Morley will take care to apprise those of your old friends who may yet survive, of that revocation of unjust obloquy, which this royal deed implies—Alban Morley, who would turn his back on the highest noble in Britain if but guilty of some jockey trick on the turf! Live henceforth openly, and in broad daylight if you please; and trust to us three—the Soldier, the Lawyer, the Churchman—to give to this paper that value which your Sovereign's advisers intend it to receive."

"Your hand now, dear old friend!" cried George. "You remember I commanded you once to take mine as man and gentleman—as man and gentleman, now honour me with yours."

"Is it possible?" faltered Waife, one hand in George's, the other extended in imploring appeal to Darrell—"is it possible? I vindicated—I cleared—and yet no felon's dock for Jasper!—the son not criminated by the father's acquittal! Tell me that! again—again!"

"It is so, believe me. All that rests is to force on that son, if he have a human heart, the conviction that he will be worse than a parricide if he will not save himself."

"And he will—he shall. Oh, that I could but get at him!" exclaimed the preacher.

"And now," said Darrell—"now, George, leave us; for now, upon equal terms, we two fathers can discuss family differences."



CHAPTER VIII.

SOPHY'S CLAIM EXAMINED AND CANVASSED.

"I take this moment," said Darrell, when left alone with Waife—(ah, reader, let us keep to that familiar name to the last!)—"I take this moment," said Darrell, "the first moment in which you can feel thoroughly assured that no prejudice against yourself clouds my judgment in reference to her whom you believe to be your grandchild, to commence, and I trust to conclude forever, the subject which twice brought you within these walls. On the night of your recent arrival here, you gave this copy of a French woman's declaration, to the effect that two infants had been placed out with her to nurse; that one of them was my poor daughter's infant, who was about to be taken away from her; that the other was confided to her by its parent, a French lady, whom she speaks of as a very liberal and distinguished person, but whose name is not stated in the paper."

WAIFE.—"The confession describes that lady as an artiste; distinguished artiste is the expression-viz., a professional person—a painter—an actress—a singer—or—"

DARRELL (drily).—"An opera-dancer! I understand the French word perfectly. And I presume the name is not mentioned in the document, from motives of delicacy; the child of a distinguished French artiste is not necessarily born in wedlock. But this lady was very grateful to the nurse for the care shown to her infant, who was very sickly; and promised to take the nurse, and the nurse's husband also, into her service. The nurse states that she herself was very poor; that the lady's offer appeared to her like a permanent provision; that the life of this artiste's infant was of the utmost value to her—the life of my poor daughter's child of comparative insignificance. But the infant of the artiste died, and the nurse's husband put it into his wife's head to tell your son (then a widower, and who had seen so little of his child as to be easily deceived), that it was his infant who died. The nurse shortly afterwards removed to Paris, taking with her to the artiste's house the child who in reality was my daughter's."

"It seems very probable, does it not—does it not?" said the ex-comedian eagerly.

"It seems to me," replied the ex-lawyer, "very probable that a witness, entering into court with the confession of one villanous falsehood, would have little scruple to tell another. But I proceed. This rich and liberal artiste dies; the nurse's conscience then suddenly awakens—she sees Mr. Hammond—she informs him of the fraud she has practised. A lady of rank, who had known Matilda, and had seen both the infants when both were living under the nurse's charge, and observed them more attentively than your son had done—corroborates the woman's story, stating that the artiste's child had dark eyes instead of blue; that the artiste herself was never deceived—but, having taken a great fancy to the spurious infant, was willing to receive and cherish it as her own; and that she knows several persons who will depose that they heard the artiste say that the child was not her own. On this evidence your son takes to himself this child—and this child is your Sophy—and you wish me to acknowledge her as my daughter's offspring. Do not look me so earnestly in the face, my dear and respected guest. It was when you read in my face what my lips shrank from uttering that your emotions overcame your strength, and your very mind deserted you. Now, be firmer. Your Sophy has no need of me—she is under your charge, and your name is cleared. She has found a friend—a protectress—in her own sex. Lady Montfort's rank gives to her a position in the world as high as I could offer; and as to mere pecuniary provision for her, make your mind easy—it shall be secured. But bear with me when I add, resolutely and calmly, that this nurse's attestation is to me a grosser and poorer attempt at imposture than I had anticipated; and I am amazed that a man of your abilities should have been contented to accept it."

"Oh, Mr. Darrell, don't say so! It was such a blessing to think, when my son was lost to me, that I might fill up the void in my heart with an innocent, loving child. Don't talk of my abilities. If you, whose abilities none can question—if you had longed and yearned for such a comforter—if you had wished—if you wished now this tale to be true, you would have believed it too; you would believe it now—you would indeed. Two men look so differently at the same story—one deeply interested that it should be true—one determined, if possible, to find it false. Is it not so?"

Darrell smiled slightly, but could not be induced to assent even to so general a proposition. He felt as if he were pitted against a counsel who would take advantage of every concession.

Waife continued. "And whatever seems most improbable in this confession, is rendered probable at once—if—if—we may assume that my unhappy son, tempted by the desire to—to—"

"Spare yourself—I understand-if your son wished to obtain his wife's fortune, and therefore connived at the exchange of the infants, and was therefore, too, enabled always to corroborate the story of the exchange whenever it suited him to reclaim the infant, I grant this—and I grant that the conjecture is sufficiently plausible to justify you in attaching to it much weight. We will allow that it was his interest at one time to represent his child, though living, as no more; but you must allow also that he would have deemed it his interest later, to fasten upon me, as my daughter's, a child to whom she never gave birth. Here we entangle ourselves in a controversy without data, without facts. Let us close it. Believe what you please. Why should I shake convictions that render you happy? Be equally forbearing with me. I do full justice to your Sophy's charming qualities. In herself, the proudest parent might rejoice to own her; but I cannot acknowledge her to be the daughter of Matilda Darrell. And the story that assured you she was your grandchild, still more convinces me that she is not mine!"

"But be not thus inflexible, I implore you;—you can be so kind, so gentle;—she would be such a blessing to you—later—perhaps—when I am dead. I am pleading for your sake—I owe you so much! I should repay you, if I could but induce you to inquire—and if inquiry should prove that I am right."

"I have inquired sufficiently."

"'Then I'll go and find out the nurse. I'll question her. I'll—"

"Hold. Be persuaded! Hug your belief! Inquire no farther!"

"Why—why?"

Darrell was mute.

