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THE ROCK AHEAD.

A NOVEL.

BY EDMUND YATES,
AUTHOR OF "LAND AT LAST," ETC.


_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.


IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.




LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.
1868.

_The Right of Translation is reserved_.






To M. E--d. Forgues.

My dear Sir,

Although I have not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance, I

venture to ask you to accept the dedication of this book, in slight

acknowledgment of the admirable manner in which you have reproduced

two of my previous stories (_Broken to Harness_ and _The Forlorn Hope_)

in the pages of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, and of the flattering

way in which you have frequently referred to my writings in that

excellent periodical.


Faithfully yours,

EDMUND YATES.

_London, April 1868_.






CONTENTS
OF VOLUME I.


PROLOGUE

CHAPTER
      I. Whispered.
     II. Pondered.
    III. Proposed.
     IV. Settled.


BOOK THE FIRST.

      I. Rowley Court.
     II. In Possession.
    III. Carabas House.
     IV. Breaking Cover.
      V. Memory-haunted.
     VI. Lloyd's Luck.
    VII. The Linnet's Cage.
   VIII. The Linnet's first Flight.
     IX. Soaring.


BOOK THE SECOND.

      I. Progress.
     II. Integratio Amoris.
    III. At the Crystal Palace.






THE ROCK AHEAD.





PROLOGUE.




CHAPTER I.
Whispered.


Hot in Brighton, very hot. The August sun reflected off white-chalk
cliff and red-brick pavement, and the sea shining and sparkling like a
sapphire; the statue of George the Fourth, in its robe of verdigris,
looking on in blighted perspiration at the cabmen at its base, as
though imploring a drink; the cabmen lolling undemonstratively on the
boxes of their vehicles, not seeking for employment, and--partly by
reason of the heat, but more, perhaps in consequence of the money
received recently at the races--rather annoyed than otherwise when
their services were called into requisition. For the Brighton races
had just taken place, and the town, always so full, had been more
crammed than ever. All the grand hotels had been filled with the upper
ten thousand, who moved easily over from Chichester and Worthing and
Bognor, where they had been staying for Goodwood, which immediately
precedes Brighton; and all the lodgings had been taken by the
betting-men and the turfites,--the "professionals," with whom the
whole affair is the strictest matter of business, and to whom it is of
no interest whether the race is run at Torquay or Wolverhampton, in
blazing sunshine or pouring hailstorm, so long as the right thing
"comes off," and they "land the winner."

It was all right for the bookmakers this time at Brighton: the
favourites, against which so much money had been staked, had been
beaten, and "dark" horses, scarcely heard of, and backed for nothing,
had carried off the principal prizes. So it followed that most of the
gentry of the betting-ring, instead of hurrying off to the scene of
their next trials of fortune, finding themselves with plenty of money
in their pockets, at a pleasant place in lovely weather, made up their
minds to remain there during the intervening Saturday and Sunday, and
to drop business so far as possible until the Monday morning, when
they would speed away by the early express-trains.

So far as possible, but not entirely. It is impossible for them to
drop business altogether even on this glorious Sunday afternoon, when
the whole face of Nature is blandly smiling. See the broad blue bosom
of the sea smooth and sparkling as glass, dotted here and there with
white-sailed pleasure-boats; see far away, beyond the encircling belt
of brick and stone, the broad shoulder of the bare and bushless downs,
over which the fresh air careering comes away laden with the delicious
scents of trodden turf and wild thyme and yellow gorse; see the
brown beach, where under the lee of the fishing-smacks, or making a
table of the large flukes of rusty anchors, sit groups of
excursionists,--pallid Londoners, exulting in the unwonted luxury of
escaping from the stony streets, and more excited by the brisk and
revivifying sea air than by the contents of the stone bottle which
stands in the midst of each group, and whose contents are so
perpetually going round from hand to hand in the little footless
glass; see the Esplanade thronged with its hundreds of foot
passengers, its scores of flies and carriages; see the Stock Exchange
in all its glory, and the children of Israel gorgeous in long
ringlets, thunder-and-lightning neckties, and shot-silk parasols; and
see the turf-men standing here and there in little knots, trying to be
interested in the scenes passing around them, but ever and again
turning to each other with some question of "odds," for some scrap of
"intelligence."

The ring is strongly represented this Sunday afternoon on Brighton
Parade, both in its highest and its lowest form. The short stout man
in the greasy suit of black, with the satin waistcoat frayed round the
pockets by the rubbing of his silver watch-guard, who is jotting down
memoranda with a fat cedar-pencil in his betting-book, enters freely
into conversation and is on an equality with the gentlemanly-looking
man whose only visible "horseyness" is expressed in his tightly-cut
trousers and his bird's-eye neckerchief with the horseshoe pin.
Patrons of the turf, owners of racehorses, commission-agents,
bookmakers, touts, tipsters, hangers-on of every kind to turf
speculations and turf iniquities, are here at Brighton on this lovely
Sunday afternoon.

There was one group, consisting of three people, planted on the
Esplanade, just in front of the Old Ship Hotel, the three component
members of which were recognised and saluted by nearly everyone who
passed. One of them was a short square-built man, with keen eyes
closely set and sunken, small red whiskers, and a sharp-pointed nose.
He was dressed in black, with a wonderfully neatly-tied long white
cravat, folded quite flat, with a dog's tooth set in gold for a pin;
and he wore a low-crowned hat. The other two were young men, dressed
in the best style of what is known as "horsey get-up." They had been
talking and laughing ever since they had taken up their position,
immediately after lunching at the hotel, out of which they had
strolled with cigars in their mouths; and it was obvious that any
respect which the elder man might receive was not paid to him on
account of his age, but rather in acknowledgment of the caustic
remarks with which he amused his companions. These remarks seemed at
last to have come to an end. There had been a long silence, which was
broken by the elder man asking,

"O, seen anything of Gore--Harvey Gore? Has he gone back, or what?"

"Don't know; haven't seen him since Thursday night," said the taller
of the young men.

"Won a pot of money on the Cup," said the other sententiously;
"regular hatful."

"What did his pal do?" asked the elder man. "Lloyd I mean. Did he pull
through?"

"Dropped his tin, Foxey dear. Held on like grim death to Gaslight, and
was put in the hole like the rest of us. He tells me he has been hit
for--"

"_He_ tells you!" interrupted the elder man; "He tells you! I've known
Gilbert Lloyd for two or three years, and anything _he_ tells me I
should take deuced good care not to believe."

"Very good, Foxey dear! very nice, you sweet old thing! only don't
halloo out _quite_ so loud, because here's G.L. coming across the road
to speak to us, and he mightn't--How do, Lloyd, old fellow?"

The new-comer was a man of about four-and-twenty, a little above the
middle height, and slightly but strongly built. His face would
generally have been considered handsome, though a physiognomist would
have read shiftiness and suspicion in the small and sunken blue eyes,
want of geniality in the tightly-closing mouth visible under the
slight fair moustache, and determination in the jaw. Though there was
a slight trace of the stable in his appearance, he was decidedly more
gentlemanly-looking than his companions, having a distinct stamp of
birth and breeding which they lacked. He smiled as he approached the
group, and waved a small stick which he carried in a jaunty manner;
but Foxey noticed a flushed appearance round his eyes, an eager worn
straining round his mouth, and said to his friend who had last spoken,
"You're right, Jack; Lloyd has had it hot and strong this time, and no
mistake."

The young man had by this time crossed the road and stood leaning over
the railing. In answer to a repetition of their salutes, he said:

"Not very bright. None of us are always up to the mark, save Foxey
here, who is perennial; and just now I'm worried and bothered. O, not
as you fellows imagine," he said hastily, as he saw a smile go round;
and as he said it his face darkened, and the clenching of his jaws
gave him a very savage expression,--"not from what I've dropped at
this meeting; that's neither here nor there: lightly come; lightly
gone; but the fact is that Gore, who is living with me over there, is
deuced seedy."

"Thought he looked pulled and done on Thursday," said Foxey. "Didn't
know whether it was backing Gaslight that had touched him up, or--"

"No," interrupted Lloyd hurriedly; "a good deal of champagne under a
tremendously hot sun; that's the cause, I believe. Harvey has a way of
turning up his little finger under excitement, and never will learn to
moderate his transports. He's overdone it this time, and I'm afraid is
really bad. I must send for a doctor; and now I'm off to the
telegraph-office, to send a message to my wife. Gore was to have
cleared out of this early this morning, to spend a day or two with
Sandcrack, the vet, at Shoreham; and my proprietress was coming down
here; but there's no room for her now, and I must put her off."

"Do you think Harvey Gore's really bad?" asked one of the younger men.

"Well, I _think_ he's got something like sunstroke, and I _know_
he's a little off his head," responded Lloyd. "He'll pull round, I
daresay--I've no doubt. But still he can't be moved just yet, and a
woman would only be in the way under such circumstances, let alone
it's not being very lively for her; so I'll just send her a message to
keep off. Ta-ta! I shall look into the smoking-room to-night at the
Ship, when Harvey's gone off to sleep." And with a nod and a smile,
Gilbert Lloyd started off.

"Queer customer that, Foxey."

"Queer indeed; which his golden number is Number One!" said Foxey
enigmatically.

"What's his wife like?"

"Never saw her," said Foxey; "but I should think she had a pleasant
time of it with that youth. It will be an awful disappointment to him,
her not coming down, won't it?"

"Foxey, you are an unbeliever of the deepest dye. Domestic happiness
in your eyes is--"

"Bosh! You never said a truer word. Now, let's have
half-a-crown's-worth of fly, and go up the cliff."


A short time after Gilbert Lloyd had left the house in which he had
taken lodgings, consisting of the parlour-floor and a bedroom
upstairs, Mrs. Bush, the landlady, whose mind was rather troubled,
partly because the servant, whose "Sunday out" it was, had not
yet returned from the Methodist chapel where she performed her
devotions--a delay which her mistress did not impute entirely to the
blandishments of the preacher--and partly for other reasons, took up
her position in the parlour-window, and began to look up and down the
street. Mrs. Bush was not a landlady of the jolly type; she was not
ruddy of complexion, or thin and trim of ankle, neither did she adorn
herself with numerous ribbons of florid hue. On the contrary, she was
a pale, anxious-faced woman, who looked as if she had had too much to
do, and quite enough to fret about, all her life. And now, as she
stood in the parlour-window on a hot Sunday, and contemplated the
few loungers who straggled through the street on their way to the
seashore, she assumed a piteous expression of countenance, and shook
her head monotonously.

"I wish I hadn't let 'em the rooms, I'm sure," said Mrs. Bush to
herself. "It's like my luck--and in the race-week too. If _he's_ able
to be up and away from this in a day or two, then _I_ know nothing of
sickness; and I've seen a good deal of it too in my time. No sign of
that girl! But who's this?"

Asking this, under the circumstances, unsatisfactory question, Mrs.
Bush drew still closer to the parlour-window, holding the inevitable
red-moreen curtain still farther back, and looked with mingled
curiosity and helplessness at a cab which stopped unmistakably at the
door of her house, and from the window of which a handsome young
female head protruded itself. Mrs. Bush could not doubt that the
intention of the lady in the cab was to get out of it and come into
her house; and that good-for-nothing Betsy had not come in, and there
was nobody to open the door but Mrs. Bush--a thing which, though a
meek-enough woman in general, she did not like doing. The lady gave
her very little time to consider whether she liked it or not; for she
descended rapidly from the cab, took a small travelling-bag from the
hand of the cabman, paid him, mounted the three steps which led to the
door, and knocked and rang with so determined a purpose of being
admitted that Mrs. Bush, without a moment's hesitation,--but with a
muttered "Mercy on us! Suppose he'd been asleep now!" which seemed to
imply that the lady's vehemence might probably damage somebody's
nerves,--crossed the hall and opened the door.

She found herself confronted by a very young lady, a girl of not more,
and possibly less, than nineteen years, in whose manner there was a
certain confidence strongly suggestive of her entertaining an idea
that the house which she was evidently about to enter was her own, and
not that of the quiet, but not well-pleased, looking person who asked
her civilly enough, yet not with any cordiality of tone, whom she
wished to see.

"Is Mr. Lloyd not at home? This is his address, I know," was the
enigmatical reply of the young lady.

"A Mr. Lloyd _is_ lodging here, miss," returned Mrs. Bush, with a
glance of anything but approbation at her questioner, and planting
herself rather demonstratively in the doorway; "but he isn't in. Did
you wish to see him?"

"I am Mrs. Lloyd," replied the young lady with a frown, and depositing
her little travelling-bag within the threshold; "did you not know I
was coming? Let me in, please."

And the next minute--Mrs. Bush could not tell exactly how it
happened--she found the hall-door shut, and she was standing in the
passage, while the young lady who had announced herself as Mrs. Lloyd
was calmly walking into the parlour. Mrs. Bush was confounded by the
sudden and unexpected nature of this occurrence; but the only thing
she could do was to follow the unlooked-for visitor into the parlour,
and she did it. The young lady had already seated herself on a small
hard sofa, covered with crimson moreen to match the window-curtains,
had put off her very becoming and fashionable bonnet, and was then
taking off her gloves. She looked annoyed, but not in the least
embarrassed.

"_That_ is Mr. Lloyd's room, I presume?" she said, as she pointed to
the folding-doors which connected the parlours, and which stood
slightly open.

"Yes, m'm; but--"

Mrs. Bush hesitated; but as the young lady rose, took up her bag, and
instantly pushed the door she had indicated quite open, and walked
into the apartment, Mrs. Bush felt that the case was getting
desperate. Though a depressed woman habitually, she was not by any
means a timid one, and had fought many scores of highly successful
battles with lodgers in her time. But this was quite a novel
experience, and Mrs. Bush was greatly at a loss how to act. Something
must be done, that was quite clear. Not so what that something was to
be; and more than ever did Mrs. Bush resent the tarrying of Betsy's
feet on her return from Beulah Chapel.

"_She_ would have shut the door in her face, and kept her out until I
saw how things really were," thought the aggrieved landlady; but she
said boldly enough, as she closely followed the intruder, and glanced
at her left hand, on which the symbol of lawful matrimony duly shone:

"If you please, m'm, you wasn't expected. Mr. Lloyd nor the other
gentleman never mentioned that there was a lady coming; and I don't in
general let my parlours to ladies."

"Indeed! that is very awkward," said the young lady, who had opened
her bag, taken out her combs and brushes, and was drawing a chair to
the dressing-table; "but it cannot be helped. Mr. Lloyd quite expected
me, I know; he arranged that I should come down to-morrow before he
left town; but it suited me better to come to-day. I can't think why
he did not tell you."

"I suppose he forgot it, m'm," said Mrs. Bush, utterly regardless of
the uncomplimentary nature of the suggestion, "on account of the sick
gentleman; but it's rather unfortunate, for I never _do_ take in
ladies, not in my parlours; and Mr. Lloyd not having mentioned it,
I--"

"Do you mean to say that I cannot remain here with my husband?" said
the young lady, turning an astonished glance upon Mrs. Bush.

"Well, m'm," said the nervous landlady, "as it's for a short time only
as Mr. Lloyd has taken the rooms, and as it's Sunday, I shall see,
when he conies in. You see, m'm, I've rather particular people in my
drawing-rooms, and it's different about ladies; and--" Here she
glanced once more at the light girlish figure, in the well-fitting,
fashionable dress, standing before the dressing-table, and at the
white hand adorned with the orthodox ring.

"I think I understand you," said the intruder gravely; "you did not
know Mr. Lloyd was married, and you are not sure that I am his wife.
It is a difficulty, and I really don't see how it is to be gotten
over. Will you take _his_ word?--at all events I may remain here until
he comes in presently?"

Something winning, something convincing, in the tone of her voice
caused a sudden revulsion of feeling in Mrs. Bush. The good woman--for
she was a good woman in the main--began to feel rather ashamed of
herself, and she commenced a bungling sort of apology. Of course the
lady could stay, but it _was_ awkward Mr. Lloyd not having told her;
and there was but one servant, a good-for-nothing hussy as ever
stepped--and over-staying her time now to that degree, that she
expected the "drawing-rooms" would not have their dinner till ever so
late; but at this point the young lady interrupted her.

"If I may stay for to-night," she said gently, and with a very frank
smile, which made Mrs. Bush feel indignant with herself, as well as
ashamed, "some other arrangement can be made to-morrow; and I require
no waiting-on. I shall give you no trouble, or as little as possible."

Mrs. Bush could not hold out any longer. She told the young lady she
could certainly stay for that day and night, and as for to-morrow, she
would "see about it;" and then, at the dreaded summons of the
impatient "drawing-rooms," bustled away, saying she would return
presently, and "see to" the stranger herself.

Pretty girls in pretty dresses are not rarities in the lodging-houses
of Brighton; indeed, it would perhaps be difficult to name any place
where they are to be seen more frequently, or in greater numbers; but
the toilet-glass on the table in the back bedroom of Mrs. Bush's
lodging-house, a heavy article of furniture, with a preponderance of
frame, had probably reflected few such faces as that of the lady
calling herself Mrs. Lloyd, who looked attentively into it when she
found herself alone, and decided that she was not so very dusty,
considering.

She was rather tall, and her figure was slight and girlish, but firm
and well-developed. She carried her head gracefully; and something in
her attitude and air suggested to the beholder that she was not more
commonplace in character than in appearance. Her complexion was very
fair and clear, but not either rosy or milky; very young as she was,
she looked as if she had thought too much and lived too much to retain
the ruddiness and whiteness of colouring which rarely coexist with
intellectual activity or sensitive feelings. Her features were
well-formed; but the face was one in which a charm existed different
from and superior to any which merely lies in regularity of feature.
It was to be found mainly in the eyes and mouth. The eyes were brown
in colour--the soft rich deep brown in which the pupil confounds
itself with the iris; and the curling lashes harmonised with both;
eyes not widely opened, but yet with nothing sly or hidden in their
semi-veiled habitual look--eyes which, when suddenly lifted up, and
opened in surprise, pleasure, anger, or any other emotion, instantly
convinced the person who received the glance that they were the most
beautiful he had ever seen. The eyebrows were dark and arched, and the
forehead, of that peculiar formation and width above the brow which
phrenologists hold to indicate a talent for music, was framed in
rippling bands of dark chestnut hair.

She was a beautiful and yet more a remarkable-looking young woman,
girlish in some points of her appearance, and in her light lithe
movements, but with something ungirlish, and even hard, in her
expression. This something was in the mouth: not small enough to be
silly, not large enough to be defective in point of proportion; the
line of the lips was sharp, decisive, and cold; richly coloured, as
befitted her youth, they were not young lips--they did not smile
spontaneously, or move above the small white teeth with every thought
and fancy, but moved deliberately, opening and closing at her will
only. What it was in Mrs. Lloyd's face which contradicted the general
expression of youth which it wore, would have been seen at once if she
had placed her hand across her eyes. The beaming brown eyes, the
faintly-tinted rounded cheeks, were the features of a girl--the
forehead and the mouth were the features of a woman who had left
girlhood a good way behind her, and travelled over some rough roads
and winding ways since she had lost sight of it.

When Mrs. Bush returned, she found the stranger in the front parlour,
but not standing at the window, looking out for the return of her
husband; on the contrary, she was seated at the prim round table,
listlessly turning over some newspapers and railway literature left
there by Gilbert Lloyd. Once again Mrs. Bush looked at her with sharp
suspicion; once again she was disarmed by her beauty, her composure,
and the sweetness of her smile.

"Mr. Lloyd is not in yet, m'm," began Mrs. Bush, "and you'll be
wanting your lunch."

"No, thank you," said Mrs. Lloyd; "I can wait. I suppose you don't
know when he is likely to be in?"

"He _said_ directly," replied Mrs. Bush; "and I wish he had kept to
it, for I can't think the sick gentleman is any better. I've been to
look at him, and he seems to me a deal worse since morning."

Mrs. Lloyd looked rather vacantly at Mrs. Bush. "Have you a lodger ill
in the house?" she asked. "That makes it still more inconvenient for
you to receive me."

Mrs. Bush felt uncomfortable at this question. How very odd that Mrs.
Lloyd should not know about her husband's friend! They are evidently
queer people, thought the landlady; and she answered rather stiffly:

"The only lodger ill in the house, m'm, is the gentleman as came with
Mr. Lloyd; and, in my opinion, he's very ill indeed."

"Came with Mr. Lloyd?" said the young lady in a tone of great
surprise. "Do you mean Mr. Gore? Can you possibly mean Mr. Gore?"

"Just him," answered Mrs. Bush succinctly. "Didn't you know he was
here with Mr. Lloyd?"