Waife passed and repassed his hand over his brow, and then cried suddenly: "But if I could prove her not to be my grandchild, then she might be happy!—then—then-ah, sir, young Haughton tells me that if she were but the daughter of honest parents—no child of Jasper's, no grandchild of mine—then you might not be too proud to bless her at least as his bride! And, sir, the poor child loves the young man. How could she help it? And, at her age, life without hope is either very short, or very, very long! Let me inquire! I should be happy even to know that she was not my grandchild. I should not love her less; and then she would have others to love her when I am gone to Lizzy!"

Darrell was deeply moved. To him there was something in this old man—ever forgetting himself, ever so hurried on by his heart—something, I say, in this old man, before which Darrell felt his intellect subdued and his pride silenced and abashed.

"Yes, sir," said Waife, musingly, "so let it be. I am well now. I will go to France to-morrow."

Darrell nerved his courage. He had wished to spare Waife the pain which his own persuasions caused to himself. Better now to be frank. He laid his hand on Waife's shoulder, and looking him in the face, said solemnly: "I entreat you not! Do you suppose that I would not resume inquiry in person, nor pause till the truth were made amply clear, if I had not strong reason to prefer doubt to certainty?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

"There is a woman whose career is, I believe, at this moment revived into fresh notoriety as the heroine of some drama on the stage of Paris—a woman who, when years paled her fame and reft her spoils, as a courtesan renowned for the fools she had beggared, for the young hearts she had corrupted, sought plunder still by crimes, to which law is less lenient; charged with swindling, with fraud, with forgery, and at last more than suspected as a practised poisoner, she escaped by suicide the judgment of human tribunals."

"I know of whom you speak—that dreadful Gabrielle Desmarets, but for whom my sacrifice to Jasper's future might not have been in vain! It was to save Sophy from the chance of Jasper's ever placing her within reach of that woman's example that I took her away."

"Is it not, then, better to forbear asking who were your Sophy's parents, than to learn from inquiry that she is indeed your grandchild, and that her mother was Gabrielle Desmarets?"

Waife uttered a cry like a shriek, and then sate voiceless and aghast. At last he exclaimed: "I am certain it is not so! Did you ever see that woman?"

"Never that I know of; but George tells me that he heard your son state to you that she had made acquaintance with me under another name, and if there was a design to employ her in confirmation of his tale—if he was then speaking truth to you, doubtless this was the lady of rank referred to in the nurse's confession—doubtless this was the woman once palmed upon me as Matilda's confidante. In that case I have seen her. What then?"

"Mother was not written on her face! She could never have been a mother. Oh, you may smile, sir; but all my life I have been a reader of the human face; and there is in the aspect of some women the barrenness as of stone—no mother's throb in their bosom—no mother's kiss on their lips."

"I am a poor reader of women's faces," said Darrell; "but she must be very unlike women in general, who allows you to know her a bit better if you stood reading her face till doomsday. Besides, at the time you saw Gabrielle Desmarets, her mode of life had perhaps given to her an aspect not originally in her countenance. And I can only answer your poetic conceit by a poetic illustration—Niobe turned to stone; but she had a great many daughters before she petrified. Pardon me, if I would turn off by a jest a thought that I see would shock you, as myself, if gravely encouraged. Encourage it not. Let us suppose it only a chance that inquiry might confirm this conjecture; but let us shun that chance. Meanwhile, if inquiry is to be made, one more likely than either of us to get at the truth has promised to make it, and sooner or later we may learn from her the results—I mean that ill-fated Arabella Fossett, whom you knew as Crane."

Waife was silent; but he kept turning in his hand, almost disconsolately, the document which assoiled him from the felon's taint, and said at length, as Darrell was about to leave, "And this thing is of no use to her, then?"

Darrell came back to the old man's chair, and said softly: "Friend, do not fancy that the young have only one path to happiness. You grieve that I cannot consent to Lionel's marriage with your Sophy. Dismiss from your mind the desire for the Impossible. Gently wean from hers what is but a girl's first fancy."

"It is a girl's first love."

"And if it be," said Darrell, calmly, "no complaint more sure to yield to change of air. I have known a girl as affectionate, as pure, as full of all womanly virtues, as your Sophy (and I can give her no higher praise)—loved more deeply than Lionel can love; professing, doubtless at the time believing, that she also loved for life; betrothed too; faith solemnised by promise; yet in less than a year she was another's wife. Change of air, change of heart! I do not underrate the effect which a young man, so winning as Lionel, would naturally produce on the fancy or the feelings of a girl, who as yet, too, has seen no others; but impressions in youth are characters in the sand. Grave them ever so deeply, the tide rolls over them; and when the ebb shows the surface again, the characters are gone, for the sands are shifted. Courage! Lady Montfort will present to her others with forms as fair as Lionel's, and as elegantly dressed. With so much in her own favour, there are young patricians enough who will care not a rush what her birth;—young lords—Lady Montfort knows well how fascinating young lords can be! Courage! before a year is out, you will find new characters written on the sand."

"You don't know Sophy, sir," said Waife, simply; "and I see you are resolved not to know her. But you say Arabella Crane is to inquire; and should the inquiry prove that she is no child of Gabrielle Desmarets—that she is either your own grandchild or not mine—that—"

"Let me interrupt you. If there be a thing in the world that is cruel and treacherous, it is a false hope! Crush out of every longing thought the belief that this poor girl can prove to be one whom, with my consent, my kinsman can woo to be his wife. Lionel Haughton is the sole kinsman left to whom I can bequeath this roof-tree—these acres hallowed to me because associated with my earliest lessons in honour and with the dreams which directed my life. He must take with the heritage the name it represents. In his children, that name of Darrell can alone live still in the land. I say to you, that even were my daughter now in existence, she would not succeed me—she would not inherit nor transmit that name. Why?—not because I am incapable of a Christian's forgiveness, but because I am not capable of a gentleman's treason to his ancestors and himself;—because Matilda Darrell was false and perfidious; because she was dead to honour, and therefore her birthright to a heritage of honour was irrevocably forfeited. And since you compel me to speak rudely, while in you I revere a man above the power of law to degrade—while, could we pass a generation, and Sophy were your child by your Lizzy, I should proudly welcome an alliance that made you and me as brothers—yet I cannot contemplate—it is beyond my power—I cannot contemplate the picture of Jasper Losely's daughter, even by my own child, the Mistress in my father's home—the bearer of my father's name. 'Tis in vain to argue. Grant me the slave of a prejudice—grant these ideas to be antiquated bigotry—I am too old to change. I ask from others no sacrifice which I have not borne. And whatever be Lionel's grief at my resolve, grief will be my companion long after he has forgotten that he mourned."



CHAPTER IX.

POOR SOPHY!

The next morning Mills, in giving Sophy a letter from Lady Montfort, gave her also one for Waife, and she recognised Lionel Haughton's handwriting on the address. She went straight to Waife's sitting-room, for the old man had now resumed his early habits, and was up and dressed. She placed the letter in his hands without a word, and stood by his side while he opened it, with a certain still firmness in the expression of her face, as if she were making up her mind to some great effort. The letter was ostensibly one of congratulation. Lionel had seen Darrell the day before, after the latter had left the Home Secretary's office, and had learned that all which Justice could do to repair the wrong inflicted had been done. Here Lionel's words, though brief, were cordial, and almost joyous; but then came a few sentences steeped in gloom. There was an allusion, vague and delicate in itself, to the eventful conversation with Waife in reference to Sophy—a sombre, solemn farewell conveyed to her and to hope—a passionate prayer for her happiness—and then an abrupt wrench, as it were, away from a subject too intolerably painful to prolong—an intimation that he had succeeded in exchanging into a regiment very shortly to be sent into active service; that he should set out the next day to join that regiment in a distant part of the country; and that he trusted, should his life be spared by war, that it would be many years before he should revisit England. The sense of the letter was the more affecting in what was concealed than in what was expressed. Evidently Lionel desired to convey to Waife, and leave it to him to inform Sophy, that she was henceforth to regard the writer as vanished out of her existence—departed, as irrevocably as depart the Dead.

While Waife was reading, he had turned himself aside from Sophy; he had risen—he had gone to the deep recess of the old mullioned window, half screening himself beside the curtain. Noiselessly, Sophy followed; and when he had closed the letter, she laid her hand on his arm, and said very quietly: "Grandfather, may I read that letter?"

Waife was startled, and replied on the instant, "No, my dear."

"It is better that I should," said she, with the same quiet firmness; and then seeing the distress in his face, she added, with her more accustomed sweet docility, yet with a forlorn droop of the head: "But as you please, grandfather."

Waife hesitated an instant. Was she not right?—would it not be better to show the letter? After all, she must confront the fact that Lionel could be nothing to her henceforth; and would not Lionel's own words wound her less than all Waife could say? So he put the letter into her hands, and sate down, watching her countenance.

At the opening sentences of congratulation, she looked up inquiringly. Poor man, he had not spoken to her of what at another time it would have been such joy to speak; and he now, in answer to her look, said almost sadly: "Only about me, Sophy; what does that matter?" But before the girl read, a line farther, she smiled on him, and tenderly kissed his furrowed brow.

"Don't read on, Sophy," said he quickly. She shook her head and resumed. His eye still upon her face, he marked it changing as the sense of the letter grew upon her, till, as, without a word, with scarce a visible heave of the bosom, she laid the letter on his knees, the change had become so complete, that it seemed as if ANOTHER stood in her place. In very young and sensitive persons, especially female (though I have seen it even in our hard sex), a great and sudden shock or revulsion of feeling reveals itself thus in the almost preternatural alteration of the countenance. It is not a mere paleness-a skin-deep loss of colour: it is as if the whole bloom of youth had rushed away; hollows never discernible before appear in the cheek that was so round and smooth; the muscles fall as in mortal illness; a havoc, as of years, seems to have been wrought in a moment; flame itself does not so suddenly ravage—so suddenly alter—leave behind it so ineffable an air of desolation and ruin. Waife sprang forward and clasped her to his breast.

"You will bear it, Sophy! The worst is over now. Fortitude, my child!—fortitude! The human heart is wonderfully sustained when it is not the conscience that weighs it down-griefs, that we think at the moment must kill us, wear themselves away. I speak the truth, for I too have suffered!"

"Poor grandfather!" said Sophy, gently; and she said no more. But when he would have continued to speak comfort, or exhort to patience, she pressed his hand tightly, and laid her finger on her lip. He was hushed in an instant.

Presently she began to move about the room, busying herself, as usual, in those slight, scarce perceptible arrangements by which she loved to think that she ministered to the old man's simple comforts. She placed the armchair in his favourite nook by the window, and before it the footstool for the poor lame foot; and drew the table near the chair, and looked over the books that George had selected for his perusal from Darrell's library; and chose the volume in which she saw his mark, to place nearest to his hand, and tenderly cleared the mist from his reading-glass; and removed one or two withered or ailing snowdrops from the little winter nosegay she had gathered for him the day before—he watching her all the time, silent as herself, not daring, indeed, to speak, lest his heart should overflow.

These little tasks of love over, she came towards him a few paces, and said: "Please, dear grandfather, tell me all about what has happened to yourself, which should make us glad—that is, by-and-by; but nothing as to the rest of that letter. I will just think over it by myself; but never let us talk of it, grandy dear, never more—never more."



CHAPTER X.

TREES THAT, LIKE THE POPLAR, LIFT UPWARD ALL THEIR BOUGHS, GIVE NO SHADE AND NO SHELTER, WHATEVER THEIR HEIGHT. TREES THE MOST LOVINGLY SHELTER AND SHADE US, WHEN, LIKE THE WILLOW, THE HIGHER SOAR THEIR SUMMITS, THE LOWLIER DROOP THEIR BOUGHS.

Usually when Sophy left Waife in the morning, she would wander out into the grounds, and he could see her pass before his window; or she would look into the library, which was almost exclusively given up to the Morleys, and he could hear her tread on the old creaking stairs. But now she had stolen into her own room, which communicated with his sitting-room—a small lobby alone intervening—and there she remained so long that he grew uneasy. He crept softly to her door and listened. He had a fineness of hearing almost equal to his son's; but he could not hear a sob—not a breath. At length he softly opened the door and looked in with caution.

The girl was seated at the foot of the bed, quite still—her eyes fixed on the ground, and her finger to her lip, just as she had placed it there when imploring silence; so still, it might be even slumber. All who have grieved respect grief. Waife did not like to approach her; but he said, from his stand at the threshold: "The sun is quite bright now, Sophy; go out for a little while, darling."

She did not look round, she did not stir; but she answered with readiness, "Yes, presently."

So he closed the door and left her. An hour passed away; he looked in again; there she was still—in the same place, in the same attitude.

"Sophy, dear, it is time to take your walk; go—Mrs. Morley is in front, before my window. I have called to her to wait for you."

"Yes—presently," answered Sophy, and she did not move.

Waife was seriously alarmed. He paused a moment-then went back to his room—took his hat and his staff—came back.

"Sophy, I should like to hobble out and breathe the air; it will do me good. Will you give me your arm? I am still very weak."