"I knew he was coming to Brighton with him, certainly," said Mrs.
Lloyd; "but I understood he was to leave immediately after the
races--before I came down. What made him stay?"

Mrs. Bush drew near the table, and, leaning her hands upon it, fell
into an easy tone of confidential chat with Mrs. Lloyd. That lady sat
still, looking thoughtfully before her, as the landlady began, but
after a little resting her head on her hand and covering her eyes:

"He stayed, m'm, because he was very ill, uncommon ill to be sure; I
never saw a gentleman iller, nor more stubborn. His portmanteau was
packed and ready when he went to the races, and he told Betsy he
shouldn't be five minutes here when he'd come back; and Mr. Lloyd said
to him in my hearing, 'Gore,' said he, 'how your digestion stands the
tricks you play with it, I can _not_ understand;' for they'd been
breakfasting, and he had eat unwholesome, I can't say otherwise. But
when they come from the races, they come in a cab, which wasn't usual;
and, not to offend you, m'm, Mr. Lloyd had had quite enough" (here she
paused for an expression of annoyance on the part of her hearer; but
no such manifestation was made); "but Mr. Gore, he _was_ far gone, and
a job we had to get him upstairs without disturbing the drawing-rooms,
I can assure you. And Mr. Lloyd told me he had been very ill all day
at the races, and wouldn't come home or let them fetch a doctor--there
were ever so many there--or anything, but would go on drinking, and
when he put him in the cab, he wanted to take him to a doctor's, but
he wouldn't go; and Mr. Lloyd did say, m'm, begging your pardon, that
Mr. Gore damned the doctors, and said all the medicine he ever took,
or ever would take, was in his portmanteau."

"Was there no doctor sent for, then? Has nothing been done for him?"
asked Mrs. Lloyd, with some uneasiness in her tone, removing her hand
from her eyes and looking full at Mrs. Bush.

"We've done--Betsy and me and Mr. Lloyd; for no one could be more
attentive--all we could; but Mr. Gore was quite sensible, and have a
doctor he _would not_; and what could we do? We gave him the medicine
out of the case in his portmanteau. I mixed it and all, and he told me
how, quite well; and this morning he was ever so much better."

"And is he worse now? Who is with him?" asked Mrs. Lloyd, rising.

"Well, m'm, _I_ think he looks a deal worse; and I wish Mr. Lloyd was
come in, because I think he ought to send for a doctor; I don't know
what to do."

"Who is with him?" repeated Mrs. Lloyd.

"No one," returned Mrs. Bush. "No one is with him. When Mr. Lloyd went
out, he told me Mr. Gore felt inclined to sleep; he had had some tea
and was better, and I was not to let him be disturbed. But when I was
upstairs just now, I heard him give a moan; and I knew he was not
asleep, so I went in; and he looks very bad, and I couldn't get a word
out of him but 'Where's Lloyd?'"

"Take me to his room at once," said Mrs. Lloyd, "and send for a doctor
instantly. We must not wait for anything."

But the incorrigible Betsy had not yet returned, and Mrs. Bush
explained to the stranger that she had no means of sending for a
doctor until she could send Betsy.

"Let me see Mr. Gore first, for a minute, and then I will fetch the
nearest doctor myself," said Mrs. Lloyd; and passing out of the room
as she spoke, she began to ascend the narrow staircase, followed by
the landlady, instructing her that the room in which the sick man was
to be found was the "two-pair front."

The room in which the sick man lay was airy, and tolerably large. As
Gertrude Lloyd softly turned the handle of the door, and entered, the
breeze, which bore with it a mingled flavour of the sea and the dust,
fluttered the scanty window-curtains of white dimity, and caused the
draperies of the bed to flap dismally. The sun streamed into the room,
but little impeded by the green blinds, which shed a sickly hue over
everything, and lent additional ghastliness to the face, which was
turned away from Gertrude when she entered the chamber. The bed, a
large structure of extraordinary height, stood in front of one of the
windows; the furniture of the room was of the usual lodging-house
quality; an open portmanteau, belching forth tumbled shirts and
rumpled pocket-handkerchiefs, gaped wide upon the floor; the top of
the chest of drawers was covered with bottles, principally of the
soda-water pattern, but of which one contained a modicum of brandy,
and another some fluid magnesia. Everything in the room was disorderly
and uncomfortable; and Gertrude's quick eye took in all this
discomfort and its details in a glance, while she stepped lightly
across the floor and approached the bed.

The sunlight was shining on Harvey Gore's face, and showed her how
worn and livid, how ghastly and distorted, it was. He lay quite still,
and took no notice of her presence. Instantly perceiving the effect of
the green blind, Gertrude went to the window and pulled it up, then
beckoned Mrs. Bush to her side, and once more drew near the bed.

"Mr. Gore," she said, "Mr. Gore! Do you not know me? Can you not look
at me? Can you not speak to me? I am Mrs. Lloyd."

The sick man answered her only with a groan. His face was an awful
ashen gray; his shoulders were so raised that the head seemed to be
sunken upon the chest; and his body lay upon the bed with unnatural
weight and stillness. One hand was hidden by the bedclothes, the other
clutched a corner of the pillow with cramped and rigid fingers. The
two women exchanged looks of alarm.

"Was he looking like this when you saw him last--since I came?" said
Mrs. Lloyd, speaking in a distinct low tone directed completely into
the ear of the listener.

"No, no; nothing like so bad as he looks now," said Mrs. Bush, whose
distended eyes were fixed upon the patient with an expression of
unmitigated dismay. "Did you ever see anyone die?" she whispered to
Gertrude Lloyd.

"No; never."

"Then you will see it, and soon."

"Do you really think he is dying?" and then she leaned over him, shook
him very gently by the shoulder, loosened his hold of the pillow, and
said again,

"Mr. Gore! Mr. Gore! Do you not know me? Can you not speak to me?"

Again he groaned, and then, feebly opening his eyes, so awfully glazed
and hollow that Gertrude recoiled with an irrepressible start, made a
movement with his head.

"He knows me," whispered Gertrude to Mrs. Bush; "for God's sake go for
a doctor without an instant's delay! I must stay with him."

The landlady, dreadfully frightened, was only too glad to escape from
the room.

For a few moments after she was left alone with the sick man Gertrude
stood beside him quite still and silent; then he moved uneasily, again
groaned, and made an ineffectual attempt to sit up in his bed.
Gertrude tried to assist him; she passed her arms round his shoulders,
and put all her strength to the effort to raise him, but in vain. The
large heavy frame slipped from her hold, and sunk down again with
ominous weight and inertness. Looking around in great fear, but still
preserving her calmness, she perceived the bottle in which some brandy
still remained. In an instant she had filled a wine-glass with the
spirit, lifted the sufferer's feeble head, and contrived to pour a
small quantity down his throat. The stimulant acted for a little upon
the dying man; he looked at her with eyes in which an intelligent
purpose pierced the dull glaze preceding the fast-coming darkness,
stretched his hand out to her, and drew her nearer, nearer. Gertrude
bent over him until her chestnut hair touched his wan livid temples,
and then, when her face was on a level with his own, he whispered in
her ear.

*    *    *    *    *

Mrs. Bush had not gone many steps away from her own hall-door when she
met Gilbert Lloyd. He was walking slowly, his hands thrust deep into
his pockets, his head bent, his eyes frowning and downcast, and his
under-lip firmly held by his white, sharp, even teeth. He did not see
Mrs. Bush until she came close up to him, and exclaimed,

"O, Mr. Lloyd, how thankful I am I've met you! The gentleman is very
bad indeed--just gone, sir,--and I was going for a doctor. There's not
a moment to lose."

Gilbert Lloyd's face turned perfectly white.

"Impossible, Mrs. Bush," he said; "you must be mistaken. He was much
better when I left him; besides, he was not seriously ill at all."

"I don't know about that, sir, and I can't stay to talk about it; I
must get the doctor at once."

"No, no," said Lloyd, rousing himself; "I will do that. Where is the
nearest? Tell me, and do you go back to him."

"First turn to the right, second door on the left," said Mrs. Bush,
with unusual promptitude. "Dr. Muxky's; he isn't long established, but
does a good business."

Gilbert Lloyd hurried away; and Mrs. Bush returned to the house,
thinking only when she had reached it, that she had forgotten to
mention his wife's arrival to Gilbert Lloyd.

*    *    *    *     *

When Lloyd entered the sick man's room, bringing with him Dr. Muxky,
as that sandy-haired and youthful general practitioner was called by
his not numerous clients, he saw a female figure bending over the bed.
It was not that of Mrs. Bush; he had passed her loitering on the
stairs,--ostensibly that she might conduct the gentlemen to the scene
of action, really because she dared not reënter the room unsupported
by a medical presence. The figure did not change its attitude as they
entered, and Dr. Muxky approached the patient with a professional
gliding step. He was followed by Lloyd; who, however, stopped abruptly
on the opposite side of the bed when he met the full unshrinking gaze
of his wife's bright, clear, threatening eyes.

"May I trouble you to stand aside for a moment?" said Dr. Muxky
courteously to Gertrude, who instantly moved, but only a very little
way, and again stood quite still and quite silent. Dr. Muxky stooped
over his patient, but only for a few seconds. Then he looked up at
Gilbert Lloyd, and said hastily,

"I have been called in too late, sir; I'm afraid your friend is dead."

"Yes," said Gertrude quietly, as if the doctor had spoken to her: "he
is dead. He has been dead some minutes."

Gilbert Lloyd looked at her, but did not speak; the doctor looked from
one to the other, but said nothing. Then Gertrude stretched out her
hand and laid her fingers heavily upon the dead man's eyelids, and
kept them there for several moments amid the silence. In a little
while she steadily withdrew her hand, and without a word left the
room.

On the drawing-room landing she found Mrs. Bush. That practised and
cautious landlady, mindful of the possible prejudice of her permanent
lodgers against serious illness and probable death in their immediate
vicinity, raised her finger, as a signal that a low tone of voice
would be advisable.

"Go upstairs; the doctor wants you," said Gertrude, and passed quickly
down to the parlour. A few moments more, and she had put on her bonnet
and shawl, opened the hall-door without noise, closed it softly, and
was walking swiftly down the street towards the shore.




CHAPTER II.
Pondered.


The sandy-haired slim young man, whose name was Muxky, who was a
member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and who amongst
the few poor people of Brighton that knew of his existence enjoyed the
brevet-rank of doctor, found himself in anything but a pleasant
position. The man to see whom he had been called in was dead; there
was no doubt of that. No pulsation in the heart, dropped jaw, fixed
eyes--all the usual appearances--ay, and rather more than the usual
appearances: "What we professionally call the _rigor mortis_--the
stiffness immediately succeeding death, my dear sir, is in this case
very peculiarly developed." Mr. Muxky, in the course of his attendance
at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, had seen many deathbeds, had inspected
in an easy and pleasant manner many dead bodies; but he had never seen
one which had presented such an extraordinary aspect of rigidity so
immediately after death. He approached the bed once more, turned back
the sheet which Mrs. Bush had drawn over the face, and kneeling by the
side of the bed, passed his hand over and under the body. As he moved,
Gilbert Lloyd moved too, taking up his position close behind him, and
watching him narrowly. For an instant a deep look of anxiety played
across Gilbert Lloyd's face, the lines round the mouth deepened and
darkened, the brows came down over the sunken eyes, and the under jaw,
relaxing, lost its aspect of determination; but as Mr. Muxky turned
from the bed and addressed him, Lloyd's glance was perfectly steady,
and his face expressed no emotions stronger than those which under the
circumstances every man would be expected to feel, and no man would
care to hide.

"This is rather an odd experience, my dear sir," said Mr. Muxky;
"called in to see our poor friend, who has, as it were, slipped his
cable before my arrival. Our poor friend, now, was a--well--man of the
world as you are--you will understand what I mean--our poor friend was
a--free liver."

Yes, Gilbert Lloyd thought that he was a man who ate and drank
heartily, and never stinted himself in anything.

"Nev-er stinted himself in anything!" repeated Mr. Muxky, who had by
this time added many years to his personal appearance, and entirely
prevented the bystanders from gleaning any expression from his eyes,
by the assumption of a pair of glasses of neutral tint--"nev-er
stinted himself in anything! Ah, a great deal may be ascribed to that,
my dear sir; a great deal may be ascribed to that!"

"Yes," said Gilbert Lloyd carelessly; "if a man will take as much
lobster-salad and Strasbourg pie as he can eat, with as much champagne
and moselle as he can carry; and if, in spite of the remonstrances of
his friends, he will sit without his hat on the top of a drag, with
the August sun beating down upon him--"

"Did he do that, my dear sir--did he do that?"

"He did, indeed! Several of us implored him to be careful; but you
might as well have spoken to the wind as to him, poor dear fellow. We
told him that he'd probably have a--a--what do you call it?"

"General derangement of the system? Flux of blood to the--"

"No, no; sunstroke--that's what I mean; sunstroke. Perigal, who was
out in India in the Punjaub business--he was on our drag when poor
Harvey was taken bad, and he said it was sunstroke all over--regular
case."

"Did he, indeed?" said Mr. Muxky. "Well, that's odd, very odd! From
the symptoms you have described, I imagined that it must have been
something of the kind:--brain overdone, system overtaxed. In this
railway age, Mr. Lloyd, we live such desperately rapid lives,
concentrate so much mental energy and bodily fibre into a few years,
that--"

"I'm glad you're satisfied, Mr. Muxky," said Gilbert Lloyd, pulling
out his purse. "It's a satisfaction in these melancholy cases to know
that everything has been done, and that there was no chance of saving
the poor fellow, even if--"

"I scarcely say that, Mr. Lloyd. A little bloodletting might, if taken
at the exact moment--_in tempore veni_; you recollect the old
quotation--might have been of some use. There's a prejudice just now
against the use of the lancet, I know; but still-- For me?" taking a
crisp hank-note which Lloyd handed to him. "O, thank you, thank you!
This is far too munifi--"

"The labourer, Mr. Muxky, is worthy of his hire," said Gilbert Lloyd:
"and it is our fault--not yours--that you were summoned too late. But,
as you just now remarked, it is impossible in these cases to know what
is impending, or how nigh may be the danger. I was very much struck by
that remark. And now good-afternoon, Mr. Muxky. I must go out and find
my poor wife, who is quite upset by this unfortunate affair.
Good-afternoon--not another word of thanks, I beg; and any of the
usual formalities in these matters---I don't know what they are--but
certificates, and that kind of thing, we may look to you to settle?
Thanks again. Good-day."

And Gilbert Lloyd shook hands with the overwhelmed Mr. Muxky, whose
eyes gleamed even through the neutral-tinted glasses, and whose pale
face burst into a pleased perspiration, as he crumpled the crisp
bank-note into his waistcoat-pocket, and followed Mrs. Bush down the
stairs.

"A sensible man that, Mrs. Bush," said he when he reached the first
landing; "a very sensible, kind-hearted, clear-headed man. Under all
the circumstances, you're very lucky in having had such a man in the
house. No fuss, no preposterous excitement--everything quite proper,
but thoroughly businesslike."

"You're right, Dr. Muxky," responded the sympathetic landlady. "When I
saw as clear as clear that that poor creature was going the way of all
flesh--which is grass, and also dust and ashes--and knew I'd got those
Miss Twillows in the drawing-rooms, you might have knocked me down
with a feather. Nervous is nothing to what the Miss Twillows is;
and coming regular from Peckham for the sea-bathing now five
years, regular as the month of July comes round; and giving no
trouble, through bringing their own maid; and stopping on all
September,--without perambulators in the passage, and children's
boots, which after being filled with sand will _not_ take the
polish,--their leaving would be a loss to me which--"

Mrs. Bush stopped suddenly in her harangue, as the drawing-room door,
by which they were standing, was cautiously opened, and an elderly
female head was slowly protruded. It was a large head, and yet it had
what is called a "skimpy" character. What little hair there was on it
was of a mixed pepper-and-salt kind of colour, and gathered into two
large roll-curls, one on either side of the head, in front, and into a
thin wisp behind. In this wisp was stuck a comb, pendent from which
was a little bit of black lace. The features could not be defined, as
the lower part of the face was entirely hidden in a handkerchief held
to the nose, exhaling pungent vinegar. Mr. Muxky stared a little at
this apparition--stared more when the head wagged and the mouth
opened, and the word "Doctor?" was uttered in interrogative accent.
Then Mr. Muxky, beginning to perceive how the land lay, said in his
softest tones: "Yes, my dear madam, I _am_ the doctor."

The head dropped again, and again the lips opened. "Fever?" was what
they said this time, while a skinny hand at the end of a skinny arm
made itself manifest, pointing upwards.

"Fever," repeated Mr. Muxky, "that has removed our poor friend
upstairs--nothing of the sort, my dear madam, I can assure you;
nothing but--"

"Not smallpox?--don't say it's smallpox!" This from another voice, the
owner of which was in the background, unseen. "O, Hannah, does he say
it's smallpox?"

"He don't say anything of the kind, Miss Twillow," interposed Mrs.
Bush; "knowing that in the midst of life we are in death, specially
sitting in hot suns without our hats on the tops of stage-coaches, and
to say nothing of too much to drink. You've never been inconvenienced
since you've been in this house, have you, m'm? and you won't be now.
It isn't my fault, I'm sure; nor yet Dr. Muxky's; and, considering all
things, not a great put-out, though doubtless upsetting to the
nerves."

"That's just the point, Mrs. Bush," said Mr. Muxky, who was not going
to lose the chance; "nothing to fear; but yet, some temperaments so
constituted that--like the Æolian harp--the--the slightest breath of
fright has an effect on them. If my poor services now could be of any
use--"

"Yes, now do," said Mrs. Bush, "Miss Twillow, Miss Hannah; just see
the doctor for a minute. You've had a shock, I'll allow, and it's
natural you should be upset; but the doctor will put you right in a
minute."

Thus Mr. Muxky secured two new patients; not a bad day's work.

While these matters were in progress in the house Gertrude had left,
and the subdued bustle inevitably attendant upon the necessary care
and the unavoidable household disorganisation which succeeds a death,
even when the dead is only a stranger in the house where the solution
of the enigma has come to him,--she was sitting on the shore close by
the foamy edge of the waves, and thinking.

Gertrude had gone down to the shore across the broad road, now crowded
with people out for the bright summer afternoon; with carriages and
gigs, with vehicles of the highest elegance, and with such as had no
pretence to anything but convenience; with pedestrians of every class,
assembled with all sorts of objects, hygiene and flirtation being
predominant. She had gone away down the slope, and on to the strip of
pebbly sand; and where one of the wooden barriers marked out a
measured space, she sat down on a seaweed-flecked heap of shingle, and
began to think. The long line of the horizon, where the blue sea met
the blue sky, parted only by a narrow verge of light, broken white
clouds, was before her--between it and her absent, troubled eyes lay
the wide expanse of sea. A short space only parted her from the
moving, restless, talking crowd upon the Esplanade; but her sense of
solitude was complete. The ridge of the slope hid her; the soft plash
of the sea, with its monotonous recurrence, soothed her ear, and
deadened the sound of wheels and the murmur of voices; her eyes met
only the great waters, across which sometimes a boat glided, on which
sometimes a sea-bird's wing rested for an instant. As Gertrude sat
there, with her arms extended and her hands tightly clasped together,
with her head bent forward and her eyes fixed upon the distant line of
the sea and sky, her thoughts obeyed her will, and formed themselves,
consecutive, complete, and purposeful. The girl--for she was but a
girl, after all--had brought thither a heavy trouble; to be taken out,
looked at, weighed, examined. She had brought there a half-developed
purpose, to be thought into maturity, to be fully fashioned and
resolved upon. Before she should leave that place she would have done
these things; and when she should leave it, a new phase in her life
would have begun. Ineffable sadness was in her brown eyes--grief and
dread, which did not seem newly born there, but constant dwellers,
only that to-day they had been suddenly awakened once again from
temporary repose. If there had been anyone to see Gertrude, as she sat
by the edge of the waves, and to note her face, with its concentrated
and yet varying expression, that person, if an acute observer, would
have been struck by the contrast between  the eyes and the mouth. The
character of the look in the eyes shifted and varied; there was fear
in it, grief, weariness, disgust, sometimes even horror; and these
expressions passed like the lights and shadows over a fair landscape.
But the mouth did not vary; firm, closely shut,--so compressed that
its tightness produced a white line above the red of the upper lip,--
it expressed power and resolution, when that long process of
thinking--too purposeful to be called a reverie--commenced, and it
expressed power and resolution when at length Gertrude rose. Hours had
passed over her unheeded, as she sat by the sea; the afternoon had
lengthened into the evening; the crowd of loungers had dispersed. She
had heard, but not heeded, the church-bells ringing for evening
service; and now silence was all around her, and the red flush of
sunset was upon the sky and the sea. When she had risen from her seat
of shingle, Gertrude stood for some minutes and looked along the
shore, where her solitary figure seemed doubly lonely. Then she turned
and scanned the long line of the houses and the road, on which a few
scattered human beings only were moving. A strange reluctance to move
possessed her; but at length she shook it off, and with a slight
shudder turned her back upon the sea, fast becoming gray as the sun
went down, and walked steadily, though not quickly, back to the
lodging-house where she had left her husband.

As she drew near to the house, Gertrude looked up at the window of the
room in which she had seen Harvey Gore die. It was open; but the green
blind was closely drawn. Looking upwards at the window, she did not
perceive till she was close upon it that the house-door was slightly
ajar; but as she raised her hand to the knocker, the door was opened
widely by Mrs. Bush, and Gertrude, going into the passage, found
Gilbert Lloyd there. The sudden sight of him caused her to start for
an instant, but not perceptibly; and Mrs. Bush immediately addressed
her with voluble questions and regrets.

Where had she been all this time? She had gone out without her lunch,
and had she had nothing to eat? How uneasy she and Mr. Lloyd had been
about her! (Mr. Lloyd had evidently secured by this time a high place
in the good graces of Mrs. Bush.) Mr. Lloyd had been waiting and
watching for her ever so long; and she, Mrs. Bush, as soon as ever the
poor dear dead gentleman upstairs had been "put tidy,"--which was her
practical mode of expressing the performance of the toilet of the
dead,--had been also watching and waiting for Mrs. Lloyd's
reappearance. Suspicion and scanty civility had given place in the
manner of the worthy landlady--who was infinitely satisfied with the
proper sense of what was due to her in the unfortunate position of
affairs exhibited by Gilbert Lloyd--to anxiety for the comfort of the
young lady whom she had so unwillingly received.

During the colloquy between Mrs. Bush and Gertrude, Gilbert Lloyd had
been standing, awkwardly enough, in the passage, but without speaking.
But when a pause came, and Gertrude approached the parlour-door, he
spoke.

"Where have you been, Gertrude?" he asked sternly.

His wife stood still and answered, but did not look at him.

"I have been sitting by the seashore."

"You must be cold and hungry, I should think."

"I am neither."

"I suppose you know you cannot remain here?"

"Why?"

He seemed a little at a loss for an answer; but replied, after a
moment's pause:

"A death in the house is sufficient reason. Mrs. Bush can't attend to
a lady-lodger, under the circumstances. You can go back to town in the
morning; for to-night I shall take you to the nearest hotel."

"Very well."

She never looked at him; not by the most fleeting flicker of an
eyelash did she address her face to him, though he looked steadily at
her, trying to compel her glance. She went into the parlour, through
the folding-door into the bedroom, collected the few articles which
she had taken out of her travelling-bag, and returned, carrying it in
her hand. Evidently all arrangements had been made by Gilbert Lloyd
with Mrs. Bush: no more was said. Gertrude took a friendly leave of
the landlady, and went out of the house, walking silently by her
husband's side. He did not offer her his arm, and not a word was
spoken between them until the door of a private sitting-room at the
George had closed behind them. Then he turned savagely round upon her,
and said, in a thick low voice, "The meaning of this foolery?"

This time she looked at him--looked him straight in the face with the
utmost calmness. There was not the least flush of colour in her pale
face, not the slightest trembling of her lips, not the smallest
flutter of her hands,--by which in woman agitation is so often
betrayed,--as she said calmly, "You are polite, but mysterious. And I
suppose the journey, or something, has rendered me a little dull. I
don't quite follow you. What 'foolery' are you pleased to ask the
meaning of?"

She had the best of it so far. She stood erect, facing the light, her
head thrown back, her arm outstretched, with nothing of bravado, but
with a good deal of earnestness in her manner and air. Gilbert Lloyd's
head was sunk on his breast, his brow was knit over his frowning eyes,
his lips tightly set, and his under-jaw was clenched and rigid. His
hands were plunged into his pockets, and he had commenced to pace the
room; but at his wife's question he stopped, and said, "What foolery!
Why, the foolery of your conduct in those lodgings this day; the
foolery of your coming down, in the first place, when you weren't
wanted, and of your conduct once you came."

"I came," said Gertrude, in a perfectly calm voice, and still looking
him steadily in the face, "in pursuance of the arrangement between us.
It was your whim, when last I saw you, to wish for my company here;
and you settled the time at which I was to come. My 'foolery' so far
consists in having exactly obeyed you."

"Your obedience is very charming," said Gilbert Lloyd with a sneer;
"and no doubt I should have enjoyed your company as much as I
generally do. Few men are blessed with wives embodying all the
cardinal virtues. But circumstances have changed since we made that
arrangement. I couldn't tell this man was going to die, I suppose?"

She had purposely turned her face away when her husband began to sneer
at her, and was pretending to occupy herself with opening her
travelling-bag; but as these words fell upon her ear, she drew herself
to her full height, and again looking steadily at him, said, "I
suppose not."

"You suppose not! Why, of course not! By heavens, it's enough to drive
a man to desperation to be tied for life to a white-faced cat like
this, who stands opposite him repeating his words, and shows no more
interest in him than--By Jove," he exclaimed, shaking his clenched
fist at her, "I feel as if I could knock the life out of you!"

To have been struck by him would have been no novel experience on
Gertrude's part. More than once in these paroxysms of temper he had
seized her roughly by the arm or shoulder, leaving the livid imprint
of his hand on her delicate flesh; and she fully expected that he
would strike her now. But as he spoke he had been hastily pacing the
room; and it was not until he stopped to menace her that he looked in
her face, and saw there an expression such as he had never seen
before. Anger, terror, misery, obstinacy, contempt,--all these
passions he had often seen mirrored in Gertrude's features, but never
the aversion, the horror, the loathing which now appeared there. The
look seemed to paralyse him, for in it he divined the feelings of
which it was the reflex. His extended arm dropped by his side, and his
whole manner changed, as he said, "There! enough of that! It was hard
enough for me to have the trouble of poor Gore's illness to fight
against, without anything else; and when you did come, Gertrude, I
thought--well"--pulling himself together, as it were, he bent forward
towards her, and with a soft look in his eyes and an inexpressible
tenderness in his voice, whispered, "I thought you might have brought
a word of cheer and comfort and--and love--to your poor old Gilbert,
who--"

While speaking he gradually drew near to her, and advanced his hand
until it touched her waist. Gertrude no sooner felt his clasp than,
with a short sharp cry as if of bodily pain, she withdrew herself from
it.

"Don't touch me!" she exclaimed, in a voice half choked with sobs. Her
calmness was gone, and her whole system was quivering with emotion.
"For Heaven's sake keep off! Never lay your touch on me, in kindness
or in cruelty, again, or you will find that the 'white-faced cat' has
claws, and can use them."

Gilbert Lloyd stared for an instant in mute astonishment at his wife,
who stood confronting him, her eyes sparkling like glowing coals in
the midst of her pale face, her hair pushed back off her forehead, her
hands tightly clasped behind her head. He was cowed by this sudden
transformation, by this first act of overt rebellion on Gertrude's
part, and thought it best to temporise. So he said, "Why, Gertrude
darling, my little lady, what's all--"

"No more of that Gilbert," she interrupted, calming herself by a
strong effort, unlocking her hands, and again confronting him. "Those
pet names are things of the past now--of the past, which must be to us
even more dead and more forgotten than it is to most people."

The solemnity of her tone and of her look angered him, and he said
shortly, "Don't preach, please. Spare yourself that."

"I am not preaching, Gilbert, and I am not--as you sometimes tell
me--acting; but I have something to say which you must hear."

"Must, eh? Well, come down off your stilts, and say it."

"Gilbert Lloyd," said Gertrude, "this day you and I part for ever.
Don't interrupt me," she said, as he made a hasty gesture; "hear me
out. I knew that this would be the end of our hasty and ill-advised
marriage; but I did not think the end would come so soon. It _has_
come now, and no power on earth would induce me to alter my
determination."

"O, that's it, is it?" said Lloyd, after a minute's silence. "And this
is my wife, if you please; this is the young lady who promised to
love, honour, and obey! This woman, who now coolly talks about our
parting for ever, is one who has hung about my neck a thousand times
and--"

"No," exclaimed Gertrude, interrupting him, "no! This" (touching
herself lightly on the breast) "is your wife indeed--is the woman who
bears your name and has borne your caprices; but" (again touching
herself) "this is not the woman that left London this morning. I wish
to heaven I were--I wish to heaven I were!"

She uttered these last words in a low plaintive tone that was almost a
wail, and covered her face with her hands.

"This is mere foolery and nonsense," said Lloyd, after a momentary
pause. "You wish you were, indeed! If you're not the same woman, what
the devil has changed you?"

"Do you want to know?" she asked suddenly, looking up at him,--not
eagerly, boldly, or defiantly, but with the expression of horror and
loathing which he had previously noticed.

"No!" he replied with an oath; "why should I waste my time listening
to your string of querulous complaints? You want a separation, do you?
Well, I am not disposed to say 'no' to any reasonable request; but if
I agree to this, mind, it's not to be the usual business."

Finding he paused, Gertrude said, "I scarcely understand you."

"Well, I mean that 'parting for ever' does not mean coming together
again next month, to live in a fool's paradise for a week, and then
hate each other worse than ever. If we part, we part for ever, which
means that we never meet again on earth--or rather, that we begin life
afresh, with the recollection of the last few months completely
expunged. We have neither of us any relations to worry us with
attempts at reconciliation; not half-a-dozen men know of the fact of
my having been married, and none of them have ever seen you. So that
on both sides we start entirely free. It is not very likely that we
shall ever run across each other's path in the future; but if we do,
we meet as entire strangers, and the fact of our having been anything
to one another must never be brought forward to prejudice any scheme
in which either of us may be engaged. Do you follow me?"

"Perfectly."

"And does what I propose meet your views?"

"Entirely."

"That's right. Curious," said Lloyd, with a short, sharp
laugh,--"curious that just as we are about to part, we should begin to
agree. However, you're right, I suppose; we could not hit it; we were
always having tremendous rows, and now each of us can go our own way;
and," he added, under his breath, as he glanced at Gertrude's
expressive face and trim figure, "I don't think I've had the worst of
the bargain."

After a moment's silence, Lloyd said, "What do you propose to do?"

"I have no schemes at present," Gertrude replied; "and if I had, you
have no right to ask about them."

"You've not taken long to shake off your harness, by Jove!" said Lloyd
bitterly. "However, whatever you do hereafter, you must have something
to start with now." He took out a pocket-book, and counted from it
some bank-notes. "I've not done so badly as people thought," said he;
"and here are two hundred pounds, all my available capital. Yon shall
have half of this--here it is." He pushed a roll of notes towards her.
She took it without a word, and placed it in her travelling-bag.
"You'll sleep here to-night, I suppose; and had better clear out of
this place early to-morrow. I shall have to stay until after the
funeral. And now, I suppose, that's about all?"

"All," said Gertrude, taking up her travelling-bag and moving towards
the door.

"Won't you--won't you say 'good-bye'?" said Lloyd, putting out his
hand as she passed him.

Gertrude made him no reply; but she gathered her dress tightly round
her, as though to preserve it from his touch; and on glancing at her
face Gilbert Lloyd saw there the same look of horror and loathing
which had paralysed him even in the midst of his furious rage.




CHAPTER III.
Proposed.


When Gertrude left her husband's presence,--without giving him any
clue to her intentions for the future, something like bewilderment
fell upon her for a little. It was not grief--no such sentiment had
any place or share in the tumult of her mind. The arrangement which
had been made, the agreement that had been come to, was a distinct and
positive relief to her. It would have been a relief even before the
late occurrences which had brought things to a crisis, and Gertrude
neither denied nor lost sight of that fact. It had become a positive
necessity, not to be avoided, not to be deferred; and it was done.
When the door closed behind her, as she trod the narrow passage which
divided the sitting-room in which their last interview had taken place
from the bedroom in which she was to pass the night, Gertrude knew
that she was relieved--was even, in a dull, hardly-ascertained sort of
way, glad, and yet she was bewildered. There was more horror in her
mind than sorrow. For the hope and happiness of her own life, thus
early blighted in their first bloom, she had no sentimental pity; she
could not afford to think about them, even if she had had time, which
she had not. The circumstances of her life had aided the natural
disposition and habits of her mind, and brought her to look steadily
at facts rather than feelings, at results and actions rather than at
influences and illusions of the past. As a matter of fact, her life in
all its great meanings was past, and the best thing she could do was
to banish it from memory, to dismiss it from contemplation as
completely and as rapidly as possible.

Gertrude had been for many hours without food, and had undergone much
and various mental agitation. She was conscious that the bewilderment
which pervaded her mind was in a great degree referable to physical
exhaustion, and she resolved to postpone thought and action until the
morning. She rang a hell, ordered a slight meal to be served to her in
her room, and having eaten and drank, went to bed so completely
overpowered by the fatigue and restrained excitement of the day, that
she fell asleep immediately. The calm summer night, unvisited by
darkness, passed over, and witnessed only her unbroken rest--a grand
privilege of her youth.

Gilbert Lloyd remained for some time in the room where Gertrude had
left him, walking to and fro before the windows, lost in thought. The
passion and excitement of the day had not been without their effect on
him also, and certain components mingled with them in his case which
had no existence in the sum of Gertrude's suffering--doubt, dread,
suspense, uncertainty. What did Gertrude mean? What still remained
hidden, after that terrible interview in which so much had been
revealed? What was still unexplained, after all that dreary and
hopeless explanation? These questions, which he could not answer,
which it was his best hope might never be answered, troubled Gilbert
Lloyd sorely. That the agreement which had been made between him and
his wife was highly satisfactory to him he knew as clearly as Gertrude
knew it; but in the way in which it had been brought about, in the
manner of its decision, the advantage had been Gertrude's. Gilbert
Lloyd did not like that, though this parting was so utter and so final
that he might well have dismissed all such considerations, and turned
his back upon the past, as he had proposed to do in reality, and as he
did not entertain a doubt that Gertrude would do in downright real
earnest, never bestowing so much thought or memory on him again as to
produce the smallest practical effect upon her future life. He knew
that he had achieved a great success that day; that this final
separation between himself and Gertrude was an event in every way
desirable, and which he would have hailed with satisfaction at any
period since he had wearied of her and begun to regard marriage as the
very worst and stupidest of all mistakes;--a mental process which had
commenced surprisingly soon after he had made the blunder. But,
somehow, Gilbert Lloyd did not taste the flavour of success. It was
not sufficiently unmingled for the palate of a man of despotic
self-will, and the ultra intolerance of complete callousness and
scoundrelism. At length he checked himself in his monotonous walk, and
muttering, "Yes, I'll go back it's safest," he rang the bell.

His summons was not obeyed with remarkable alacrity--waiters and
chambermaids had had a bard time of it at the George of late; but a
waiter did at length present himself. By this time the news of a
"sporting gent's" death in the immediate vicinity had reached the
George, and the man looked at Lloyd with the irrational curiosity
invariably excited by the sight of anyone who has been recently in
close contact with crime, horror, or grief.

"I rang to tell you I shall send my traps down from Pavilion-place,
but I shall not sleep here," said Lloyd; "I shall come up to breakfast
in the morning, though."

"Very good, sir," said the man; and Gilbert Lloyd took up his hat and
walked out. He called for a minute at Pavilion-place, and spoke a few
words to Mrs. Bush, who gave him a latchkey, then went away again; and
the morning hours were well on when he let himself quietly into the
lodging-house and threw himself on the bed in the back parlour.

The window of the "two-pair front" was open, and the fresh breeze,
sea-scented, blew in through the aperture, and faintly stirred the
drapery of the bed. Presently the sun rose, and before long a bright
ray streamed through the green blind, and a wavering bar of light
shimmered fantastically across the sheet which decently veiled the
dead man's face.


Gertrude Lloyd went down to the railway station early on the following
morning, and before Gilbert had made his appearance at the George. She
had not passed unnoticed at that hostelry. In the first place, she was
too young and handsome to pass unnoticed anywhere during a sojourn of
sufficient duration to give people time to look at her, if so
disposed. In the second place, there was something odd about her. She
was evidently the wife of the gentleman who had brought her to the
hotel, and had then changed his mind about staying, and gone away so
abruptly. Here she was now going away without seeing him; calling for
her bill and paying it, "quite independent like," as a chambermaid,
with a very proper reverence for masculine superiority, remarked;
setting off alone, perfectly cool and comfortable. "There's been a
tiff, that's it, and more's the pity," was the conclusion arrived at
by the waiter and the chambermaid, who agreed that Gertrude was very
pretty, and "uncommon young, to be sure, to be so very off-handed."

Mrs. Bush, too, did not omit to inquire for the handsome young lady
who had got "the better" of her so very decidedly. "She's off to
London, first train in the morning," said Lloyd. "There was no good in
her staying here for all this sad affair. _I_ can't avoid it, of
course; but she is better out of it all." After which explanation,
Mrs. Bush thought, sagaciously, that leaving one's husband in an
unpleasant position, and getting safe out of it one's self, was not a
very affectionate proceeding; and that Mrs. Lloyd, if she really was
very fond of her husband, at all events did not make the fact
obtrusively evident.

But Gertrude Lloyd had not gone to London. Her mind had been actively
at work from an early hour in the morning, and strengthened and
refreshed by rest, she had been able to employ it to good purpose. Her
first resolve was not to go to the lodgings she and her husband had
occupied in London any more. She had no wish to embarrass his
proceedings in any way. She desired to carry out their contract in
both letter and spirit, and to disappear at once and completely from
his life. So she left a note for Gilbert Lloyd at the George,
containing the words: "Please have everything belonging to me sent to
Mrs. Bloxam's;" and then took her way to the station, and her place in
an early train for Worthing. Gertrude was alone in the carriage, and
she profited by the circumstance to tear up and throw out of window a
letter or two, and sundry bills on which her name, "Mrs. Lloyd,"
appeared. Her initials only were stamped on her travelling-bag. The
letters disposed of, she drew off her wedding-ring, and without an
instant's hesitation for sentimental regret, dropped it on to the
rails. Then she sat still and looked out at the landscape. Her face
was quite calm now, but the traces of past agitation were on it. The
first person to whom Gertrude Lloyd should speak to-day would not be
struck by the contrast between her assured, self-possessed manner and
her extreme youth, as Mrs. Bush had been impressed by it only
yesterday.

Arrived at Worthing, Gertrude had no difficulty in securing quiet and
respectable lodgings, away from the sea, and not far out of the town.
It was in a small house, forming one of a row of small houses, with
climbing roses about the windows, and common but fragrant flowers in a
Lilliputian strip of garden-plot on either side of the door. On the
opposite side of the road was a row of gardens corresponding to the
houses, remarkable for numerous arbours of curiously small dimensions
and great variety and ingenuity of construction; likewise for the
profusion and luxuriance with which they grew scarlet-runners and
nasturtiums. In one of these houses Gertrude engaged a sunny parlour
and bedroom for a week certain; and then, having explained to the
woman of the house that she was a governess, and was about to enter on
a new situation, but was not certain when she would be required to
proceed to the house of her employers, she set herself to the carrying
out of the plans she had formed that morning, and, as a first step,
wrote the following letter:


"7 Warwick-place, Worthing.

"Monday.

"My Dear Mrs. Bloxam,--You will probably be very much surprised to
receive a letter from me, and I am not less astonished to find myself
writing to you. Though you were kind to me, after a fashion, while I
lived at the Vale House, the circumstances under which I quitted your
protection, and the events which have since occurred, were of a nature
to render me unwilling to open up any communication with you, and to
make it extremely improbable that I should ever be called on to do so.
I retain some pleasant and grateful recollections of you and of my
childhood, when I was, on the whole, happy; and I remember in
particular, and with especial gratitude, that you put down, with the
high hand of authority, the very natural inclination of the other
girls to ridicule and oppress me, because I had no relations to give
me presents, take me out, and beg half-holidays for all the pupils on
the strength of their visits, and because my holidays were always
passed at school. You will wonder what I am coming to, and why, if it
be anything important, I should recall these seemingly trivial things
by the way; but I do so in order to remind myself, and to gain courage
in so doing, of the only protection and friendship I have ever
received from a woman,--now, when I need protection and friendship
very, very much, and am about to ask you to extend them to me.