Sophy now started—shook back her fair curls-rose-put on her bonnet, and in less than a minute was by the old man's side. Drawing his arm fondly into hers, they descend the stairs; they are in the garden; Mrs. Morley comes to meet them—then George. Wife exerts himself to talk—to be gay—to protect Sophy's abstracted silence by his own active, desultory, erratic humour. Twice or thrice, as he leans on Sophy's arm, she draws it still nearer to her, and presses it tenderly. She understands—she thanks him. Hark! from some undiscovered hiding-place near the water—Fairthorn's flute! The music fills the landscape as with a living presence; the swans pause upon the still lake—the tame doe steals through yonder leafless trees; and now, musing and slow, from the same desolate coverts, comes the doe's master. The music spells them all. Guy Darrell sees his guests where they have halted by the stone sun-dial. He advances—joins them—congratulates Waife on his first walk as a convalescent. He quotes Gray's well-known verses applicable to that event, and when, in that voice sweet as the flute itself, he comes to the lines: ["See the wretch who long has tost," &c.—GRAY.]

"The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening paradise"

Sophy, as if suddenly struck with remorse at the thought that she, and she alone, was marring that opening paradise to the old man in his escape from the sick-room to "the sun, the air, the skies," abruptly raised her looks from the ground, and turned them full upon her guardian's face, with an attempt at gladness in her quivering smile, which, whatever its effect on Waife, went straight to the innermost heart of Guy Darrell. On the instant he recognised, as by intuitive sympathy, the anguish from which that smile struggled forth—knew that Sophy had now learned that grief which lay deep within himself—that grief which makes a sick chamber of the whole external world, and which greets no more, in the common boons of Nature, the opening Paradise of recovered Hope! His eye lingered on her face as its smile waned, and perceived that CHANGE which had so startled Waife. Involuntarily he moved to her side—involuntarily drew her arm within his own—she thus supporting the one who cherished—supported by the one who disowned her. Guy Darrell might be stern in resolves which afflicted others, as he was stern in afflicting himself; but for others he had at least compassion.

Poor Waife, with nature so different, marked Darrell's movement, and, ever ready to seize on comfort, said inly: "He relents. I will not go to-morrow as I had intended. Sophy must win her way; who can resist her?"

Talk languished—the wintry sun began to slope—the air grew keen—Waife was led in—the Morleys went up into his room to keep him company—Sophy escaped back to her own. Darrell continued his walk, plunging deep into his maze of beechwoods, followed by the doe. The swans dip their necks amongst the water-weeds; the flute has ceased, and drearily still is the grey horizon, seen through the skeleton boughs—seen behind the ragged sky-line of shaft and parapet in the skeleton palace.

Darrell does not visit Waife's room that day; he concludes that Waife and Sophy would wish to be much alone; he dreads renewal of the only subject on which he has no cheering word to say. Sophy's smile, Sophy's face haunted him. In vain he repeated to himself: "Tut, it will soon pass—only a girl's first fancy."

But Sophy does not come back to Waife's room when the Morleys have left it: Waife creeps into her room as before, and, as before, there she sits still as if in slumber. She comes in, however, of her own accord, to assist, as usual, in the meal which he takes apart in his room helps him—helps herself, but eats nothing. She talks, however, almost gaily; hopes he will be well enough to leave the next day; wonders whether Sir Isaac has missed them very much; reads to him Lady Montfort's affectionate letter to herself; and when dinner is over, and Waife's chair drawn to the fireside, she takes her old habitual place on the stool beside him, and says: "Now, dear grandfather—all about yourself—what happy thing has chanced to you?"

Alas! poor Waife has but little heart to speak; but he forces himself; what he has to say may do good to her.

"You know that, on my own account, I had reasons for secresy—change of name. I shunned all those whom I had ever known in former days; could take no calling in life by which I might be recognised; deemed it a blessed mercy of Providence that when, not able to resist offers that would have enabled me to provide for you as I never otherwise could, I assented to hazard an engagement at a London theatre—trusting for my incognito to an actor's arts of disguise—came the accident which, of itself, annihilated the temptation into which I had suffered myself to be led. For, ah, child! had it been known who and what was the William Waife whose stage-mime tricks moved harmless mirth, or tears as pleasant, the audience would have risen, not to applaud, but hoot, 'Off, off,' from both worlds—the Mimic as the Real! Well, had I been dishonest, you—you alone felt that I could not have dared to take you, guiltless infant, by the hand. You remember that, on my return to Rugge's wandering theatre, bringing you with me, I exaggerated the effects of my accident—affected to have lost voice—stipulated to be spared appearing on his stage. That was not the mere pride of manhood shrinking from the display of physical afflictions. No. In the first village that we arrived at, I recognised an old friend, and I saw that, in spite of time, and the accident that had disfigured me, he recognised me, and turned away his face, as if in loathing. An old friend, Sophy—an old friend! Oh, it pierced me to the heart; and I resolved, from that day, to escape from Rugge's stage; and I consented till the means of escape, and some less dependent mode of livelihood, were found, to live on thy earnings, child; for if I were discovered by other old friends, and they spoke out, my disgrace would reflect on you; and better to accept support, from you than that! Alas! appearances were so strong against me, I never deemed they could be cleared away, even from the sight of my nearest friends. But Providence, you know, has been so kind to us hitherto; and so Providence will be kind to us again, Sophy. And now, the very man I thought most hard to me—this very Guy Darrell, under whose roof we are—has been the man to make those whose opinion I most value know that I am not dishonest; and Providence has raised a witness on my behalf in that very Mr. Hartopp, who judged me (and any one else might have done the same) too bad to be fit company for you! And that is why I am congratulated; and, oh, Sophy, though I have borne it as Heaven does enable us to bear what of ourselves we could not, and though one learns to shrug a patient shoulder under the obloquy which may be heaped on us by that crowd of mere strangers to us and to each other, which is called 'the WORLD,' yet to slink out of sight from a friend, as one more to be shunned than a foe—to take like a coward the lashings of Scorn—to wince, one raw sore, from the kindness of Pity—to feel that in life the sole end of each shift and contrivance is to slip the view—hallo, into a grave without epitaph, by paths as stealthy and sly as the poor hunted fox, when his last chance—and sole one—is, by winding and doubling, to run under the earth; to know that it would be an ungrateful imposture to take chair at the board—at the hearth, of the man who, unknowing your secret, says, 'Friend, be social'; accepting not a crust that one does not pay for, lest one feel a swindler to the kind fellow-creature whose equal we must not be!—all this—all this, Sophy, did at times chafe and gall more than I ought to have let it do, considering that there was ONE who saw it all, and would—Don't cry, Sophy; it is all over now."

"Not cry! Oh, it does me so much good."