"When I left you as I did, and married the man who had induced me to
deceive you as I did (do not suppose I want to extenuate my own share
in the matter, or throw the blame on him because I mention him thus),
you told me, in the only letter you ever addressed to me, that I had
made a bad mistake, and should inevitably find it out sooner or later.
You were distinctly and unerringly right. I did make a bad mistake--a
worse mistake than anyone but myself can ever know or guess; and I
have found it out sooner instead of later. I have known it for a long
time; but now circumstances have arisen which oblige me to act on my
knowledge, and a separation has taken place between my husband and
myself. Not a separation in the ordinary sense, with the tie
repudiated and yet retained; but a separation by which each has
undertaken to cease to exist for the other. I have no relations, so
far as I know. If I have any, you and you alone are aware of the fact,
and know who they are. I have no prejudices to offend, no position to
forfeit. Gilbert Lloyd and I have parted never to meet again, as we
both hope; never, under any circumstances, to recognise or interfere
with one another. I have no friends, except I may venture to call you
a friend; and to you alone can I now turn for assistance. I would say
for advice, but that the time for that is past. There is nothing to be
done now but to act upon the resolution which has been taken.

"My plan for the future is this: I have 100_l_., and a voice whose
quality you know, and which has improved since I was at the Vale
House; so that I know it to be of the best kind, and in the best
order, for concert-singing at least, perhaps ultimately for opera. I
intend to become a public singer; but I must have more teaching, and
the means of living in the mean time; so that the small sum in my
possession may be expended upon the teaching and training of my voice.
From many indications, which I perfectly remember, but need not enter
into here, I have reason to believe that I was a profitable pupil to
you; that from some source unknown to me you received sums of money
for my maintenance and education of an amount which was very well
worth having. I do not say this in any way to disparage the habitual
kindness with which you treated me, and which I have always
acknowledged gratefully, bat because I am about to propose a bargain
to you, and wish to assure myself that I have some grounds for doing
so, and for counting upon your acquiescence.

"Will you receive me at the Vale House for one year free of charge, in
the capacity of a teacher for the junior classes, and giving me
sufficient time to enable me to take music-lessons and practise
singing? If you will do this, and thus enable me, if I find my voice
fulfils my expectations, to earn a livelihood for myself in an
independent fashion, I will undertake to repay the cost out of my
earnings. Possessing, as you do, the knowledge, if not of my
parentage, at least of some person who became voluntarily responsible
for my support during several years, you may perhaps be able, unless I
am considered to have sacrificed all claim on my unknown connections
by my marriage, to procure from them a little more assistance for me;
but you must not make any attempt to do so if such an attempt should
involve the revelation of my secret. I presume, if anyone exists whom
it concerned, you made known my marriage. That circumstance is the
last to be known about me; henceforth Gertrude Lloyd has no more
existence than Gertrude Keith.

"If you should accede to my request, it will be necessary for me to
know whether any of the girls now under your charge were at the Vale
House when I left it, also whether you have any servants now likely to
recognise me. I shall await your answer with much anxiety. Should it
be unfavourable, I must endeavour to devise some other method of
carrying out the fixed purpose of my future life; and at present no
possible alternative presents itself to my mind. In conclusion, I beg
that you will decide quickly. I shall be here only one week; that
expired, if you do not answer me, or if you answer me unfavourably, I
must face the problem to which just now I see no solution. Address
Miss Grace Lambert.--Yours sincerely,

"Gertrude Lloyd."




CHAPTER IV.
Settled.


The Vale House, Hampstead, was admirably suited in point of size and
situation for a boarding-school or "establishment" for young ladies.
It stood in its own grounds, which, though not really extensive, had
been made the most of, and contrived to look as if there were a great
deal more of them than there really was; and it commanded an extensive
prospect from the upper windows, well elevated above the jealous walls
which guarded the youth and beauty committed to Mrs. Bloxam's charge
from contact with the outer world. Occasionally, or at least in one
instance, as will presently appear, the security had not been
altogether so inviolable as might have been desired; but, on the
whole, the "establishment" at Vale House maintained and deserved a
high character. A heavy, square, roomy, red-brick mansion, with its
windows cased in white stone, and a coat-of-arms sculptured in the
same material, but now nearly undecipherable, inserted over the heavy
mahogany hall-door,--the Vale House belonged to a period of
architecture when contract-building was unknown, when the art of
"running-up" houses was yet undiscovered, and a family mansion among
the middle-classes meant a house in which fathers and sons and
grandsons intended to live and die, unbeguiled by "splendid
opportunities" into constant migrations and rapid changes in their
style and manner of living.

The Vale House had, however, suffered from the changes and innovations
of the age; and the grandson of its last hereditary inhabitant now
dwelt in splendour in a west-end "place," forming an "annexe" to a
square of ultra-fashionable pretensions and performances, and looked
and spoke as though he had never even heard the name of a locality
more northern or more distant from the centre of civilisation than the
Marble Arch. If the Townleys were oblivious of the Vale House, so was
the Vale House of them. Except among such of the inhabitants of
Hampstead as were careful and religious conservators of tradition, the
origin and history of the Vale House had been forgotten; and a general
notion prevailed that it had always been a school. The pupils--with
the exception of such as were of a romantic turn of mind and given to
the association of all old houses having plenty of room in them with
the _Orphan of the Forest_ and the _Children of the Abbey_--hated the
place, and believed that it must always have witnessed the
incarceration of unoffending girlhood. The ancient and much-effaced
armorial bearings awakened no compassionate respect in the minds of
these haughty young creatures, but rather a lively scorn. "Old Bloxam
was only a sea-captain, and she was a governess in some old lord's
family, and they set her up in the school, and she gives herself airs
as if she was a lady," they would remark, under the influence of
irritation, arising from causes gastronomic or otherwise; and the
caricaturing of these armorial bearings was a favourite _jeu d'esprit_
among the livelier and cleverer section of Mrs. Bloxam's pupils.

The school at the Vale House had--been of late years a very prosperous
undertaking. Mrs. Bloxam's connection was among the rich and
respectable mercantile community, not the shop-keeping, be it known:
she observed with the utmost strictness the distinction between
wholesale and retail trades, and especially affected the learned
professions. In Gertrude's time, two daughters of a Scotch baronet had
effectively represented the real aristocracy; but they were "finished"
long since, and had returned to the land of their birth, having
learned to braid their sandy locks, and to tone down their hereditary
freckles, and equally hereditary accents, to the admiration of all
Glen Houlaghan. The real aristocracy was quite unrepresented at the
Vale House, but the "British-merchant" element flourished there. Mrs.
Bloxam had prospered of late years, and was now in circumstances
which permitted her to contemplate retiring from the labours of
school-keeping,--in which she had never pretended to herself to find a
congenial occupation,--as a not impossible, indeed not even a very
remote, contingency.

Mrs. Bloxam was not at all like the conventional schoolmistress; she
as little resembled the Pinkerton as the Monflathers type; and despite
the contemptuous comments of her pupils was very ladylike indeed, both
in appearance and manners. She was a tall slight woman, very fair of
hair and complexion, with blue eyes, which were a little hard in
expression, and a little shifty; with an inexpressive mouth, a
graceful figure, and a good deal of character and decision in her
voice, gestures, and movements. She had purchased the Vale House from
its former proprietor, a distant relative of her own and, like
herself, a schoolmistress, on highly advantageous terms, when she was
a new-made widow, and a very young woman; and now she hoped, after a
year or two, to dispose of it on terms by no means so advantageous to
the purchaser. But this hope Mrs. Bloxam had not spoken of to anyone.
She was of silent and secretive temperament, and liked to make up her
mind completely, and in every detail, to any plan of action which she
contemplated before making it known to any friend or acquaintance. Her
man of business was Mrs. Bloxam's sole confidant, and even he knew no
more of her affairs than was indispensable to their safe and
profitable conduct.

Mr. Dexter would have been as ignorant as any mere acquaintance of
Mrs. Bloxam's--as any of the young girls asleep in the white beds,
standing in long ranges in the "lofty and well-ventilated dormitories"
which formed so important a feature in the prospectus that eloquently
set forth the advantages of the Vale House "establishment"--of the
nature of the contents of a bundle of letters which Mrs. Bloxam set
herself to peruse, late on the same evening on which Gertrude Lloyd's
letter reached her well-shaped hands. Only one individual in the world
besides Mrs. Bloxam knew that the letters which she was now engaged in
reading had ever been written; and their writer would probably have
been surprised--as they did not contain any guarantees for the payment
of money--had he known that they were still in existence.

Gertrude's letter had reached Mrs. Bloxam just at the hour at which
the concluding ceremonial of the school-day routine was about to be
performed. She laid it aside until prayers and the formal leave-taking
for the night insisted upon at the Vale House as essential to the due
inculcation of good breeding had been gone through; and then, in the
welcome retirement and solitude of her own sitting-room, seated before
her own particular bureau, and with her own particular supper in
tempting perspective, Mrs. Bloxam read, not without sympathy mingling
with her astonishment, the letter of her quondam pupil.

Mrs. Bloxam read the letter once and laid it down, and thought very
profoundly for some minutes. Then she took it up and read it again,
and once more fell into a fit of musing. The bureau before which she
had seated herself had a number of small drawers at the side. One of
these Mrs. Bloxam opened, and selected from among its neatly-arranged
contents a packet, tied with green ribbon and docketed: "Lord S--,
from 185- to 186-." The parcel contained twenty letters, and Mrs.
Bloxam read them all through. The task did not occupy much time; the
writing was large and clear, her sight was strong and quick. When she
had read the letters, she replaced them in the order which she had
temporarily disturbed, retied the packet, and locked it away in the
drawer whence she had taken it. Then she arranged a sheet of paper on
the blotting-pad before her, took up a pen, and began to write with a
rapid hand what was evidently intended to be a long letter.

But in the middle of the third page Mrs. Bloxam changed her mind.
"Safer not, better not," she muttered to herself; "the written letter
remains. Witness these;" and she inclined her pen-handle towards the
drawer in which she had just replaced the packet of letters; "time
will show whether she had better know, or not know."

Then Mrs. Bloxam tore the sheet, the third page of which she had begun
to write on, into fragments sufficiently minute to defy the curiosity
and the ingenuity of the most prying and ingenious of housemaids, and
replaced it by another, on which she wrote the following words:

"The Vale House, Hampstead.
"Tuesday night.


"My Dear Gertrude,--I have your letter. I accede to your request, and
will make arrangements in reference to the proposal which you have
submitted to me. None of the girls now here have any recollection of
you. There are several younger members of the families whose older
girls were here; but your change of name prevents that being of any
consequence. The servants were all changed at the Easter Term. Let me
know when it will suit you to come here; and believe me yours
sincerely,

"Elinor Bloxam."


When she had read this brief note over, addressed it to Miss Grace
Lambert, and placed it in the appointed spot for all letters to be
despatched by the morning post, Mrs. Bloxam sat down to her solitary
supper with a well-satisfied expression of countenance.

It was nearly eleven years since Gertrude Keith, a handsome,
intelligent, and self-willed child of eight years old, had been
confided to the care of Mrs. Bloxam and the advantages, educational
and otherwise, of the Vale House. The letters which Mrs. Bloxam had
read, that summer night, formed the greater part of all the
correspondence which had--been addressed to her by the individual who
had placed the child under her protection, and whose confidence Mrs.
Bloxam had won, and to a certain extent undeniably deserved. It had
been stipulated that Gertrude Keith was to be kept in ignorance of her
parentage, and of the circumstances under which she had been placed in
Mrs. Bloxam's establishment; and this condition the schoolmistress had
conscientiously observed. Gertrude knew nothing of her own origin. She
was believed by her companions, and she believed herself, to be an
orphan girl, without any living relatives.

Gertrude Keith was the natural daughter of Lord Sandilands, a nobleman
whose wild youth had given place to a correct and irreproachable
middle age, which stage of life he had now passed, and was beginning
the downward descent. He had placed the child under the care of Mrs.
Bloxam, who had been formerly a governess in the family of his sister,
Lady Marchmont, and who retained the confidence and regard of her
former employers, after she had made the adventurous and unsuccessful
experiment of matrimony. Certain circumstances connected with the
little girl's birth and the early death of her ill-starred mother made
Lord Sandilands shrink from seeing her, with strange and strong
aversion; and one of the conditions to which he had required Mrs.
Bloxam's consent and adherence was, that his name was never to be
spoken to the child, and that, except in the event of her illness or
death, he was to be spared all communications respecting her, except
at certain stated intervals. These conditions had been scrupulously
observed; and Gertrude's childhood had been as happy as any childhood
passed under such exceptional conditions could be. She was a handsome,
healthy, brave, independent-spirited child, who did not give much
trouble, and who held her own against the envy, hatred, malice,
and all uncharitableness of that world in miniature--a girls'
boarding-school. As for Mrs. Bloxam, she liked the handsome, sturdy
child, and she liked the stylish graceful girl, who developed herself
so rapidly from that promising childhood. Then Gertrude was not a
troublesome, while she was a very lucrative, pupil; and there was an
agreeable certainty about the very liberal payments made on her
account by Lord Sandilands, and an equally agreeable uncertainty about
the period of the girl's removal from the Vale House, which formed an
exception to the rule in general cases; and Mrs. Bloxam highly
appreciated both these advantages. A portion of the correspondence
which Mrs. Bloxam had read on the evening on which she had received
Gertrude's letter referred to the time when she should have attained
to womanhood, and her schooldays should be over. It was Lord
Sandilands' wish that the arrangement made for her in her childhood
should continue; that Mrs. Bloxam should act as her protectress; that
the girl should remain with her, until she should feel indisposed to
stay at the Vale House any longer, or should decide upon some manner
of life for herself. "In any of these cases," said Gertrude's unknown
father in one of his letters, "on your communicating the facts to me,
I will make the best arrangement for Gertrude within my power."

It was not very long after this had been written, though much before
the time at which either her father or Mrs. Bloxam had contemplated
the probability of any change in Gertrude's life, or of the girl's
taking her destiny into her own hands, that an accident made her
acquainted with Gilbert Lloyd. She had not shared any of the early
romance and follies of her companions: the "young gentlemen" of Dr.
Waggle's "establishment" had had no charm, singly or collectively, for
her; the doctor, the chemist, the music and drawing masters, even the
Italian signor, who made singing-lessons a delight, and was so
fascinating, though he used his hair-brush sparingly, and his
nail-brush not at all,--each and all were perfectly without attraction
or danger for the young girl, who seemed to ignore or despise all the
petty flirtations and manoeuvrings of her schoolfellows.

Of and for not one of the young girls under her care head Mrs. Bloxam
less fear or anxiety. Gertrude was proud and stately, and though tall
for her seventeen years, and firm as well as graceful of outline, and
though she had made fair progress with her education, and in her
musical studies was notably in the van, there was something childlike
about her still, something which kept Mrs. Bloxam in a happy condition
of unsuspecting tranquillity.

But all Gertrude Keith's childlike peace and passionless calm vanished
when she met Gilbert Lloyd, at a house where Mrs. Bloxam was in the
habit of visiting during the vacations, and whither she brought
Gertrude, in order to avoid leaving her to the portentous solitude of
the Vale House, in the absence of her companions. The girl fell in
love with the young man--who paid her quiet, stealthy, underhand
attentions--with a suddenness and a vehemence which would have alarmed
anyone who loved her, for the future of a woman endowed with so
imaginative, sensitive, and passionate a nature. All the dormant
romance, of which no one had suspected the existence in Gertrude's
nature, whose awakening no one perceived, when the time came was
aroused into force and action, and the girl was transformed. Now was
the time at which the instinct, the care, the love, the caution of a
mother, would have been needed to guide, direct, and save Gertrude
from her own undisciplined fancy, from her own untaught impulses. But
Gertrude had no such aid extended to her. Mrs. Bloxam, a good woman in
her way, and of more than average intelligence, had no feelings
towards the girl which even bordered on the maternal; and the habitual
authority of the schoolmistress was naturally in some degree abrogated
by the fact that it was vacation-time. She was not of a very confiding
or unsuspicious disposition; but she had, unconsciously to herself, to
deal in Gilbert Lloyd with one who knew well how to lull suspicion,
and he in his turn found an apt pupil in Gertrude. They met again and
again; the girl's beauty, freshness, and daring had a strong charm for
a man like Lloyd; and for the first time since he had had to calculate
life's chances closely, and to rely upon himself for the indulgences
and luxuries which alone made life worth having to a man of his
temperament, he committed the blunder of gratifying feeling at the
expense of prudence. He did not fall in love with Gertrude quite so
precipitately or so violently as she fell in love with him, but the
second meeting did for him what the first had done for her; and in
Gilbert Lloyd's case, to form a desire was to resolve to achieve it,
at whatever cost to others, at whatever sacrifice of personal honour,
provided it did not entail public disgrace, such gratification might
necessitate or involve.

The vacation enjoyed by the pupils, and not less enjoyed by the
proprietor, of the Vale House, was within three days of its
expiration, when a housemaid belonging to the establishment reported
Miss Gertrude Keith "missing;" and the search and anxiety consequent
on the intelligence were terminated by a letter from the fugitive,
informing Mrs. Bloxam that she had been married that morning to
Gilbert Lloyd by special license, and was then about to start for a
short continental excursion.

Mrs. Bloxam was very much shocked, and very much annoyed, in the first
place, that the event should have happened at all; in the second, that
Gilbert Lloyd, of whom she knew something, and cordially disapproved
what she did know, should be the hero of an affair certain to bring
her into discredit with Lord Sandilands, and likely, if she did not
contrive to hide it very skilfully, to bring her school into discredit
with the public. She had no doubt as to the veracity of Gertrude's
story, no doubt that Lloyd had really married her--a copy of the
certificate of the marriage was enclosed in her letter; but she
bitterly regretted her own blindness and negligence, and, to do her
justice, felt not a little for the girl's probable fate.

Mrs. Bloxam rapidly perceived the advantage to be derived from the
circumstance that the untoward event of Gertrude's elopement had taken
place during the vacation. She summoned all the servants, informed
them that Miss Keith had left the Vale House under certain unpleasant
circumstances which it was not necessary to explain; that any
indiscreet reference to the circumstance made to the other pupils on
the reassembling of the school would be visited by condign punishment
in the forfeiture of the offender's place; and then dismissed them, to
assemble downstairs in their own domain and learn all the particulars
from the housemaid, who was in Gertrude's confidence, and had been
liberally bribed by Gilbert Lloyd to facilitate and connive at all the
preliminary meetings which had resulted in the elopement.

To this proceeding succeeded a period of reflection on the part of
Mrs. Bloxam. Should she inform Lord Sandilands of the events that had
taken place? Should she tell him how much sooner than she had
calculated upon, Gertrude had taken the decision of her fate into her
own hands? Should she tell him that the time to which she had looked
forward as an eventuality, which might come about in a couple of
years, had already taken place, and that now was the opportunity for
fulfilling the intentions which he had continuously, if vaguely,
expressed in his letters to her? Mrs. Bloxam debated this question
with herself, and self-interest loudly and persistently advised her to
silence. Lord Sandilands had never seen the girl, had never even
hinted at seeing her, had indeed distinctly disclaimed any intention
of ever seeing her. Nothing could be more improbable than that he
should find out what had occurred. If she should continue to apply to
his solicitor for the money which he was authorised to pay her at
certain intervals, no suspicion of any change in the state of affairs
could arise. And the money would be very welcome to her. By resorting
to the simple expedient of holding her tongue, she might avoid
scandal, avoid doing herself the injury which she most necessarily
inflict upon her school by the admission of an elopement having taken
place from within its walls, and secure a sum of money which would be
both useful and agreeable. To be sure, the day of reckoning must come,
but not yet; and if ever she should have it in her power to do any
service or kindness to the poor misguided girl, who would certainly
inevitably come, or she (Mrs. Bloxam) was much mistaken in Gilbert
Lloyd, to need service and kindness before much time should have gone
over her, she pledged herself, to herself, to show her all the
kindness in her power, unreservedly and heartily. Thus did Mrs. Bloxam
make the devil's bargain with herself; and very successfully did she
pursue the line of conduct which she had determined to follow, from
the period of Gertrude Keith's elopement to that evening on which she
had received the no-longer-deluded girl's letter, two years and a half
later. With the fatal facility which results from impunity, Mrs.
Bloxam had almost ceased to remember Gertrude, and had quite ceased to
feel uneasiness regarding the concealment she had practised towards
Lord Sandilands, and the appropriation of the sum of money which he
paid to her yearly. But with the perusal of Gertrude's letter the
subject again arose in her mind, and, as was Mrs. Bloxam's habit, she
faced it steadily and considered it maturely. Gertrude's proposition
was not an entirely pleasing one. There was a certain responsibility
attaching to assuming the charge of a young woman so strangely
situated; and the present acceptation of the trust might involve Mrs.
Bloxam in difficulties and dilemmas to which she was by no means blind
or insensible. But, on the other hand, she saw in Gertrude's return a
perfect security against the divulgement of her decidedly unpleasant
secret. Should Lord Sandilands now make any inquiry about Gertrude,
she should experience no difficulty in satisfying him or any
representative he might send. Even should the change of name become
known-a contingency which a little well-timed manoeuvring might
prevent--Mrs. Bloxam could afford to trust to her own ingenuity to
find a reason for that proceeding which should satisfy all querists.
Gertrude's own interest and safety were now concerned in preserving
the secret of her elopement, her marriage, and the duration of her
absence from the Vale House; while the offer of her services as
teacher to the junior classes was sufficiently valuable to leave Mrs.
Bloxam still a gainer to the full extent of the annual stipend, even
when Gertrude's maintenance and needful expenses should be taken into
account--a calculation which Mrs. Bloxam made very accurately and
minutely, and which was very much in her line. The result of the
cogitations to which Mrs. Bloxam gave herself up after she had read
Gertrude's letter has already appeared. On the following day she
received from Mrs. Lloyd a few brief lines of acknowledgment and
thanks; and the Saturday of the week which had begun with the death of
Harvey Gore and the final parting between Gilbert Lloyd and his young
wife witnessed the installation of a new inmate, holding an anomalous
position--partly parlour-boarder and partly pupil-teacher--at the Vale
House. This new inmate was known to her companions and pupils, in
short to all concerned, as Miss Grace Lambert.