"All over now! I am under this roof—without shame or scruple; and if Guy Darrell, knowing all my past, has proved my innocence in the eyes of those whom alone I cared for, I feel as if I had the right to stand before any crowd of men erect and shameless—a Man once more with Men! Oh, darling! let me but see thy old happy smile again! The happy smiles of the young are the sunshine of the old. Be patient—be firm; Providence is so very kind, Sophy."



CHAPTER XI.

WAIFE EXACTS FROM GEORGE MORLEY THE FULFILMENT OF ONE OF THOSE PROMISES WHICH MEAN NOTHING OR EVERYTHING.

The next day George Morley visited Waife's room earlier than usual. Waife had sent for him. Sophy was seated by her grandfather—his hand in hers. She had been exerting herself to the utmost to talk cheerfully—to shake from her aspect every cloud of sorrow. But still THAT CHANGE was there—more marked than even on the previous day. A few hours of intense struggle, a single night wholly without sleep, will tell on the face of early youth. Not till we, hard veterans, have gone through such struggles as life permits not to the slight responsibilities of new recruits—not till sleepless nights have grown to us familiar will Thought seem to take, as it were, strength, not exhaustion, from unrelaxing exercise—nourish the brain, sustain the form by its own untiring, fleshless, spiritual immortality; not till many a winter has stripped the leaves; not till deep, and far out of sight, spread the roots that support the stem—will the beat of the east wind leave no sign on the rind.

George has not, indeed, so noticed, the day before, the kind of withering blight that has passed over the girl's countenance; but he did now—when she met his eye more steadfastly, and had resumed something of the open genial infantine grace of manner which constituted her peculiar charm, and which it was difficult to associate with deeper griefs than those of childhood.

"You must scold my grandfather," she said. "He chooses to fancy that he is not well enough yet to leave; and I am sure that he is, and will recover more quickly at home than here."

"Pooh!" said Waife; "you young things suppose we old folks can be as brisk as yourselves; but if I am to be scolded, leave Mr. George unawed by your presence, and go out, my dear, while the sun lasts: I know by the ways of that blackbird that the day will be overcast by noon."

As soon as they were alone, George said abruptly: "Your Sophy is looking very ill, and if you are well enough to leave, it might be better for her to move from this gloomy house. Movement itself is a great restorative," added George, with emphasis.

"You see, then, that she looks ill—very ill," said Waife deliberately; "and there is that in your manner which tells me you guess the cause."

"I do guess it from the glimpse which I caught of Lionel's face after he had been closeted a short time with Mr. Darrell at my uncle's house two days ago. I guess it also from a letter I have received from my uncle."

"You guess right—very right," said Waife, still with the same serious, tranquil manner. "I showed her this letter from young Haughton. Read it." George hurried his eye over the letter, and returned it silently. Waife proceeded:

"I was frightened yesterday by the strange composure she showed. In her face alone could be read what she suffered. We talked last night. I spoke of myself—of my old sorrows—in order to give her strength to support hers; and the girl has a heroic nature, Mr. George—and she is resolved to conquer or to die. But she will not conquer." George began the usual strain of a consoles in such trials. Waife stopped him. "All that you can say, Mr. George, I know beforehand; and she will need no exhortation to prayer and to fortitude. I stole from my room when it was almost dawn. I saw a light under the door of her chamber. I just looked in—softly—unperceived. She had not gone to bed. She was by the open window—stars dying out of the sky—kneeling on the floor, her face buried in her hands. She has prayed. In her soul, at this moment, be sure that she is praying now. She will devote herself to me—she will be cheerful—you will hear her laugh, Mr. George; but she will not conquer in this world; long before the new year is out, she will be looking down upon our grief with her bright smile; but we shall not see her, Mr. George. Do not think this is an old man's foolish terror; I know sorrow as physicians know disease; it has its mortal symptoms. Hush! hear me out. I have one hope—it is in you."

"In me?"

"Yes. Do you remember that you said, if I could succeed in opening to your intellect its fair career, you would be the best friend to me man ever had? and I said, 'Agreed, but change the party in the contract; befriend my Sophy instead of me, and if ever I ask you, help me in aught for her welfare and happiness;' and you said, 'With heart and soul.' That was the bargain, Mr. George. Now you have all that you then despaired of; you have the dignity of your sacred calling—you have the eloquence of the preacher. I cannot cope with Mr. Darrell—you can. He has a heart—it can be softened; he has a soul—it can be freed from the wither that tether it down; he has the virtues you can appeal to; and he has the pride which you, as a Christian minister, have the right to prove to be a sin. I cannot argue with him; I cannot reprove the man to whom I owe so much. All ranks of men and of mind should be equal to you, the pastor, the divine. You ministers of the gospel address yourselves unabashed to the poor, the humble, the uninstructed. Did Heaven give you power and commandment over these alone? Go, Preacher! go! Speak with the same authority to the great, to the haughty, to the wise!" The old man's look and gesture were sublime.

The Preacher felt a thrill vibrate from his ear to his heart; but his reason was less affected than his heart. He shook his head mournfully. The task thus assigned to him was beyond the limits which custom prescribes to the priest of the English Church;—dictation to a man not even of his own flock, upon the closest affairs of that man's private hearth and home! Our society allows no such privilege; and our society is right.

Waife, watching his countenance, saw at once what was passing in his mind, and resumed, as if answering George's own thought:

"Ay, if you were but the commonplace priest! But, you are something more; you are the priest specially endowed for all special purposes of good. You have the mind to reason—the tongue to persuade—the majestic earnestness of impassioned zeal. Nor are you here the priest alone; you are here the friend, the confidant, of all for whom you may exert your powers. Oh, George Morley, I am a poor ignorant blunderer when presuming to exhort you as Christian minister; but in your own words—I address you as man and gentleman, you declared that 'thought and zeal should not stammer whenever I said, Keep your promise.' I say it now—Keep faith to the child you swore to me to befriend!"

"I will go-and at once," said George, rising. "But be not sanguine. I see not a chance of success. A man so superior to myself in years, station, abilities, repute!"

"Where would be Christianity," said Waife, "if the earliest preachers had raised such questions? There is a soldier's courage—is there not a priest's?"

George made no answer, but, with abstracted eye, gathered brow, and slow, meditative step, quitted the room, and sought Guy Darrell.



BOOK XII.



CHAPTER I.