END OF THE PROLOGUE.



BOOK THE FIRST.




CHAPTER I.
Rowley Court.


The traveller of thirty years ago, whom pleasure or business took
through the heart of Gloucestershire, and who had the satisfaction of
enjoying the box-seat of the admirably-appointed mail-coach which ran
through that district,--if he had an eye for the picturesque and a
proper appreciation of the beauties of nature, exhibiting themselves
in the freshest turf, the oldest trees, the loveliest natural
landscape-gardening combination of grassy upland, wooded knoll, and
silver stream,--seldom refrained from inquiring the name of the owner
of the property which was skirted by the well-kept road along which
they were bowling, and was invariably informed by the coachman that
all belonged "to the Challoners, of whom you've doubtless heerd; the
Challoners of Rowley Court." By his phrase, "of whom you've doubtless
heerd," the coachman expressed literally what he meant. He and his
compeers, born and bred in the county, were so impressed with the
seignorial dignities of the Challoners of Rowley Court, that they
ignored the possibility of the position of the family being unknown
throughout the length and breadth of the land. That they were, not
what they had been was indeed admitted, that the grand old estate had
some what diminished, that the family revenues had decreased, that the
present members of it were to a certain extent impoverished, that the
hand of poverty was one of the many objectionable hands which had an
unpleasant grip upon the old Squire,--all these were facts which were
tacitly admitted in privileged regions--such as the servants'-hall at
the Court, or the snuggery at the Challoners' Arms--but which were
never hinted at to passing strangers. So jealous, indeed, of the
honour of the family were its retainers--among whom the mail-driver
was to be classed, as he was doubtless connected with the tenantry by
family or marriage--that if "the box" ventured to comment on the
evident want of attention to the property, manifested in broken
hedges, unmended thatch, in undrained fen or unreclaimed common, he
received but a short answer, conveying an intimation that they knew
pretty well what was right down in those parts, the Challoners did; at
all events, as well as most cockneys: the biting sarcasm conveyed in
this retort having generally the effect of closing the conversation,
and reducing the fee given to the driver at the journey's end to
one-half the sum originally intended.

There are no mail-coaches now, and the traveller by rail has no chance
of getting a glimpse of Rowley Court, save a momentary one in the
short interval between a cutting and a tunnel which are on the extreme
border of the park. The Court itself stands towards the centre of the
park on low ground encircled by wooded hills, towards which, in the
good old times, avenues of stately oak, elm, and lime trees extended
in long vistas. But under the dire pressure of necessity the woodman's
axe has been frequently at work lately in these "cool colonnades," and
the avenues are consequently much shorn of their fair proportions. The
house is a big incongruous mass of two distinct styles of
architecture--a grafting of Inigo Jones's plain façade and Corinthian
pillars on a red-brick Elizabethan foundation, with projecting
mullioned windows, octagonal turrets, quaintly-carved cornices, and
ornamental doorways. Round the house runs a broad stone terrace
bounded by a low balustrade, and flanked at each of the corners by a
large stone vase, which, in the time of prosperity, had contained
choice flowers varying with the season, but which were now full of
cracks and fissures, and were overgrown with creeping weeds and common
parasites. The very stones of the terrace were chipped moss-edged, and
grass-fringed; the black-faced old clock in the stable-turret had lost
one of its hands, while several of its gilt numerals had become
effaced by time and tempest; the vane above it had only two points of
the compass remaining for the brass fox, whose bushy tail had gone in
the universal wreck, to point at; the pump in the stable-yard was dry;
the trough in front of it warped and blistered; a piece of dirty
oil-cloth had been roughly nailed over the kennel, in front of which
the big old mastiff lay blinking in the sunshine; and a couple of
cart-horses, a pair of superannuated carriage-horses, the Squire's old
roan cob, and "the pony" (a strong, rough, undersized, Welsh-bred
brute, with untiring energy and no mouth), were the sole tenants of
the stables which had once been occupied by the best-bred hacks, and
hunters of the county.

They were bad times now for the Challoners of Rowley Court--bad times
enough, Heaven knew; but they had been great people, and that was some
consolation for Mark Challoner, the old Squire, as he stiffly returned
the bow of Sir Thomas Walbrook, ex-Lord Mayor of London, carpet-maker,
and millionaire, who had recently built an Italian villa and laid out
an Italian garden on a three-hundred acre "lot" which he had purchased
from the Challoner estate. They had been the great lords of all that
district. Queen Elizabeth had lodged for some time at Rowley Court on
one of her progresses; and Charles the First and Henrietta Maria had
slept there, the royal pair finding "all the highways strewed with
roses and all manner of sweet flowers," as was recorded in a
worm-eaten parchment manuscript kept among the archives in the old
oak-chest in the library. There was no sign then of the evil days in
store; evil days which began in 1643, when Colonel Sands' troopers
pillaged the Court, and sent off five wagons loaded with spoil to
London.

It is the custom of the Challoners to say that then began that
decadence which has continued for ever since; and in truth, though
there have been many vicissitudes of fortune undergone by the old
family, the tendency has been for ever downward. The final blow to
their fortunes was dealt by Mark Challoner's immediate predecessor,
his brother Howard, who was one of the ornaments of the Prince
Regent's court, and who gambled and drank and diced and drabbed with
the very finest of those fine gentlemen. It was in his time that the
axe was laid to the root of the tree; that Sir Thomas Walbrook's
father, the old carpet-maker, made the first money advances which
resulted in his ultimate purchase on easy terms of the three hundred
acres; and that ultimate ruin began decidedly to establish and
proclaim itself at Rowley Court. When providence removed Howard
Challoner from this world by a timely attack of gout in the stomach,
long after his beloved king and patron had been gathered to his
fathers, it was felt that there was every chance of a beneficial
change in the family fortunes. The godless old bachelor was succeeded
by his brother Mark, then a clear-headed, energetic man in the prime
of life, a widower with two remarkably promising boys--the elder a
frank, free-hearted jovial fellow, fond of country sports, a good
shot, a bold rider, "a downright Englishman," as the tenantry
delighted to call him; the younger a retiring, shy lad, wanting in the
attributes of popularity, but said to be wondrous clever "with his
head," and to know more than people double his age, which in itself
was something bordering on the miraculous to the simple
Gloucestershire folk. And, for a time, all went very well. Mark
Challoner was his own steward, and almost his own bailiff; at all
events, he allowed no one on the property to be more thoroughly master
of its details than he. Without any undue amount of niggardliness he
devised and carried out unsparing retrenchments; thriftless tenants,
after warning, were got rid of, and energetic men introduced in their
places; a better style of farming was suggested, and all who adopted
it were helped by their landlord. The estate improved so greatly and
so rapidly that vacant farms were largely competed for, and rents were
rising, when suddenly Mark Challoner withdrew himself from the life
into which he had plunged with such eagerness, and in which he had
succeeded so well, and became a confirmed recluse, a querulous, moody,
silent man, loving solitude, hating companionship, shutting out from
him all human interest.

A sudden change this, and one which did not happen without exciting
remarks from all the little world round Rowley Court, both high and
low. The Walbrooks and their set (for during the few later years there
had been frequent irruptions of the plutocracy into the old county
families, and the Walbrooks were now the shining centre of a circle of
people with almost as much money and as little breeding as
themselves)--the Walbrooks and their set shook their heads and
shrugged their shoulders, and secretly rejoiced that the old man from
whom they never received anything but the sternest courtesy, and who
so pertinaciously repelled all attempts at familiar intercourse from
them, had at last come upon the evil days in store for him, and would
no longer twit them by his aristocratic presence and frigid behaviour.
The more humble classes--the old tenantry, who had been rejoicing at
the better turn which things on the estate had undoubtedly taken, and
who were looking forward to a long career of good management under the
reign of Mark Challoner and his sons--were wofully disappointed at the
change, and expressed their disappointment loudly amongst themselves,
while taking due care that it should never reach the master's ear. No
one, however, either among the neighbours or the dependents, seemed to
notice that the change in Mark Challoner's life--that his fading from
the hearty English squire into the premature old man, that his
abnegating the exercise of his tastes and pleasures, and giving up
everything in which he had hitherto felt the keenest interest--was
contemporaneous with the departure of his younger son, Geoffrey, from
the paternal roof. In that act there was nothing to create surprise:
it had always been known that Master Geoffrey's talents were destined
to find exercise in the great arena of London, and now that he was
eighteen years of age, it was natural that he should wish to bring
those talents into play; and though nothing had been said in or out of
the house about his going, until one morning when he told the coachman
to bring round the dogcart and to come with him to the station,
there was no expression, of surprise on the part of any of the
household--beings to whom the expression of anything they might feel
was of the rarest occurrence. The old butler, indeed, a relic of the
past, who had been Howard Challoner's body-servant in his later years,
and who was almost superannuated, remarked that the Squire sent for
his eldest son immediately after his younger son's departure; that the
two were closeted together for full two hours (a most unusual thing at
Rowley Court, where, in general, all matters were discussed before the
servants, or, indeed, before anyone that might be present); and that
"Master Miles" came out with pallid cheeks and red eyes, and in a
state which the narrator described as one of "flustration."

Seven years had passed since Geoffrey Challoner's departure,--seven
years, during which his name had never been mentioned by his father or
his brother; seven years, during which the old man, wrapped in the
reserve, the silence, and the moodiness which had become his second
nature, had been gradually, but surely, breaking in health, and
wending his way towards the trysting-place where the Shadow cloaked
from head to foot was in waiting for him. That meeting was very close
at hand just now. So thought the servants, as from the ivy-covered
windows of the office they peered occasionally at their master,
propped up by pillows in his bath-chair, which had been wheeled into a
corner of the stone terrace where the light spring sunshine fell
fullest; so thought Dr. Barford, the brightest, cheeriest, rosiest
little medico, on whom all within the Cotswold district pinned their
faith ungrudgingly, and who had just sent his dark green gig, drawn by
that flea-bitten gray mare, which was known within a circuit of fifty
miles round, to the stables, and who approached the invalid with a
brisk step and an inquiring, pleasant smile.

"Sitting in the sunshine," said the Doctor aloud (having previously
said, _sotto voce_, "Hem!--hem! much changed, by George!"), "sitting
in the sunshine, my dear old friend! And quite right too--


     'The sunshine, broken in the rill,
      Though turned astray, is sunshine still,'


as somebody says. Well, and how do we feel to-day?"

"Badly enough, Doctor; badly enough!" replied the Squire, in a low
thick voice. "I'm running down very fast, and there's very little more
sunshine for me--" here an attack of coughing interrupted him for a
moment; "so I'm making the most of it."

"O, you mustn't say that," said Dr. Barford cheerily. "While there's
life there's hope, you know; and you've gone through some baddish
bouts since we've known each other."

"None so bad as this," said Mark Challoner. "Your skill, under
Providence, has kept me alive hitherto; but though you're as skilful
as ever, and as kind--God bless you for it!--you've not got Providence
working with you now. I'm doomed, and I know it. What's more, I don't
repine, only I want to make the most of the time that's left me; and,
above all, I want to see Miles again."

"Miles? O, ay! He's staying in town, is he not?"

"Yes, with my old friend Sandilands, who loves him as if he were his
own son. Poor Miles, it's a shame to drag him away from his enjoyment
to come down to a poor, dull, dying old man."

"You would not hurt his feelings by saying that before him," said the
Doctor shortly, "and you've no right to say it now. Has he been sent
for?"

"Yes, they telegraphed for him this morning."

"Well, there can be no harm in that, though I won't have you give way
to this feeling of lowness that is coming over you."

"Coming over me!" the old man repeated wearily. "Ah, Barford, my dear
friend, you know how long it is since the light died out of my life,
and left me the mere shell and husk of man that I have been since; you
know, Doctor, how long it is ago, though you don't know the cause of
it."

"Nor ever sought to know it, Squire; bear me witness of that," said
the little Doctor. "It's no part of my business or of my nature to
seek confidences; and though perhaps if I had been aware of what was
troubling you--and at the first I knew perfectly well that _animo
magis quam corpore_ was the seat of your illness--and though, being
unable to 'minister to a mind diseased,' as somebody says, I was
labouring, as it were, at a disadvantage,--you will do me the justice
to say, that I never for a moment hinted that--hum! you understand?"
And Dr. Barford, who would have given the results of a week's practice
to know really what had first worked the change in the old man,
stopped short and looked at him with a confidence-inviting glance.

"Perfectly," said the Squire; "but it could never have been. My secret
must die with me; and when after my death the closet is broken open,
and people find the skeleton in it, they will merely come upon a lot
of old bones jumbled together, and, not having got the key of the
puzzle to fit them together, will wonder what I can have been afraid
of. Why do you stare so earnestly?"

"A skeleton, my dear Squire!" said the little Doctor, on tiptoe with
eagerness; "you said a skeleton in a closet, and a lot of old bones
jumbled together--"

A smile, the first seen for many a day, passed across Mark Challoner's
wan face as he said, "I was speaking metaphorically, Barford; that is
all. No belated traveller was ever robbed and murdered at Rowley
Court--in my time at least, believe me."

Dr. Barford laughed a short laugh, and shrugged his shoulders as
though deprecating a pursuance of the subject, but he evidently did
not place entire credence on his friend's assertion. However, he
plunged at once into a series of medical questions, and shortly
afterwards took his leave. As he passed the hall-door, which was open,
on his way to the stables, he saw a neatly-dressed middle-aged woman
pacing quietly up and down the hall; and recognising her as the nurse
from London, who for some time past had been in nightly attendance on
the old man, he beckoned her to him.

"Coming out to get a little breath of fresh air, nurse?" he said
pleasantly, as she approached. "You must need it, I should think."

"Well, sir, it is warm and close in the Squire's room now, there's no
denying; and what it'll be when the summer comes on I often dread to
think."

"No you don't, nurse," said the Doctor, eyeing her keenly. "You know
better than that, with all the practice and experience you've had. No
summer for the Squire, poor fellow, this side the grave."

"You think not, sir?"

"I _know_ it, nurse, and so do you, if you only chose to say so.
However, he's gone down so very rapidly since I was here last, and his
tone is altogether so very low and depressed, that I imagine the end
to be very close upon us; so close that I think you had better tell
Mr. Miles--the son that has been telegraphed for, you know, and who
will probably be down to-night--that if he has anything special to say
to his father he had better do so very shortly after his arrival.
What's that?" he asked, as a dull sound fell upon his ear.

"That's the Squire knocking for Barnard to fetch his chair, sir; see,
Barnard has heard, and is going to him."

"O, all right! Poor old Squire! poor good old fellow! Don't forget
about Mr. Miles, nurse. Goodnight;" and the little Doctor, casting a
kindly look towards the spot where the figure of the old man in the
chair loomed hazily in the dim distance, hurried away.

When Mark Challoner's servant had reached his master's chair, and,
obedient to the signal he had received, was about to wheel it towards
the house, he found that the old man had changed his intention, and
was desirous of remaining out on the terrace yet a few minutes. On
receiving this order Barnard looked over his shoulder at the nurse,
who was still standing at the hall-door; and as she made no sign to
him to hasten his movements, he concluded that his master's wish might
be obeyed, and so, after touching his hat respectfully, he returned to
the genial society of the gardener and the stable-lad. And Mark
Challoner was once more left alone. The fact in its broadest
significance seemed to become patent to him as he watched the
retreating figure of his servant, and two tears coursed down his wan
cheeks. Mark Challoner knew that his last illness was then upon him;
for weeks he had felt that he should never again shake off the
lassitude and weakness so stealthily yet so surely creeping over him;
but now, within the last few minutes, the conviction had flashed
across him that the end was close at hand--that he had arrived at the
final remnant of that originally grand strength and vitality which,
slowly decaying, had enabled him to make head against disease so long,
and that he was taking his last look at the fair fields which he had
inherited, and in the improvement of which he had at one time--ah, how
long ago!--found his delight. It was this thought that made him
dismiss Barnard. The old man, with the new-born consciousness of his
approaching end fresh in him, wanted to gaze once more at his
diminished possessions; and for the last time to experience the old
associations which a contemplation of them never failed to revive.
There, with the westering sun just gilding its topmost branches, was
the Home Copse, where he had shot his first pheasant, to his old
father's loudly-expressed delight. Just below it lay the Black Pool,
out of which, at the risk of his own life, he had pulled Charles
Gammock, a rosy-faced boy with fair hair--Charles Gammock! ay, ay,
they buried him a year ago, and his grandson now holds the land.
There, bare and attenuated now, but as he first remembered it young
and strong and full of promise, was the Regent's Plantation, so called
in honour of the illustrious personage who, staying for the night with
Howard Challoner, had honoured him by planting the first tree in it.
Beyond it, Dirck's land, now--and as that thought crossed him the
Squire's brow became furrowed, and his wan colour deepened into a
leaden hue, for Dirck was one of the moneyed interest, one of the
manufacturers who had come in Sir Thomas Walbrook's wake, and were
bent on the acquisition of all the county property which might come
into the market. Beyond it lay Thurston Gap, the surest place for
finding a fox in the whole county, old Tom Horniblow used to say. Old
Tom Horniblow! Why, there had been three or four huntsmen to the
Cotswold since him: he must have been dead these forty years, during
which time the Squire had not thought of him a dozen times; and yet
then, at that moment, the stout figure of the old huntsman mounted on
his famous black horse, just as he had seen him at the cover-side half
a century ago, rose before his eyes. This reminiscence turned Mark
Challoner's thoughts from places to people; and though his glance
still rested on the landscape, his mind was busy recalling the ghosts
of the past. His father, a squire indeed of the old type--hearty,
boisterous, and hot-headed: it was well--and a faint smile dawned on
Mark Challoner's cheek as the thought crossed his mind--it was as well
that his father had died before the irruption of the Walbrooks,
Dircks, and such-like; it would have been too much for him. His
brother, the dandy with the high cravat and the buckskin breeches and
hessian boots, ridiculed by his country neighbours, and regarding his
estate but as a means to supply his town dissipation. His wife--she
seemed more dim and ghost-like to him than any of the others; he had
known her so short a time, so much of his life had been passed since
her death; since the gentle little woman, whose wedding-ring he had
worn on his little finger until it had eaten into the flesh, glided
out of the world after having given birth to her second son. And, with
the train of thought awakened by the reminiscence of the career of
that second son, from his birth until the morning of his abrupt
departure from the ancestral home, surging round him, the old man's
head sunk upon his breast, a fresh access of feebleness seemed to come
over him; and when the watchful Barnard sallied from his retreat and
advanced towards the chair, he found his master in a state bordering
on collapse, and made the utmost haste to get him to his room, and
place him under the professional care of the nurse.

In the course of a very few minutes, however, the Squire, aided by
stimulants, revived; and his senses rapidly returning, he ordered his
desk to be brought to the side of the bed into which he had been
moved, and commenced listlessly sorting the papers therein. They were
few and unimportant; the old man's illness had not been sudden; he had
always been a thoroughly methodical man, and he had had plenty of time
and opportunity to attend to his correspondence. Propped up by the
pillows, he was leisurely looking through the orderly bundles of
letters, neatly tied together and scrupulously docketed, when the
sound of a horse's hoofs on the gravel outside, the grating of wheels,
the barking of the dogs in the stable-yard, and the almost
simultaneous ringing of the house-bell, gave warning of an arrival.
Mark Challoner had scarcely time to note these various occurrences
when the room-door was thrown open, and in the next instant the old
man's wavering and unsteady hands were fast in the grasp of his son
Miles.

A tall man, over six feet in height, with a bright red-and-white
complexion, large brown eyes, a straight nose too big for his face, a
large mouth full of sound white teeth, with dark brown hair curling
crisply at the sides of his head and over his poll, with long
moustache and flowing brown beard, with a strongly-knit but somewhat
ungainly figure, dressed in a well-made but loosely-fitting gray suit,
and with large, well-shaped, brown hands, which, after releasing the
first grip of the Squire's fingers, joined themselves together and
kept working in tortuous lissom twists: this was Miles Challoner. A
faint smile, half of pleasure, half of amusement--something odd in
Miles had always been remarked by his father--flitted over the
Squire's face, as he said, after the first greeting, "You've come in
time, Miles: you received the telegram?"

"And started off at once, sir. All I could do to prevent his lordship
from coming with me--wanted to come immensely; but I told him I
thought he'd better not. Even such an old friend as he is in the way
when one's seedy--don't you think I'm right, sir?"


"You're right enough, Miles; more especially when, as in the present
case, it's a question of something more than 'seediness,' as you call
it. My time," continued the Squire, in tones a little thickened by
emotion,--"my time has come, my boy. I'm only waiting for you, before,
like Hezekiah, I should 'turn my face unto the wall.' I have, I hope,
'set my house in order,' and I know that now 'I shall die, and not
live;' but I wanted to see you before--before I go."

The young man leaned quickly forward and looked earnestly in his
father's face, as he heard these words; then with a gesture of inquiry
elevated his eyebrows at the nurse, who was standing just inside the
door. Receiving for answer an affirmative nod, Miles Challoner's cheek
for an instant turned as pale as that of the invalid; but he speedily
recovered himself, and said in a voice which lacked the cheery ring
that should have accompanied the words: "You're a little down, sir,
and that's natural enough, considering your illness; but you'll make
head against it now, and we shall soon have you about as usual. It was
only yesterday Lord Sandilands was saying that though he's some
quarter of a century your junior, he should be very sorry to back
himself against you at 'anything British,' as he expressed
it--anything where strength and bottom were required."

The old man smiled again as he said: "Sandilands has been a townman
for so long that he's lost all condition, and has ruined his health
for want of air and exercise. But at least he lives; while I--I've
vegetated for the last few years, and now there's an end even to
that."

"Why didn't you send for me before, sir? If I'd had any idea you
thought yourself so ill, I'd have come long since."

"I know that, my dear boy, and that's the very reason why I didn't
send. Why should I fetch you from your friends and your gaiety to
potter about an old man's bedside? I would not have sent for you even
now, save that I have that inward feeling which is unmistakable, and
which tells me that I can't last many days, many hours more, and I
wanted, selfishly enough, to have you near me at the last." The old
man spoke these words with indescribable affection, and, half
involuntarily as it seemed, threw his arm round his son's neck. The
big strong frame of the young man shook with ill-repressed emotion as
he took the thin hand hanging round his shoulder, and pressed it
reverently to his lips. "Father!" he said; and as he said it, both the
men felt how many years had passed since he had chanced to use the
term "Father!"

"True, my boy," said Mark Challoner quietly,--"it is a pleasure,
though I fear a selfish one. 'On some fond breast the parting soul
relies,' you know, Miles; and you're all that's left to me in the
world. Besides, the tie between us has been such a happy one; as long
as I can recollect we've had no difference,--we were more like
brothers than father and son, Miles."

Miles answered only by a pressure of his father's hand. He dared not
trust himself to speak, he knew that his voice was thick and choked
with tears. His father looked at him for an instant, and then said:
"Now, boy, go and get some dinner. How thoughtless of me to keep you
so long fasting after your journey!--Nurse, take Mr. Miles away, and
see that he is properly attended to. Be as careful of him as you are
of me, that's all I ask;" and the old man, half-exhausted, sank back
on his pillow.

Miles Challoner left the room with the nurse, and when they were
alone, he took the first opportunity of asking her real opinion as to
his father's state. This she gave him frankly and fully, telling him
moreover what Dr. Barford had said as to the necessity of not delaying
anything which he might have to say to the Squire. Miles thanked her,
and then sat down to his cheerless meal. His thoughts were
preoccupied, and he ate and drank but little, pausing every now and
then, bestriding the room, reseating himself, and leaning his head on
his hand with a helpless puzzled air, as one to whom the process of
thought was unfamiliar. He could scarcely realise the fact that the
presiding spirit of the place, the man whose will had been law ever
since he could recollect, "the Squire," who, with diminished
possessions and failing fortunes, had commanded, partly through his
own style and manner, partly through the prestige attaching to the
family, more respect and esteem than all the members of the invading
calicocracy put together,--he could scarcely realise that this rural
autocrat's power was ebbing, and that he himself lay on his death-bed.
On his death-bed!--that was a curious thought: Miles Challoner had
never attempted to realise the position, and now; when vaguely he
attempted it, he failed. Only one thing came out clearly to him after
his attempted examination of the subject, and that was that it would
be most desirable to be at peace with all the world, and that any
enmity cherished to the last would probably have a most disturbing and
uncomfortable effect. Pondering all this he returned to the sick-room.
During his absence, the curtains had been closed and the night-lamp
lighted. The nurse sat nodding in a large easy-chair by the bedside,
and the Squire lay in a dozing state, half-waking now and again as his
head slipped off the high pillow on which it rested, or when the
heaviness of his breathing became specially oppressive. Miles seated
himself on a couch at the foot of the bed, and fatigued by his
journey, soon fell asleep. He seemed to have been unconscious only a
few minutes, but in reality had slept nearly an hour, when he was
awakened by a touch on the shoulder, and opening his eyes, saw the
nurse standing by him. "The Squire's calling for you," she said,
adding in a whisper, "he's going fast!" Miles roused himself, and
crept silently to the head of the bed, where he found his father
gasping for breath. The Squire's dim eyes recognised his son, and
between the paroxysms of laboured respiration he again threw his arm
round Miles's neck and touched the bowed forehead with his lips. Then
the thoughts that had been fermenting in Miles Challoner's heart for
so many years, and which had caused him such mental disturbance that
night, at length found vent in words. With his father's arm around
him, and with his face close to the old man's, Miles said: "Father!
one word, only one! You hear and understand me?" A pressure of the
hand on his cheeks--O, such a feeble pressure, but still a
recognition--answered him. "Father, what of Geoffrey?" A low moan
escaped the old man's lips; other sign made he none. "What of
Geoffrey?" continued Miles,--"years ago you forbade me ever to ask
what had become of him, why he had left us, even to mention his name.
I have obeyed you, as you know: but now, father, now--"

"Never!" said the old man in dull low accents. "Your brother Geoffrey
is, and must be for ever, dead to you. Miles, my boy, my own boy,
listen! Should you ever meet him, as you may do, shun him, I urge, I
command you! Think of what I say to you now, here, as I am--shun him,
fly from him, let nothing earthly induce you to know him or
acknowledge him."

"But, father, you will surely tell me why---"

The nurse touched Miles on the shoulder as he spoke, and pointed to
the Squire, whose swooning had been noticed by her observant eyes.
When he recovered himself he essayed again to speak, but his strength
failing him he laid his hand in his son's, and so peacefully passed
away.




CHAPTER II.
In Possession.


"Really, hardly sooner than I expected, my dear sir," said Dr.
Barford, when he came to pay his accustomed daily visit at Rowley
Court, and found his occupation gone. "A little accelerated by
nervousness about your coming home, but very little; not more than a
few hours. I quite expected the event; told the nurse as much
yesterday, in fact. Ah, well, my dear sir, it is what we must all come
to. He was a fine old gentleman, a very fine old gentleman,--has not
left many like him in Gloucestershire; more's the pity;" and Dr.
Barford continued to talk on with smooth professional glibness, by no
means unconscious of the fact that he was not listened to by Miles
Challoner with even a show of attention.

Old Mark Challoner's death was emphatically a "bad business" for Dr.
Barford, and he said so (to himself) quite frankly. The Squire had
been a very profitable and by no means a troublesome or exacting
patient to the worthy doctor for a considerable time, and it was not
pleasant to him to know that the attendance which brought much that
was agreeable with it, in addition to liberal and regularly-paid fees,
was at an end. Dr. Barford looked at Miles Challoner, and a mild
despondency possessed itself of his soul. Miles was a model of health
and strength; his complexion indicated unconsciousness of the presence
of bile in his system, and he looked as little like a man troubled, or
likely to be troubled, with nerves, or fancied ailments of any kind,
as need be. So Dr. Barford felt his footing at Rowley Court was a
thing of the past, and mentally bade it farewell with a plaintive
sigh. He was an honest little man, and kind-hearted too, though he did
think of the event, as we all think of every event in which we are
concerned, from a selfish standpoint; and he was frankly, genuinely
sorry for his old friend; and Miles recognised the sincerity of
feeling in him, and threw off his absence of mind, and shook hands
with him over again, thanking him for the skill and care that had
availed so long, none the less warmly that it could avail no longer.

Miles Challoner's grief for his father was very deep and poignant. His
nature was acutely sensitive, and he had the power of feeling sorrow
more intensely than most men, while he lacked the faculty for shaking
it off, and betaking himself to the way of life which had been his
before the trouble came upon him, which most men possess, and find
very useful in a world which affords little time and has not much
toleration for sentiment. Loneliness fell heavily upon him, and the
society which in the winter would have been within his reach was not
available now. The season was well on in London, and most of the
people who formed the not very extensive neighbourhood of Rowley Court
were in town; so that Miles Challoner was all uncheered by neighbourly
kindness, and his evenings were especially solitary.

Incidental to his position as sole heir to the diminished but still
respectable possessions of the Challoners, a great deal of business
had to be gone through which was particularly distasteful to Miles.
The family lawyer lived in London, of course, but his personal
services had not been needed. Old Mark Challoner had set his house
very thoroughly in order; no rents were in arrear, the debts were few,
and the tenants were orderly and well-behaved. They had liked their
old landlord well enough, and had been somewhat afraid of him. They
were not quite sure whether they should approve altogether so much of
the new one. Not that Miles had done anything to offend his father's
people; not that he had saliently departed from, or violently
transgressed, the traditions of conduct of the foregone Challoners;
not that there was the slightest suspicion of milk-sopism attaching to
Miles; but there was an uneasy notion abroad that Miles did not take
much interest in the old place, that he cared over-much for books and
"Lunnon," and was rather degenerately ignorant in matters appertaining
to agriculture. On the whole, though there was no disaffection among
the Rowley-Court tenantry, there was not much enthusiasm. Men who
would have thought it a desperate hardship, an entirely unnatural and
unheard-of slight indeed, if they had not been, whenever they desired
it, immediately admitted to an interview with old Mark Challoner, were
perfectly satisfied to transact their business with Mr. Styles the
steward, and displayed to the deputy very little curiosity respecting
his principal. They talked about Miles a little among themselves,
wondering whether he would not marry soon, and supposing, in rather
depreciatory accents, that he would bring a lady from "Lunnon."

"Glo'ster won't do for him, depend on it," said farmer Bewlay to the
buxom wife of farmer Oliver; "he'll be having a fine madam, what'll
want to be six months among the furriners, and save all she can at
home the other six. Times have changed since the old Squire brought
his pretty little wife home, and she shook hands with us all in the
churchyard, after morning prayers, her first Sunday here, and told us
how she knew us all already, from her husband's talk."

"I don't remember it myself," said farmer Oliver's buxom wife; "but
I've heard Tummas talk of it, and how she looked up at the old Squire
when she said, 'my husband,' and smiled just like a summer morning."

"Ay, indeed she did," assented farmer Bewlay; "but he wasn't the old
Squire then, but a brave and good-looking gentleman; and she was a
pretty girl, was madam, when she came to Rowley Court, and pretty up
to the time they carried her out of it. I helped in that job; and the
Squire had nowt but his little boys left."

"Has anybody heerd tell anything about Master Geoffrey?" said farmer
Oliver's wife, dropping her voice, and looking round her, as people
look who are talking of things which are not, or should not be,
generally mentioned. "Does Mr. Styles say anything about him? Does Mr.
Styles know where he is?"

"Mr. Styles never mentions him. I don't believe he knows any more than
we do where he is, or what has become of him. A handsome child he was,
and a handsome boy, though small and sly and cruel in his ways, and no
more like the Squire, nor madam neither, than I am. You remember
Master Geoffrey, surely?"

"O yes, I remember him. How the Squire changed after he went away! He
ran away to sea, didn't he?"

"Some folk said so; but for my part I don't believe it. The sea, from
all I've ever heard tell of it, ain't an easy life, nor a gay life,
for the matter o' that; and wherever Master Geoffrey run to--and it's
certain sure he can somewheres--it wasn't to sea, in my opinion. I
don't know; I only have my own thoughts about it; and I ha'n't no
means of knowin'. Anyhow he went, and Squire was never the same man
after; he were always good, and fond of the place, and that he were to
the last; but he never had the same smile again, and I never see him
talking to the children about, or patting them on the head, or doing
anything like what he used."

The honest dark eyes of Polly Oliver filled with tears. "It's all
true," she said, "and more than that. When our Johnny were lying in
the measles, and very near his end, the Squire came down one day along
with Dr. Barford, the physician, you know. He thought there ought to
be someone beside the doctor to see the child; and when Dr. Barford
told us--very kind and feeling like, I must say--as the child couldn't
be left with us any longer, and I began to cry, as was only natural,
and made no difference to me who was there, Squire or no Squire, he
says to me, quiet like, but I can hear the words now, 'You won't
believe me, Mrs. Oliver, and it would be hard to expect you should;
but there are worse things in life than seeing your boy die;' and then
he went away. And when Johnny was buried, and I had time to think of
anything else, I thought of the Squire's words; and many a time I
wondered what was the meaning that was in them, and knew it must be
Master Geoffrey's doing somehow, but how I did not know, and I suppose
no one knows."

"I don't know about that," said farmer Bewlay; "it's likely as Mr.
Miles knows, and Mr. Geoffrey; but I'm sure Styles doesn't: and
outside them two, and the Squire in his grave, I daresay nobody in
this world knows the rights of the story."

While the people over whom Miles Challoner had come to reign in the
course of nature thus curiously, but not unkindly or with any lack of
feeling, discussed the actualities and the probabilities of his life,
and raked up the memory of that mysterious family secret, strongly
suspected to be of a calamitous nature, which had long been hidden by
the impenetrable silence of the Squire, and now lay buried in his
grave, Miles Challoner himself was much occupied with the selfsame
subject. The unanswered question which he had asked his father in his
last moments,--the unsolved enigma which had disturbed his mind for
years, which haunted him now, and made all his life seem unreal,
wrong, and out of joint,--. rose up before him, and engaged his
thoughts constantly, almost to the exclusion of every other matter for
reflection except his father's death. The two linked themselves
together in a strong bond of pain, and held him in their withes. This
time was a very heavy one to the new master of Rowley Court.

His position was irksome to him. The privileges of proprietorship had
no charms for Miles Challoner. He disliked the business details in
which it involved him; he shrunk from the keenly painful associations
it produced; he suffered much from his loneliness,--from the
loneliness of the Court generally. Hitherto, whenever he had been
away, he had returned to enjoy the tranquillity--tranquillity which,
when it was tasted as a change, he appreciated very highly, but which
as the normal state of things wearied him rapidly and excessively. He
had had much companionship, in and since his boyhood, with his father,
and the blank left by the old Squire's death was indeed complete.
Miles Challoner, without deserving precisely the appellation of a
student, was fond of books. He was well-educated, not in a very
profound, but in a tolerably extensive and various sense; and his
taste took a literary turn early in life, which, wholly unshared by
his father, had been encouraged, fostered, and directed by his
father's friend, Lord Sandilands. Miles was a man of few intimacies.
He liked society; but no one would ever have called him sociable: he
had much more the air of frequenting general, in order to keep clear
of particular society; and this really was the case. Upon his
sensitive disposition the family secret, concerning which he had
vainly questioned his father on his death-bed, weighed heavily. It set
him apart, and kept him apart from anything like intimacy with young
men of his own age, because he felt that they too would be always
trying to find out that of which he himself was ignorant; and he was
not at ease with the older people, his father's contemporaries and
neighbours, because he was not sure whether they had any inkling or
certain knowledge of the family secret,--whether they were all in a
conspiracy to keep him in the darkness to which his father had
condemned him from the period of his brother's disappearance. Would
Mark Challoner have at last confided the truth to his son, had a
little more life, a little longer time, been accorded to him? This was
the vain question which Miles asked himself as he sat moodily in the
library after his solitary dinner, and watched the sun go down in a
sea of gold and azure behind the grand old woods of Rowley Court, or
strolled about the terrace listlessly, until the night fell. He could
never answer it--no one could ever answer it; but this did not keep
Miles Challoner from pondering upon it. He felt quite certain that
there was but one man in the world who could resolve his doubts, who
could tell him the worst,--might it not rather be the best--of this
matter, which so sorely perplexed him. That man was Lord Sandilands.
If anyone knew the truth, it was he; but whether Miles would ever hear
it from him depended, as he felt, entirely on the terms on which the
communication had been made, if it had been made at all, by his father
to Lord Sandilands. That the family lawyer knew nothing of it, Miles
felt confident; that Mr. Styles, the steward, was as ignorant and as
curious, if not as anxious, as himself, he had no doubt whatever.
There was no one to share, no one to aid, his mental inquietude. Was
his brother living, or was he the only--the last--one bearing the old
name left?

Very shortly after Mark Challoner's funeral had taken place, his son
had instituted the strictest possible search among the documents of
all kinds which the house contained, for any letters or papers bearing
upon the mysterious occurrences which had changed the aspect of
affairs at Rowley Court while the old Squire's sons were yet boys, and
had shut the younger out from his father's house into banishment and
oblivion. This search, which Miles had conducted quite alone, and had
been careful to keep from the knowledge of the servants, had been
entirely unrewarded by success, and had only revealed to Miles a
circumstance which still further deepened the mystery which tormented
him, and increased its distressing effect. Not only did there not
exist among the Squire's papers any memoranda, letters, or documents
of any description bearing upon, or having any reference to, the
period at which Geoffrey Challoner had left Rowley Court, but none
existed in any way, directly or indirectly, relating to him. Not a
scrap of his writing as a child, though Miles found his own little
letters to his father and mother carefully treasured up, with the
correct dates noted upon each packet; and his portrait, as a baby of
three years old, hung over the mantelpiece of his father's bedroom.
But there was no likeness of Geoffrey. By an effort of memory Miles
recalled the taking of that little portrait; he remembered how he
had sat upon his father's knee, and played with the heavy gold
hunting-watch, which was his especial delight--it was ticking away
still in a watch-stand in the library--while the artist did his work.
He remembered how his hair had been additionally brushed and curled for
the occasion; and--yes, now he distinctly remembered that Geoffrey's
portrait had also been painted. Where was it? What had been done with
it?

All the circumstances returned to Miles Challoner's memory. The two
pictures had hung side by side for years. Where was that of the
younger son? The Squire had gone abroad for a short time, and the
brothers had remained at Rowley Court under the care of their tutor.
They had both written regularly to their father; and Miles found all
his own letters of that period carefully preserved, arranged according
to their dates, and indorsed, in his father's hand, "My Son's Letters,
18-." But there was no scrap of Geoffrey's writing, there was no trace
that he had ever lived, to be found within the walls of Rowley Court.
Only when Miles went into the room which had been the brothers' study,
only when he entered and looked round the long-unused apartments which
had been their nursery and play-room, could he realise that there had
been two in that stately old house eleven years ago. The room which
had been his wife's had always been occupied by the Squire after her
death; otherwise Miles would have hoped to find some little memento of
his brother there,--there, where he could dimly remember--or was it
fancy, and not memory?--- a gentle pale face turned wistfully towards
him when, a very little child, he was brought to see the fading mother
who had been early and mercifully taken away from the evil to come.
From evil indeed, from terrible and irremediable evil Miles Challoner
felt it must have been; else why the hopeless banishment, why the
impenetrable silence, why the apparently complete oblivion? He brooded
upon these things in the solitude to which the first few weeks of his
proprietorship of Rowley Court were devoted, almost to the exclusion
of every other subject of thought; and Mr. Styles found him singularly
inattentive and indifferent to the details of his property and his
squirearchical duties, as that experienced person laid them before
him.