THE MAN OF THE WORLD SHOWS MORE INDIFFERENCE TO THE THINGS AND DOCTRINES OF THE WORLD THAN MIGHT BE SUPPOSED.—BUT HE VINDICATES HIS CHARACTER, WHICH MIGHT OTHERWISE BE JEOPARDISED, BY THE ADROITNESS WITH WHICH, HAVING RESOLVED TO ROAST CHESTNUTS IN THE ASHES OF ANOTHER MAN'S HEARTH, HE HANDLES THEM WHEN HOTTEST BY THE PROXY OF A—CAT'S PAW.

In the letter which George told Waife he had received from his uncle, George had an excuse for the delicate and arduous mission he undertook, which he did not confide to the old man, lest it should convey more hopes than its nature justified. In this letter, Alban related, with a degree of feeling that he rarely manifested, his farewell conversation with Lionel, who had just departed to join his new regiment. The poor young man had buoyed himself up with delighted expectations of the result of Sophy's prolonged residence under Darrell's roof; he had persuaded his reason that when Darrell had been thus enabled to see and judge of her for himself, he would be irresistibly attracted towards her; that Innocence, like Truth, would be mighty and prevail; Darrell was engaged in the attempt to clear William Losely's name and blood from the taint of felony;—Alban was commissioned to negotiate with Jasper Losely on any terms that would remove all chance of future disgrace from that quarter. Oh yes! to poor Lionel's eyes obstacles vanished—the future became clear. And thus, when, after telling him of his final interview with the Minister, Darrell said, "I trust that, in bringing to William Losely this intelligence, I shall at least soften his disappointment, when I make it thoroughly clear to him how impossible it is that his Sophy can ever be more to me—to us—than a stranger whose virtues create an interest in her welfare"—Lionel was stunned as by a blow. Scarcely could he murmur:

"You have seen her—and your resolve remains the same."

"Can you doubt it?" answered Darrell, as if in surprise. "The resolve may now give me pain on my account, as before it gave me pain on yours. But if not moved by your pain, can I be moved by mine? That would be a baseness." The Colonel, in depicting Lionel's state of mind after the young soldier had written his farewell to Waife, and previous to quitting London, expressed very gloomy forebodings. "I do not say," wrote he, "that Lionel will guiltily seek death in the field, nor does death there come more to those who seek than to those who shun it; but he will go upon a service exposed to more than ordinary suffering, privation, and disease—without that rallying power of hope—that Will, and Desire to Live, which constitute the true stamina of Youth. And I have always set a black mark upon those who go into war joyless and despondent. Send a young fellow to the camp with his spirits broken, his heart heavy as a lump of lead, and the first of those epidemics, which thin ranks more than the cannon, says to itself, 'There is a man for me!' Any doctor will tell you that, even at home, the gay and light-hearted walk safe through the pestilence, which settles on the moping as malaria settles on a marsh. Confound Guy Darrell's ancestors, they have spoilt Queen Victoria as good a young soldier as ever wore a sword by his side! Six months ago, and how blithely Lionel Haughton looked forth to the future!—all laurel!—no cypress! And now I feel as if I had shaken hands with a victim sacrificed by Superstition to the tombs of the dead. I cannot blame Darrell: I dare say in the same position I might do the same. But no; on second thoughts, I should not. If Darrell does not choose to marry and have sons of his own, he has no right to load a poor boy with benefits, and say: 'There is but one way to prove your gratitude; remember my ancestors, and be miserable for the rest of your days!' Darrell, forsooth, intends to leave to Lionel the transmission of the old Darrell name; and the old Darrell name must not be tarnished by the marriage on which Lionel has unluckily set his heart! I respect the old name; but it is not like the House of Vipont—a British Institution. And if some democratical cholera, which does not care a rush for old names, carries off Lionel, what becomes of the old name then? Lionel is not Darrell's son; Lionel need not perforce take the old name. Let the young man live as Lionel Haughton, and the old name die with Guy Darrell!

"As to the poor girl's birth and parentage, I believe we shall never know them. I quite agree with Darrell that it will be wisest never to inquire. But I dismiss, as farfetched and improbable, his supposition that she is Gabrielle Desmaret's daughter. To me it is infinitely more likely, either that the deposition of the nurse, which poor Willy gave to Darrell, and which Darrell showed to me, is true (only that Jasper was conniving at the temporary suspension of his child's existence while it suited his purpose)—or that, at the worst, this mysterious young lady is the daughter of the artiste. In the former supposition, as I have said over and over again, a marriage between Lionel and Sophy is precisely that which Darrell should desire; in the latter case, of course, if Lionel were the head of the House of Vipont, the idea of such an union would be inadmissible. But Lionel, entre nous, is the son of a ruined spendthrift by a linen-draper's daughter. And Darrell has but to give the handsome young couple five or six thousand a year, and I know the world well enough to know that the world will trouble itself very little about their pedigrees. And really Lionel should be left wholly free to choose whether he prefer a girl whom he loves with his whole heart, five or six thousand a year, happiness, and the chance of honours in a glorious profession to which he will then look with glad spirits—or a life-long misery, with the right, after Darrell's death—that I hope will not be these thirty years—to bear the name of Darrell instead of Haughton; which, if I were the last of the Haughtons, and had any family pride—as, thank Heaven I have not—would be a painful exchange to me; and dearly bought by the addition of some additional thousands a year, when I had grown perhaps as little disposed to spend them as Guy Darrell himself is. But, after all, there is one I compassionate even more than young Haughton. My morning rides of late have been much in the direction of Twickenham, visiting our fair cousin Lady Montfort. I went first to lecture her for letting these young people see so much of each other. But my anger melted into admiration and sympathy when I found with what tender, exquisite, matchless friendship she had been all the while scheming for Darrell's happiness; and with what remorse she now contemplated the sorrow which a friendship so grateful, and a belief so natural, had innocently occasioned. That remorse is wearing her to death. Dr. F———, who attended poor dear Willy, is also attending her; and he told me privately that his skill was in vain—that her case baffled him; and he had very serious apprehensions. Darrell owes some consideration to such a friend. And to think that here are lives permanently embittered, if not risked, by the ruthless obstinacy of the best-hearted man I ever met! Now, though I have already intimated my opinions to Darrell with a candour due to the oldest and dearest of my friends, yet I have never, of course, in the letters I have written to him or the talk we have had together, spoken out so plainly as I do in writing to you. And having thus written, without awe of his grey eye and dark brow, I have half as mind to add 'seize him in a happy moment and show him this letter.' Yes, I give you full leave; show it to him if you think it would avail. If not, throw it into the fire, and—pray Heaven for those whom we poor mortals cannot serve."

On the envelope Alban had added these words: "But of course, before showing the enclosed, you will prepare Darrell's mind to weigh its contents." And probably it was in that curt and simple injunction that the subtle man of the world evinced the astuteness of which not a trace was apparent in the body of his letter.