"I can't make him out, and that's the truth," Mr. Styles remarked to
Dr. Barford one day that the steward met the doctor taking his gig by
a short cut through a lane which formed the boundary of Rowley Court
on one side,--"I really can't make him out. He cares for nothing; and
it is not natural for a young gentleman like him. I was talking to him
this morning about the likely look of the turnips on the Lea Farm, and
I'm blessed if he heard one word in ten; and when I asked him a
question, just to rouse him up like, he said, 'O, ah! turnips, I think
you said? Of course do as you think best;' which was altogether
complete nonsense. Of course he's cut up about the Squire; and very
natural and right it is he should be so; but it ain't natural and it
ain't right to go on as he's going. And it's my belief," said Mr.
Styles, as he removed his hat, took his checked pocket-handkerchief
out of the crown, gave his face a desponding wipe with it, and
replaced it,--"it's my belief as he don't know the difference between
turnips and pine-apples; and there's a fine promise too, such as a man
might look to getting some credit along of."

"That's bad, Styles; that's bad," said Dr. Barford; "I don't like to
hear that my old friend's son is taking to moping. I'll call up at the
Court and see him to-morrow. Good-day, Styles;" and the Doctor drove
on, thinking gravely of the changes he had seen at Rowley Court,
though he knew as little of their origin as everybody else knew.

On the following day, as Miles Challoner and the Doctor walked
together upon the stone terrace, Miles stopped on the very spot
whence his father had taken his last look at the lands which had
called him master so long; and, looking full and earnestly at his
companion, asked him: "Dr. Barford, do you know why my brother left
his home? Do you know what that grief was which my father had on his
mind while he lived, and when he died?"

Dr. Barford hesitated for a moment before he replied to Miles
Challoner's question, but his hesitation arose from surprise, not from
uncertainty. There was not the least tone of doubt or reserve in his
voice and manner as he answered: "No, Mr. Challoner, your question
surprises me very much; but I can assure you most positively I know
nothing of the matter."

"Did my father never mention it to you? Never, even at the last, when
he knew--for he told me so--he was dying?"

"Never," said Dr. Barford; then he added, after a momentary pause, "he
did say something to me, on the last occasion when I had any talk with
him, which may have had some reference to your brother; but if it had
any, it was only incidental, and quite unexplained. He said something
about his sharing in the common lot--having a skeleton in the
cupboard; but that was all. Nothing more explicit ever passed his lips
to me."

"Then, or at any time?" asked Miles.

"Then, or at any time, Mr. Challoner," repeated Dr. Barford gravely;
and the two fell into silence, which lasted for several minutes.

At length Miles spoke:

"You really advise me to leave Rowley Court?" he said.

"Certainly I do; if not as a physician--in which capacity you do not
require my services, happily--as a friend. You are not naturally of a
very active temperament; and moping about here, in a place which is
necessarily gloomy just now, and where you have no congenial
occupation, will not improve you in that respect. Go up to town for
the remainder of the season, and then go abroad for a few months; and
you will find that you will come back wonderfully reconciled to being
master of Rowley Court."

"I like your advice," said Miles with unusual briskness of tone; "and
I think I will take it; at least I will take it so far as going up to
town is concerned. As for the rest--"

"As for the rest, you can think of it when the time comes," said the
Doctor. "And now I must bid you good-bye, and be off. I have to call
at Dale and Stourton before I go home to dinner."

As Dr. Barford drove down the wide smooth avenue, between the ranks of
tall stately elms which bordered the well-kept road, he thought:
"That's a fine young fellow, but of rather a gloomy turn of mind. I
hope he may fall in love and marry up in London, and bring a new
mistress to the Court."

Miles walked up and down the terrace long after the Doctor had left
him, and his face wore a brighter and more serene expression than it
had been used to wear of late. He had remained at Rowley Court long
enough; he knew how his affairs stood now; he had really nothing to
keep him there. He could only learn what he most desired to know, if
indeed it were possible to learn it at all, from Lord Sandilands, who
was just then at his house in London. He would go and stay with Lord
Sandilands. Having come to this decision, he turned into the house
with a brisker step, and felt the evening which ensued the least
dreary through which he had lived since the Squire died.

Had Mark Challoner been of a less autocratic disposition it would have
been very difficult, if not impossible, for him to have carried into
execution the absolute taboo under which he had placed the subject of
Geoffrey's disappearance. But the Squire had been a man of inexorable
determination of character; and as he was not at all capricious, and
exerted this resolution only when and where it was necessary, he had
never met with rebellion on the part of his elder son. What the story
of the younger had been, no one knew; no one had any certain
indication by which to guess. The tutor to whom the education of the
two boys had been intrusted was absent from Rowley Court when the
separation intended by Mark Challoner, and destined by Providence, to
be final, had taken place; and there was no reason to suppose that Mr.
Mordaunt had ever received any information concerning his former pupil
from the Squire. Had Miles Challoner been either older or younger at
the time of the occurrence, he might have been unable to observe his
father's peremptory command with the reluctant obedience he had
manifested until the end, when his pent-up anxiety had found vent in
his useless appeal to the dying Squire. But he had outlived the
restless irrepressible curiosity of the child, and he had not reached
the calm deliberative reasoning of the man. Now that the latter mode
of thought had fully come to him, he suffered keenly, as only such
sensitive natures have the gift to suffer, from his helpless ignorance
of his brother's fate. The thought haunted him. As children, he and
Geoffrey had loved each other well enough, after the childish fashion
which includes any amount of quarrelling and making-up again; but as
boys they had never got on very well together. They were essentially
different, with the difference which makes discord, not with the
contrast which produces harmony. Miles had always had an
unacknowledged consciousness that Geoffrey cared very little about
him, and this had had its influence upon the sensitive boy, an
influence even stronger than that of the want of accord in the tastes
and pursuits of the brothers. As Miles had advanced into manhood, he
had come to understand all the appalling gravity of such a sentence as
that which his father had passed upon his brother when he forbade the
mention of his name in the house where he had been born and bred. With
this comprehension came an intense yearning to know the meaning of the
sentence,--to be enabled to estimate its justice; a kind of revolt on
behalf of the banished brother, in which affection had less share than
an abstract love of right, happily strong in the nature of the young
man. And now there was no means of satisfying this yearning; the
secret had to all appearance died with the Squire, but its
consequences remained, to become an almost intolerable burden to Miles
Challoner.

Lord Sandilands received his young friend's letter with sincere
pleasure. He liked Miles; he liked his ideas and "ways;" he liked his
society The young man had a happy faculty for creating this kind of
liking among his fellows. He was large-minded and unselfish, and so he
did not neglect or trample upon the feelings of other people, or try
their tempers much or often. He was not a brilliant person, and
therefore could afford to be good-natured and unaffected; and though
he possessed rather more than an average amount of information upon
most subjects of general interest and importance, there were few men
less inclined to display their knowledge than Miles Challoner. He was
disposed to accord to everybody his or her fair share of conversation,
and had an acquiescent uncritical way with him which made friends for
him, particularly among women. Without being in the least deserving of
that truly opprobrious epithet, a lady's man, Miles had strong
partisans among "the conflicting gender;" and women who found him a
very impracticable subject for flirtation were ready to acknowledge
that his notions of friendship were peculiarly exalted and practical.
People who knew him, but had never troubled themselves to think about
him particularly, would nevertheless have answered promptly to any
question respecting him, that he was a fine honourably-minded fellow,
and rather clever than otherwise; and the few who knew him well would
have said substantially the same thing in more numerous and perhaps
stronger words. The truth is, it was about all that could be said of
Miles Challoner at the important period of his life which witnessed
his father's death and his own succession to the family property, with
its penalties and privileges of squiredom. He had reached man's estate
some years before; but there had been nothing in the course and manner
of his life previously to develop his character strongly,--to bring
its good or evil traits into prominence. It had been an even,
prosperous, happy life, on which he had entered with all the
advantages of high animal spirits and unblemished health. Whether he
had in him the stuff which either defies or moulds destiny, the
courage which is matured in suffering, the truth and steadfastness of
character which are at once weapons and armour in the strife of human
existence, it was for time to tell.

Time did tell.

"I'm uncommonly glad you have made up your mind to come to town,"
wrote Lord Sandilands to Miles Challoner; "it is the best thing you
can do; and so far from being disrespectful to your father's memory,
it is your best way of avoiding what might even appear disrespectful
to those who are no doubt watching you pretty closely. You have not a
taste for the things the Squire (God bless him!) delighted in, and you
cannot affect to have; because, in the first place, it is not in you
to affect, and, in the second, you would certainly be  found out by
Mr. Styles. (Ceres and Pomona! shall I ever forget a dialogue between
your father and him about the best crop for the Bayhamsfields?) You
will offend your new people much less by absence than by indifference,
depend upon it. Then you can thoroughly depend on Styles; and you can
always put agricultural enthusiasm on paper. So come up, my dear boy;
and the sooner the better."

Miles Challoner went to London, and very soon after he arrived there
"time" began "to tell."




CHAPTER III.
Carabas House.


Carabas House is in Beaumanoir-square, as most people know. Long
before the smart stuccoed residences--with their plate-glass windows,
their conservatoried balconies, their roomy porticoes--sprung up, like
Aladdin's palaces, at the command of the great wizard-builder, Compo,
who so recently died a baronet and a millionaire; when the ground on
which Beaumanoir-square now stands was a dreary swamp, across which
our great-grandmothers, in fear of their lives, were carried to
Ranelagh, Carabas House stood, a big, rambling, red-bricked mansion,
surrounded on all sides by a high wall, and looking something between
a workhouse, a lunatic asylum, and a gaol. To the Marquis of Carabas
of those days it mattered little what was the aspect of his ancestral
home, as he, from the time of his succession, had resolutely declined
to see it, or any other part of the domain whence his title and
estates were derived, preferring to spend his life on the Continent of
Europe, in the society of agreeable men and women, and in the
acquisition of a splendid collection of pictures, statues, and other
_objets d'art_, which at his lordship's lamented demise were sold in
Paris at a world-famous sale extending over many days, the pecuniary
result of which was hailed with the greatest satisfaction by his
lordship's heir. For Mr. Purrington, his lordship's cousin, who
succeeded to the title and estates, wanted money very badly indeed, he
had been speculating for a very long time on the chances of his
succession, and he had to pay very dearly for these speculations. He
had contested his county in the Tory interest four separate times, at
a cost known only to himself, his wife, and his head-agent. He had
married the daughter of an Irish peer; a lovely woman full of talent,
affectionate, loyal, energetic, and thoroughly understanding her
position as--a county member's wife, but with a number of impecunious
relations, all of whom looked for assistance to the heir to an English
marquisate. He was a crack shot, and always paired about the 25th of
July for the remainder of the session, having, according to his own
account, the great luck of having one of the best Scotch moors "lent
to him" for three weeks from the 12th. He was a capital judge of a
horse, a keen rider to hounds, and the invariable occupant of a little
box near Egerton Lodge, with a stud sufficient to see him "out" four
days a week; but this, as he pathetically put it, was his "only
expense." In the season, Lady Fanny had her Wednesday-evening
receptions, when a perpetual stream of fashionables, political people,
and the usual ruck of young men who are met everywhere, would filter
from ten till one through her little drawing-rooms in Clarges-street;
and her Saturday dinners of eight, which were very good and very
enjoyable, and where pleasant people in various social circles met
together without the dread of seeing their names announced in the
fashionable journals. But all these things cost a great deal of money;
and when Mr. Purrington became the Marquis of Carabas, he was very
nearly at the end of his tether.

The marquisate of Carabas, however, was by no means an empty title, a
grand position lacking means to support its proper state, than which
it is impossible to fancy anything more painful. During the late
lord's lifetime the revenue had very far exceeded the expenditure, and
the Parisian sale had left a very large balance at Coutts's; so that
the new people entered upon their estate with great comfort, and were
enabled to carry out their peculiarly extensive views of life without
embarrassing themselves in the slightest degree. It was shortly after
their accession that the big brick screen-wall was replaced by a light
and elegant bronze railing; that the rambling red-bricked mansion was
transformed into a modern stone house; that the Marchioness of Carabas
took her position as a leader of _ton_, and in Carabas House, so long
black and desolate and abandoned, chimneys smoked, and lights blazed,
and music resounded, and the best people in London found themselves
gathered together three times a week.

The best people? The very best.

It was the fashion in certain circles to talk of "the mixture" which
you met at Carabas House; and the young Duchess of Taffington (whose
father was old Bloomer the banker of Lombard-street, and whose
grandfather was old Bloöm the money-lender and diamond-merchant of
Amsterdam) and old Lady Clanronald, with whom her husband, then the
Hon. Ulick Strabane, fell in love, from seeing her looking over the
blind in her father's (the apothecary's) window in Drogheda,--both
these great ladies shrugged their very different pairs of shoulders
whenever the Marchioness's receptions were alluded to before them; but
neither of these leaders of fashion could deny that princes of the
blood, royal dukes, stars and garters, ambassadors, belles of the
season, Foreign-Office clerks, and all the great creatures of the day,
were blocked together, week after week, on the staircase at Carabas
House; or that the Marchioness herself took _pas_ and precedence,
according to her rank, and was one of the most distinguished and most
highly-thought-of guests wherever she chose to go.

"That's so!" as Jack Hawkes, of the F.O., would remark to his
familiars; "neither the Duchess nor old Clanronald can get over that,
and that's what makes them so wild; and as to the mixture they talk
about, that's lions. She's in great form, don't you know, Lady Carabas
is, and quite fit, but her weakness is lions; and I'm bound to say
that you meet some people at Carabas House who are quite out of the
hunt. If any fellow get's talked about, no matter what he is--writing
fellow, painting fellow, fiddling fellow--I'll lay odds you'll find
him there. There's what's his name--Burkinyoung: man who made a stir
last year with his poems; they had him down there, sir, at their place
on the river--Weir Lodge---and he used to sit on the lawn under the
trees with Lady Carabas pouring eau-de-cologne on his head, and some
of her lot--Maude Allingham, and Agnes Creswell, and that lot, don't
you know--fanning him and keeping the flies off while he composed; no
one was allowed to come near, for fear of disturbing him. Give you my
honour, heard it first-hand from Chinny Middleton of the Blues, who
pulled up from Windsor in his canoe, and was going to land, as usual,
and got warned off, by George, as though he'd got the plague on
board!"

There was a good deal of truth in Mr. Hawkes's remarks, Lady Carabas
being Mrs. Leo Hunter on a very superior scale. Her passion was that
everyone distinguished not merely in her own rank in life but in every
other should be seen in her rooms; and from her position and by her
fascinating manner she generally managed to attain her object. The
pilot of the state ship, at a period when opposition winds were
howling loud and the political horizon was black with threatened
storm, would find time to pass a few minutes at one of Lady Carabas's
receptions, however haggard his looks, however burning his brain. The
right honourable gentleman the leader of the Opposition, who for the
last month had been gathering himself together for a tiger-like spring
on the state pilot, might have been seen, on the night before he made
his grand onslaught, jammed into a corner of the staircase at Carabas
House, looking like the Sphinx in evening dress, and pleasantly
bantering Mr. Mulvaney, the celebrated "special correspondent" of the
_Statesman_. Anyone talked of in any way; the _belles_ of the season;
pretty women, presentable of course, but quite out of the Carabas set;
dawning lights in politics, no matter of what party; artists, young
and old--of everyone whom you saw at Carabas House you would learn
that they had done something special; indeed, Jack Hawkes, an
invaluable _cicerone_, could talk for two hours on a grand night, and
not get through his list-- "Who are all these strange people that one
sees nowhere else? Well, everybody's somebody, and it's difficult to
know where to begin. Let's see. That short, stout, common-looking man
is Vireduc, the great engineer and contractor--builds bridges,
railroads, and those kind of things, don't you know--horrible fellow,
who's always telling you he came to London with eightpence in his
pocket, and rose from nothing, as though one couldn't see that. Woman
sitting this side the ottoman is Mrs. Goodchild; writes novels--pretty
good, they say. I don't read; I haven't any time. Her husband's
somewhere about; but he's nobody--only asked because of his wife. The
little man talking to her is Bistry the surgeon--have your leg off
before you can say 'knife;' and the brown-faced man, who looks so
bored, is Sir Alan Tulwar, Indian-army man, made K.C.B. for something
he did out there--Punjaub, don't you know? The little man with the big
head is Polaski the flute-player; and the fat man with the red face is
Ethelred Jinks, the Queen's Counsel. That pretty little fair girl is
Miss Wren, who shot the burglar down in Hampshire three years ago; and
the little boy in black, as you call him, is Jules Brissot, the Red
Republican, who was blown off a barricade on the 4th of December, and
settled down here as a--what do you call it--tutor."

This will suffice as a specimen of Mr. Hawkes's conversation, which,
on such occasions, had the singular merit of having a substratum of
truth.

But though lions of all kinds were to be found roaring during the
season at Carabas House, none were so welcome as the musical lions,
both native and foreign. In her younger days, Lady Carabas had had a
pretty little voice herself, and even in Clarges-street she had always
managed to secure some of the best professional talent at a very much
less expense than any of her friends; and when once Lord Carabas had
succeeded, "musical mossoo," as Jack Hawkes was accustomed to call all
foreigners who played or sung professionally, had his headquarters in
Beaumanoir-square. Heinrich Katzenjammer, who, being a native of
Emmerich on the Lower Rhine, thought proper to advertise in the
English newspapers in the French language, had not been "de retour"
many hours before his limp glazed card was on the hall-table at
Carabas House. Baton, the _chef d'orchestre_, would as soon have
thought of being absent from his conductor's stool on a Saturday night
as from Lady Carabas's luncheon-table on a Sunday afternoon. There the
most promising pupils of the Academy of Music made their _débuts_ in
cantatas or operettas, written by distinguished amateurs, and thereby
considered themselves entitled ever after to describe themselves as
"of the nobility's concerts;" and there, on festival nights, could you
check off the principal singers and players whom London delighted to
honour, with the amateurs, the _dilettanti_, and the _cognoscenti_,
who always follow in their wake.

It was a soft bright night in early summer, and Beaumanoir-square was
filled with flashing lamps and whirling carriages, and stamping
horses, and excited drivers, and roaring linkmen. It was a grand night
at Carabas House, and all London was expected there. The police had
enough to do to make the vehicles keep in line; and when some of the
royal carriages familiarly used the royal privilege and dashed through
here and cut in there, the confusion increased a thousandfold; and it
was with the greatest difficulty that the crowd surging round the door
were thrust back right and left to allow the visitors to enter, or
were prevented from casting themselves under the wheels of the
carriages as they drew up, with the recklessness of Juggernaut
victims. Halfway down the line was a perfectly appointed brougham, in
which sat Miles Challoner and the friend with whom he was staying.
Lord Sandilands was in every respect a remarkable-looking man;
tall and upright, with a polished bald head slightly fringed with
snow-white soft hair; thin clean-cut features; gray eyes, from which
most of the fire had faded; and small carefully-trimmed gray whiskers.
His appearance and manners were those of a past age; now in his
evening dress he wore a high stiff white-muslin cravat, an elaborately
got-up cambric shirt-frill, a blue coat with brass buttons, white
waistcoat, black trousers fitting tightly round the ankles, silk
stockings and shoes. His voice was particularly soft and clear, as,
replying to some remark of his companion, he said: "No, indeed; I
think both you and I are perfectly right; you in consenting to come, I
in having persuaded you; besides, I should have scarcely dared to
present myself to Lady Carabas without you. Her ladyship's dictum is
that you require rousing, and to-night is to be the first experiment
in rousing you."

"Her ladyship is very kind to interest herself in me," said Miles. "I
have no claim upon her thoughts."

"My dear fellow," said Lord Sandilands, "you will very soon see that
Lady Carabas interests herself about everybody and everything. That is
her _métier_. She will talk to the Bishop of Boscastle about the
Additional Curates' Fund, and to Sir Charles Chifney about his chance
for the Leger. She knows what price Scumble got for his Academy
picture; and can tell you the plot of Spofforth's five-act play, which
is as yet unwritten. She could tell you what the Duke of Brentford
said to Tom Forbes, who arrived late on escort-duty at the last
Drawing-room--she couldn't quote the Duke's exact words, which were
full-flavoured; and could give you the heads of the charge which Judge
Minos will deliver on the great libel case; and with all that she
dresses as well as Lady Capisbury herself, and bears the whole weight
of that household on her own shoulders. There's no estate in Britain
better managed than Carabas, and her ladyship is her own agent,
steward, bailiff,--everything."