Though Alban's communication had much excited his nephew, yet George had not judged it discreet to avail himself of the permission to show it to Darrell. It seemed to him that the pride of his host would take much more offence at its transmission through the hands of a third person than at the frank tone of its reasonings and suggestions. And George had determined to re-enclose it to the Colonel, urging him to forward it himself to Darrell just as it was, with but a brief line to say, "that, on reflection, Alban submitted direct to his old school-fellow the reasonings and apprehensions which he had so unreservedly poured forth in a letter commenced without the intention at which the writer arrived at the close." But now that the preacher had undertaken the duty of an advocate, the letter became his brief.

George passed through the library, through the study, up the narrow stair that finally conducted to the same lofty cell in which Darrell had confronted the midnight robber who claimed a child in Sophy. With a nervous hand George knocked at the door.

Unaccustomed to any intrusion on the part of guest or household in that solitary retreat, somewhat sharply, as if in anger, Darrell's voice answered the knock.

"Who's there?"

"George Morley."

Darrell opened the door.



CHAPTER II.

"A GOOD ARCHER IS NOT KNOWN BY HIS ARROWS, BUT HIS AIM." "A GOOD MAN IS NO MORE TO BE FEARED THAN A SHEEP." "A GOOD SURGEON MUST HAVE AN EAGLE'S EYE, A LION'S HEART, AND A LADY'S HAND." "A GOOD TONGUE IS A GOOD WEAPON." AND DESPITE THOSE SUGGESTIVE OR ENCOURAGING PROVERBS, GEORGE MORLEY HAS UNDERTAKEN SOMETHING SO OPPOSED TO ALL PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY THAT IT BECOMES A GRAVE QUESTION WHAT HE WILL DO WITH IT.

"I come," said George, "to ask you one of the greatest favours a man can confer upon another; it will take some little time to explain. Are you at leisure?"

Darrell's brow relaxed.

"Seat yourself in comfort, my dear George. If it be in my power to serve or to gratify Alban Morley's nephew, it is I who receive a favour." Darrell thought to himself—"The young man is ambitious—I may aid in his path towards a See!"

GEORGE MORLEY.—"First let me say that I would consult your intellect on a matter which habitually attracts and engages mine—that old vexed question of the origin and uses of Evil, not only in the physical, but the moral world; it involves problems over which I would ponder for hours as a boy—on which I wrote essays as a schoolman—on which I perpetually collect illustrations to fortify my views as a theologian."

"He is writing a book," thought Darrell, enviously; "and a book on such a subject will last him all his life. Happy man!"

GEORGE MORLEY.—"The Pastor, you know, is frequently consulted by the suffering and oppressed; frequently called upon to answer that question in which the scepticism of the humble and the ignorant ordinarily begins: 'Why am I suffering? Why am I oppressed? Is this the justice of Providence? Has the Great Father that benign pity, that watchful care for His children, which you preachers tell us?' Ever intent on deducing examples from the lives to which the clue has become apparent, must be the Priest who has to reason with Affliction caused by no apparent fault; and where, judged by the Canons of Human justice, cloud and darkness obscure the Divine—still to 'vindicate the ways of God to man.'"

DARRELL.—"A philosophy that preceded, and will outlive, all other schools. It is twin-born with the world itself. Go on; though the theme be inexhaustible, its interest never flags."

GEORGE MORLEY.—"Has it struck you, Mr. Darrell, that few lives have ever passed under your survey; in which the inexpressible tenderness of the Omniscient has been more visibly clear than in that of your guest, William Losely?"

DARRELL (surprised).—"Clear? To me, I confess that if ever there were an instance in which the Divine tenderness, the Divine justice, which I can never presume to doubt, was yet undiscernible to my bounded vision, it is in the instance of the very life you refer to. I see a man of admirable virtues—of a childlike simplicity of character, which makes him almost unconscious of the grandeur of his own soul—involved by a sublime self-sacrifice—by a virtue, not by a fault—in the most dreadful of human calamities—ignominious degradation;—hurled in the midday of life from the sphere of honest men—a felon's brand on his name—a vagrant in his age; justice at last, but tardy and niggard, and giving him but little joy when it arrives; because, ever thinking only of others, his heart is wrapped in a child whom he cannot make happy in the way in which his hopes have been set!—George-no, your illustration might be turned by a sceptic into an argument against you."

GEORGE MORLEY.—"Not unless the sceptic refused the elementary starting-ground from which you and I may reason; not if it be granted that man has a soul, which it is the object of this life to enrich and develop for another. We know from my uncle what William Losely was before this calamity befell him—a genial boon-companion—a careless, frank, 'good fellow'—all the virtues you now praise in him dormant, unguessed even by himself. Suddenly came CALAMITY!—suddenly arose the SOUL! Degradation of name, and with it dignity of nature! How poor, how slight, how insignificant William Losely the hanger-on of rural Thanes compared with that William Waife whose entrance into this house, you—despite that felon's brand when you knew it was the martyr's glory,—greeted with noble reverence; whom, when the mind itself was stricken down—only the soul left to the wreck of the body—you tended with such pious care as he lay on—your father's bed! And do you, who hold Nobleness in such honour—do you, of all men, tell me that you cannot recognise that Celestial tenderness which ennobled a Spirit for all Eternity?"

"George, you are right," cried Darrell; "and I was a blockhead and blunderer, as man always is when he mistakes a speck in his telescope for a blotch in the sun of a system."

GEORGE MORLEY.—"But more difficult it is to recognise the mysterious agencies of Heavenly Love when no great worldly adversity forces us to pause and question. Let Fortune strike down a victim, and even the heathen cries, 'This is the hand of God!' But where Fortune brings no vicissitude; where her wheel runs smooth, dropping wealth or honours as it rolls—where Affliction centres its work within the secret, unrevealing heart—there, even the wisest man may not readily perceive by what means Heaven is admonishing, forcing, or wooing him nearer to itself. I take the case of a man in whom Heaven acknowledges a favoured son. I assume his outward life crowned with successes, his mind stored with opulent gifts, his nature endowed with lofty virtues; what an heir to train through the brief school of earth for due place in the ages that roll on for ever! But this man has a parasite weed in each bed of a soul rich in flowers;—weed and flowers intertwined, stem with stem—their fibres uniting even deep down to the root.

"Can you not conceive with what untiring vigilant care Heaven will seek to disentangle the flower from the weed?—how (let me drop inadequate metaphor)—how Heaven will select for its warning chastisements that very error which the man has so blent with his virtues that he holds it a virtue itself?—how, gradually, slowly, pertinaciously, it will gather this beautiful nature all to itself—insist on a sacrifice it will ask from no other? To complete the true nature of poor William Losely, Heaven ordained the sacrifice of worldly repute; to complete the true nature of Guy Darrell, God ordains him the sacrifice of PRIDE!"

Darrell started-half rose; his eye flashed-his cheek paled; but he remained silent.

"I have approached the favour I supplicate," resumed George, drawing a deep breath, as of relief. "Greater favour man can scarcely bestow upon his fellow. I entreat you to believe that I respect, and love, and honour you sufficiently to be for a while so lifted up into your friendship that I may claim the privilege, without which friendship is but a form;—just as no freedom is more obnoxious than intrusion on confidence withheld, so no favour, I repeat, more precious than the confidence which a man of worth vouchsafes to him who invites it with no claim but the loyalty of his motives."

Said Darrell, softened, but with stateliness: "All human lives are as separate circles; they may touch at one point in friendly approach, but, even where they touch, each rounds itself from off the other. With this hint I am contented to ask at what point in my circle you would touch?"

GEORGE MORLEY.—"I thank you gratefully; I accept your illustration. The point is touched; I need no other." He paused a moment, as if concentrating all his thoughts, and then said, with musing accents: "Yes, I accept your illustration; I will even strengthen the force of the truth implied in it by a more homely illustration of my own. There are small skeleton abridgments of history which we give to children. In such a year a king was crowned—a battle was fought; there was some great disaster, or some great triumph. Of the true progress and development of the nation whose record is thus epitomised—of the complicated causes which lead to these salient events—of the animated, varied multitudinous life which has been hurrying on from epoch to epoch, the abridgment tells nothing. It is so with the life of each individual man: the life as it stands before us is but a sterile epitome—hid from our sight the EMOTIONS which are the People of the Heart. In such a year occurred a visible something—a gain—a loss—a success—a disappointment; the People of the Heart crowned or deposed a King. This is all we know; and the most voluminous biography ever written must still be a meagre abridgment of all that really individualised and formed a man. I ask not your confidence in a single detail or fact in your existence which lies beyond my sight. Far from me so curious an insolence; but I do ask you this: Reflecting on your past life as a whole, have not your chief sorrows had a common idiosyncrasy? Have they not been strangely directed towards the frustration of some one single object—cherished by your earliest hopes, and, as if in defiance of fate, resolutely clung to even now?"

"It is true," muttered Darrell. "You do not offend me; go on!"

"And have not these SORROWS, in frustrating your object, often assumed, too, a certain uniformity in the weapons they use, in the quarter they harass or invade, almost as if it were a strategic policy that guided them where they could most pain, or humble, or eject a FOE that they were ordered to storm? Degrade you they could not; such was not their mission. Heaven left you intact a kingliness of nature—a loftiness of spirit, unabased by assaults levelled not against yourself, but your pride; your personal dignity, though singularly sensitive, though bitterly galled, stood proof. What might lower lesser men, lowered not you; Heaven left you that dignity, for it belongs alike to your intellect and your virtues—but suffered it to be a source of your anguish. Why? Because, not content with adorning your virtues, it was covering the fault against which were directed the sorrows. You frown—forgive me."

"You do not transgress, unless it be as a flatterer! If I frowned, it was unconsciously—the sign of thought, not anger. Pause!—my mind has left you for a moment; it is looking into the past."

The past!—Was it not true? That home to whose porch came in time the Black Horses, in time just to save from the last worst dishonour, but not save from years racked by each pang that can harrow man's dignity in each daily assault on the fort of man's pride; the sly treacherous daughter—her terrible marriage—the man whose disgrace she had linked to her blood, and whose life was still insult and threat to his own. True, what a war upon Pride! And even in that secret and fatal love which had been of all his griefs the most influential and enduring, had his pride been less bitterly wounded, and that pride less enthroned in his being, would his grief have been so relentless, his attempts at its conquest so vain? And then, even now—what was it said, "I can bless?"—holy LOVE! What was it said, "but not pardon"?—stern PRIDE! And so onto these last revolutions of sterile life. Was he not miserable in Lionel's and Sophy's misery? Forlorn in that Citadel of Pride—closed round and invested with Sorrows—and the last hopes that had fled to the fortress, slain in defence of its outworks. With hand shading his face, Darrell remained some minutes silent. At last he raised his head, and his eye was steadfast, his lip firm.

"George Morley," said he, "I acknowledge much justice in the censure you have conveyed, with so artful a delicacy that, if it fail to reform, it cannot displease, and leaves much to be seriously revolved in solitary self-commune. But though I may own that pride is not made for man, and that in the blindness of human judgment I may often have confounded pride with duty, and suffered for the mistake, yet that one prevailing object of my life, which with so startling a truth you say it has pleased Heaven to frustrate, I cannot hold an error in itself. You have learned enough from your uncle, seen enough of me yourself, to know what that object has been. You are scholar enough to concede to me that it is no ignoble homage which either nations or persons render to the ancestral Dead—that homage is an instinct in all but vulgar and sordid natures. Has a man no ancestry of his own—rightly and justly, if himself of worth, he appropriates to his lineage all the heroes, and bards, and patriots of his fatherland! A free citizen has ancestors in all the glorious chiefs that have adorned the State, on the sole condition that he shall revere their tombs and guard their memory as a son! And thus, whenever they who speak trumpet-tongued to grand democracies would rouse some quailing generation to heroic deed or sacrifice, they appeal in the Name of Ancestors, and call upon the living to be worthy of the dead! That which is so laudable—nay, so necessary a sentiment in the mass, cannot be a fault that angers Heaven in the man. Like all high sentiments, it may compel harsh and rugged duties; it may need the stern suppression of many a gentle impulse—of many a pleasing wish. But we must regard it in its merit and consistency as a whole. And if, my eloquent and subtle friend, all you have hitherto said be designed but to wind into pleas for the same cause that I have already decided against the advocate in my own heart which sides with Lionel's generous love and yon fair girl's ingenuous and touching grace, let us break up the court; the judge has no choice but the law which imperiously governs his judgment."

GEORGE MORLEY.—"I have not hitherto presumed to apply to particular cases the general argument you so indulgently allow me to urge in favour of my theory, that in the world of the human heart, when closely examined, there is the same harmony of design as in the external universe; that in Fault and in Sorrow are the axioms, and problems, and postulates of a SCIENCE. Bear with me a little longer if I still pursue the same course of reasoning. I shall not have the arrogance to argue a special instance—to say, 'This you should do, this you should not do.' All I would ask is, leave to proffer a few more suggestions to your own large and candid experience."