"She must be a wonderful woman."

"Wonderful! there's nothing like her! Lord Carabas thinks of nothing
but shooting and fishing. Her eldest son, the Earl of Booterstown, is
a religious monomaniac; and her youngest, Lord Grey de Malkin, is one
of your political new lights, lecturing at mechanics' institutes, and
making speeches to working-men. You know the kind of fellow. Now, here
we are!--Tell Fisher to wait, James,"--to the footman,--"we sha'n't
stay very long."

The hall was filled with people, all of whom the old gentleman seemed
to know, and greeted with somewhat stately courtesy. "A regular
Carabas crush," whispered he to Miles, as they commenced the ascent of
the staircase. "Everybody here! The Lord Chancellor next to you, and
the Bishop of Boscastle coming down the stairs. He has evidently dined
here, sweet old thing; and is going away before the worldly music
begins.--How do you do, my lord? I trust Mrs. Shum is well--Deuced
fine woman, by the way, is Mrs. Shum, my dear Miles.--Ha, Ellenbogen!
you in London, and I've not seen you? Only arrived last night, eh?
Come to me to-morrow, eh? _Au revoir!_--That is the famous German
violinist; nothing like his touch in the world--so crisp, so perfectly
sympathetic. There's Lady Carabas at her post, of course. Brave woman,
breasting this surging ocean of visitors. Gad, how glad she must be
when it's all over!"

Following his friend's glance, Miles looked up and saw Lady Carabas
stationed at the head of the staircase. A tall handsome woman of
fifty, with all the look and bearing of a _grande dame_, a little
softened by the frank geniality of her manner. She received Miles
Challoner, on his presentation to her, with something more than mere
graciousness--with cordiality; then, turning to Lord Sandilands, said,
"She's here."

"Is she, indeed?" said the old gentleman with equal earnestness.

"Yes, and in excellent spirits: I have not the least doubt of her
success."

"That is delightful;" and they passed on. When they had gone a few
steps, Miles asked his friend who was the lady of whom he and Lady
Carabas were speaking.

"My dear fellow," said Lord Sandilands with a little chuckle, "I
haven't the remotest notion. Dear Lady Carabas is always giving one
half-confidences about people she's interested in, and 'pon my life
I'm too old to open my heart indiscriminately, and make myself
partaker of the joys and sorrows of half the world. So, as she's a
dear good creature, and I would not offend her for the world, I nod my
head, and grin, and pretend I know all about it; and I find that
answers very well."

Miles laughed at the old gentleman's evident satisfaction, and they
entered the rooms. A large movable platform, so slightly raised as to
give the performers sufficient altitude above the spectators without
disconcerting them by any pretensions to a stage, occupied one end
of the spacious apartment, a recent erection built specially for
concert-giving purposes, and with all the latest acoustic
improvements. Opposite the platform, bristling with seats for the
instrumentalists, stood the conductor's desk. To the right of this
were a few benches for the most distinguished guests, and behind it
were the seats for the general company. All the seats were unoccupied
at present, and the company were grouped together about the room,
chatting freely. It was early in the season at present; and that
frightful lack of conversation which necessarily falls on people who
have naturally very little to say, and who, having seen each other
every night for three months, have exhausted that little, had not as
yet made itself felt. Miles Challoner, as he looked round on the
beautiful women so exquisitely dressed, the brightly-lighted room, the
inexpressible air of luxury and elegance which pervaded the entire
scene, as he thought that for the future he might, if he so chose,
have similar pleasant resorts at his command, felt the oppressive
thoughts, the dull, dead level of world-weariness and vapidity,
gradually slipping from him. His eyes brightened, he looked round him
eagerly, and his whole demeanour was so fresh and spirited and
youthful as to seriously annoy several _blasé_ young men of two or
three-and-twenty, who had long since used up all signs of youth, and
who inquired of each other who was the rustic, gushing person that old
Sandilands had brought with him.

Lord Sandilands had himself noticed the change in his friend's manner,
and was about to rally him on it, when the musicians came trooping
into the room and took their places. Sir Purcell Arne, the well-known
amateur composer, who was to conduct, rapped the desk in front of him;
the foreign professionals who had settled themselves modestly in the
back rows, uttered profound sounds of "Hsh--sh!" and the company
generally seated themselves. Lord Sandilands and Miles were proceeding
with the rest, when the former saw himself beckoned by Lady Carabas to
the place of distinction by her side, and he took his young friend
with him.

The ouverture ought to have been very well played, for it was very
much applauded at its conclusion, though, as Jack Hawkes remarked to
the young lady sitting next to him, that might possibly have been
because they were so glad it was over. It is certain that during the
performance several of the more excitable foreigners ground their
teeth, and covered their ears with their hands, while at its close Sir
Purcell Arne addressed two recreant members of the orchestra--the
second cornet and the first clarinet, being respectively a young
gentleman in the Coldstreams, and an old gentleman in the India
Office--in terms of the strongest opprobrium. Sir Purcell's
good-temper was restored after his son, a favourite pupil of
Ellenbogen's, had played a solo on the violin; and during the applause
consequent thereon, he crossed over to Lady Carabas's seat, and
whispered, "She's quite ready; shall I bring her in?" Lady Carabas,
too much excited to speak, gave him an affirmative nod; and the
enthusiasm had scarcely subsided, to be renewed with tenfold force as
Sir Purcell returned leading by the hand a young lady, whom, with one
of his best bows, he left facing the audience while he went back to
his conductor's desk.

The young lady stood perfectly unmoved by the storm of applause which
hailed her arrival, the only sign of emotion which she betrayed being
a slight contraction of her thin decisive lips; and this was only
momentary. She was a decidedly pretty girl, Miles thought; with rich
brown eyes, and well-formed features, and slight though rounded
figure. In her dark chestnut hair, which was banded close round her
head, and gathered into a large knot behind, she wore one white rose,
and another in the front of her plain white-silk dress. Other ornament
had she none, save a gold locket with a horseshoe in turquoises on
her neck, and a bracelet, a band of plain gold, on one arm. Who was
this handsome and distinguished-looking girl who was received with so
much _empressement?_ Miles Challoner took up a perfumed programme that
lay beside him, and read her name--Miss Grace Lambert.




CHAPTER IV.
Breaking Cover.


Miss Grace Lambert! Who was she? The programme, of course, told
nothing but her name, and when Miles Challoner turned to his companion
for the purpose of inquiring further, he saw that his brows were knit,
and his lips tightly clenched. Miles looked at Lord Sandilands in
surprise, but forbore to question him. It was evident that the people
in his immediate vicinity were equally unable to assuage his
curiosity, as they were all talking and chattering together, and
throwing glances towards the occupant of the platform, who stood
totally unmoved. Then Sir Purcell Arne, looking round with a
half-anxious, half-triumphant air, gave the customary three taps on
his desk, and with a wave of his baton led the orchestra into the
prelude. It was a simple English air--very simple--with a pathetic
_refrain_, and out from the harmonious _ensemble_ of the musicians
came a soft sweet bird-like voice, beginning mellowly and low, then
rising into a clear pure treble, a volume of lark-like utterance, a
continuous ripple of sound, such as is seldom heard in human voice.
Few notes had been uttered before their effect became visible on the
whole assemblage--amongst the foreigners first; on the back benches,
where were gathered the hirsute professionals honoured with the
_entrée_ to Lady Carabas' concerts, there was an immediate movement, a
simultaneous pricking of ears and elevation of eyebrows, culminating
into a general impossible-to-be-suppressed "A--h!" of intense delight.
Then the enthusiasm spread. Impressible young girls with the
_nil-admirari_ breeding scarcely yet habitual to them, looked timidly
towards their chaperones, as though pleading, "For Heaven's sake, let
us for one moment be natural, and give vent to the delight with which
this girl has inspired us." Said chaperones, with some faint
reminiscence of nature unbusked and unsteeled by conventionality,
sought relief in faintly tapping their kidded palms with their fans.
Old boys, dragged away from after-dinner maps, or cosy house-dinners
at the clubs, to do family duty, and expecting nothing but driest
musical classicalities, expressed their gratitude in strident
"bravas." Even the gilded youth of the period, surprised out of its
usual inanity into a feeble semblance of life and earnestness,
condescended to express its opinion of the singer, that she was not
"half bad, don't you know?" And its component members inquired of each
other, "who the devil is she?" On Lady Carabas' handsome face the
hard-set look of anxiety had softened into the blandest smile of
triumph; old Sir Purcell Arne's blond moustache bristled with delight;
and at the conclusion of the ballad, when the singer, rising to the
occasion, had sent a flood of melody surging through the room, now
dying away in softest trills and most harmonious cadences, the
enthusiasm could no longer be restrained, and amidst sonorous applause
breaking forth from every side, the amateur instrumentalists leading
the van, and Lady Carabas herself, regardless of appearances or of the
value of three-buttoned gloves, clapping her hands with the ardour of
the most zealous member of a professional _claque_,--Miss Grace
Lambert, perfectly composed, and with the slightest bow in recognition
of her triumph, laid her fingers daintily on Sir Purcell Arne's
tremblingly-proffered arm, and disappeared from public view. Ten
minutes' interval now, much needed. Impossible, after such a display,
to keep the coterie quiet, and it breaks up at once into twenty little
knots, all with the same refrain of praise, differently expressed:
"_Das ist aber'was Schönes!" "Tiens, tiens, Jules! v'là donc un
rossignol charmant!_" "That's what I call good singing, for an
Englishwoman, that is, Veluti! _Capisco, signor!_" "Tell you what it
is, old fella; since poor Bosio, you know, never heard anything like
that, don't you know?" "It's A1, don't you know?" Frank testimonies
these, from the male sex; chiming in with "Dearest Lady Carabas, O,
how I congratulate you! Where did you find such a treasure? Charmin',
quite charmin'; so ladylike, and all that kind of thing. Quite a
nice-looking person, too!" from the female portion of the audience.

She had vanished, and Miles Challoner remained mute and dazed. Of
beauty he had always had a keen appreciation--that is, beauty as he
understood it--showing itself in tolerable regularity of feature, in
grace and aristocratic _tournure_. Red-and-white women, were they
duchesses or dairymaids--and it must be owned that when Nature alone
is depended upon they are generally the latter--found no favour in
Miles's eyes. He used to say he liked a "bred"-looking woman; and here
was one who, so far as appearance went, might have been a Plantagenet.
And her voice--good Heavens!--was there ever heard anything so
completely enthralling! The blood yet danced in his veins with the
delight excited when that low tremulous utterance, gradually rising
into trills of lark-like melody, first stole upon his ear. No wonder
that all in the room were talking loudly in her praise. All? No. Rapt
in his own delight, Miles had forgotten to speak to Lord Sandilands,
to whom he partly owed the pleasure he had just experienced, and he
turned to repair his neglect.

Lord Sandilands was sitting "quiet as a stone." He had recovered his
gloves, and his long shapely white hands were tightly clasped together
on his knee. Despite the tight clasp, the hands twitched nervously,
and on the old man's well-cut features Miles noticed a worn pinched
look, such as he had never before observed. Lord Sandilands' eyes,
too, were downcast, and he did not raise them even when Miles
addressed him.

"Was there ever anything so charming as that young lady?"

"She has a very sweet voice."

"Sweet! it is perfectly entrancing! I had no idea such sounds could be
produced by human throat; and then her appearance so thoroughly
ladylike, and such an exquisite profile! Why, even you, who go in so
strictly for the classical, must have been satisfied with the
profile!"

"I scarcely observed her."

"Scarcely observed her! Why, my dear old friend, that is very unlike
your usual habit when a pretty woman is in question, unless, indeed,
you were so enthralled by her voice that you cared for nothing else."

"Ye-es; that was it, I suppose--I--"

The conversation was interrupted by the return of the other guests,
who, summoned by Sir Purcell Arne's preliminary taps, came back to
their seats to hear the rest of the concert. All rustle and talk and
chatter still. "Never was anything like it. I'm sure I can't tell
where you pick up these wonderful people, dear Lady Carabas. And what
comes next, dear Lady Carabas? O, now we're to have Mr. Wisk's
operetta--for the first time; never was played anywhere before. You
know Ferdinand Wisk? clever creature! there he is, comin' to conduct
it himself. Sh-h!"

That clever creature, Mr. Ferdinand Wisk, who was supposed to be a
scion of the aristocracy, but whose real mission in life seemed to be
to devote himself to the affairs, public and private, of every member
of the musical world, English or foreign, advanced rapidly through the
room, and took the baton which Sir Purcell handed to him amidst
general applause. Mr. Wisk's operetta needs but little mention here;
it was bright and sparkling, and would have been more original if the
overture had not been cribbed from Auber, and the concerted pieces
from Offenbach; but as it was, it did remarkably well, affording
opportunities for two young ladies and two young gentlemen to sing
very much out of tune; for the funny man of the company to convulse
the audience with his drolleries; and for the audience generally to
repay themselves for their silence during Miss Grace Lambert's ballad,
by chatting without stint. Perhaps the only two persons in the room
who did not avail themselves of this opportunity were Lord Sandilands
and Miles Challoner. The former, having glanced at the programme, and
noticed that Miss Lambert's name did not appear again therein, made a
half-muttered apology to Lady Carabas about the "heat," and left the
room very shortly after the commencement of Mr. Wisk's performance;
while the latter could not shake off the spell which held him, and
which, during all the comic gentleman's funniments and all the others'
bad singing, gave but Grace Lambert's voice to his ears, her face and
figure to his eyes.

To supper now, foreigners first,--making great running and leaving
everyone else far behind; leaping on to edibles and dashing at
potables with such vigour as to cause one to think they had not dined,
as indeed many of them had not. And now, more congratulation amongst
visitors, more "Did you evers?" a perfect whirlwind of "Don't you
knows?" and "only to think of dear Lady Carabas being so fortunate,
and such a wonderful acquisition even to _her_ set!" Ferdinand Wisk, a
little depressed at being thrown into the background by the superior
attractions of Miss Lambert; and the funny man of the company feeling
himself not sufficiently appreciated, and thirsting for Miss Lambert's
blood--both, however, consoled by old Piccolo, the fashionable
music-master, who is popularly supposed to have been allied with Auber
and Offenbach in writing Mr. Wisk's operetta, and who tells them that
Miss Lambert's triumph is a mere _succès d'estime_, and that she will
"go out like that--pouf!" Piccolo snapping his fingers and blowing out
an imaginary candle in explanation. Foreigners having been fed, and a
proper quantity of champagne and seltzer-water having been duly drunk,
it enters into the minds of some of the younger guests that dancing
would be a pleasant pastime for the remainder of the night, such
exercise being sometimes permitted at the concerts, when Lady Carabas
is in specially good temper, which is the case to-night apparently,
for servants are instructed to clear the concert-room, a band is
improvised, and the floor is soon covered with whirling couples.

On these dancers Miles Challoner stood gazing with an abstracted air.
At the conclusion of the concert he had moved with the rest, and on
passing Lady Carabas had addressed to her a few words of compliment on
the success of her evening; words which, although Miles did not remark
it, were pleasantly received, for though Lady Carabas had come to that
time of life when she was called an "old thing" by very young ladies,
the epithet having "dear" or "horrid," according to the speaker's
tastes, attached to it, she still delighted in the admiration of men
if they were clever or handsome, and purred under their praises with
ineffable satisfaction. Whether Miles Challoner was clever, Lady
Carabas had yet to learn; but she knew that he was undeniably
handsome, and that he was a credit to her evening. Many other people
in the rooms had thought so too; and though strange faces were more
frequently seen at Carabas House than in any other frequented by the
same set, Miles's tall figure and frank face had excited a certain
amount of languid curiosity, and the "new importation," as he was
called by people who had been twice to the house, made a very
favourable first impression.

He was not the least conscious of it, though, nor, had he been, would
he have particularly cared. When Lord Sandilands' brougham drew up
under the portico of Carabas House, when Miles, after climbing up the
staircase,--a unit in the throng of pretty women and distinguished
men,-was presented to Lady Carabas, the young man felt that he was
entering on a new and entrancing sphere of life, in which he was
henceforth to move; and his thoughts, in the little time he allowed
himself for thinking, were of a roseate hue. He had sufficient money
to live easily with those people amongst whom Lord Sandilands'
introduction would give him position, and place him at his ease.
Emerging from the dull country-squire life to which he at first had
imagined himself relegated, he should now mix on excellent footing
with that society which he had always thought of with envy, but never
thoroughly comprehended. In a word, when Sir Purcell Arne left the
room for the purpose of fetching the new singer, there was not in
England, perhaps, at that moment, a more thoroughly happy young man
than Miles Challoner. But ever since Grace Lambert's voice had fallen
on his ear, he had been a different man. As he listened to her, as he
gazed upon her handsome face and elegant figure, he sat enthralled,
spell-bound by her charm. And when she had gone, her voice remained
ringing in his ears, her face and figure remained before his eyes,
while a total change--to him entirely unaccountable--had come over his
thoughts. What had sent his mind wandering back to the early days of
his childhood? What had suddenly brought to his recollection his
brother Geoffrey as he last saw him, a bright, bold, daring boy,
persistent in carrying through whatever might be uppermost in his
mind, and undeterred by fear of his tutor, or even of his stern
father? He had just decided with delight upon the course of life which
he would pursue in future; but now he wondered whether he had decided
rightly, Ought he not, in his position as head of the Challoner
family, to live down at the old place, as all his forefathers, save
his uncle Howard, who was universally hated, had done? Was it not his
bounden duty to be there, ready, when called upon, to give advice and
assistance to his tenantry and poorer neighbours? And that thought of
Geoffrey! Ought he not, even in spite of all his father had said, to
have taken some steps to trace his brother's career from the time of
his leaving home, at all events to endeavour to ascertain the reason
of the fatal sentence of banishment which had been pronounced against
him? Ought he not--and then he found himself wondering what connection
Miss Grace Lambert's voice and face had with these thoughts, and then
he roused himself from the reverie into which he had fallen, and
things material took their proper shapes and forms to his eyes: he
returned from the dim past to the bright present--from the play-room
at Rowley Court to the ball-room of Carabas House.

It was getting rather late now for the outer world and common people
in general, but not for Carabas House, where the meaning of the word
was unknown. The great hall-porter in his younger and slimmer days
must have served his apprenticeship as boots at a railway hotel, the
only position in which he could have acquired his faculty of
sleeplessness. Men constantly spent what they were pleased to call the
early part of the evening at Carabas House, went on to other balls
which they "saw out," and returned, certain to find "someone left."
The latest lounger at Pratt's, the most devoted attendant at the
Raleigh, knew that during the season he should always be able to get
his glass of sherry and seltzer in Beaumanoir-square, no matter what
time of night it might be. The linkman, whose light had long since
paled its ineffectual fire and gone out, seldom left before the
milkman arrived, and the pair interchanged confidence about the house
and its owners, as is the custom of such people.

The dancing was not quite so animated as when Miles had last looked at
it. Careful men who called themselves seven-and-twenty, and who were
really five-and-thirty, mindful of all the outing they had before them
during the season, had gone home to bed. Those who remained were very
young men, and very determined girls, whose wearing _chaperones_ sat
blinking round the room, or solaced themselves with stabbing each
other, and tearing to pieces the reputation of their common friends,
on the landing. But Lady Carabas was not with these; she was standing
at the far end of the room, surrounded by half-a-dozen men, with whom
she was holding an animated conversation. One of them, to whom she
appeared to pay particular attention, had his back turned to Miles,
but seemed to be young and of a slight wiry figure. Miles noticed this
man specially, partly from the evident enjoyment which Lady Carabas
took in his conversation, and partly from a peculiarity in his
appearance, so far as it could be gathered from a back-view, in the
horsey cut of his clothes, and the slang attitude, rounded shoulders,
and hands plunged deep into his trousers-pockets, in which he stood
conversing with his hostess. Miles had not noticed this gentleman
before, and was wondering who he was, when a valsing couple, looking
tired and out of breath, stopped immediately in front of him.

"That was a grand spin," said the gentleman; "the room's splendid just
now. Got rid of all those awful people who can't dance a bit, don't
you know? and do nothing but get in your way. You're in great feather
to-night, Miss Grenville."

"Thanks very much," said the young lady, "a compliment from you is
quite the most charming thing possible; perhaps because it's so rare,
Mr. Ashleigh."

"'Gad, I don't know!" replied the gentleman, who was two-and-twenty
years of age, and who might have been two-and-sixty for calm
self-possession and _savoir faire_, "I'm rather a good hand at saying
nice things, I think."

"When you don't mean them, perhaps?"

"No, no. Now you're down upon me too sharp, Miss Grenville; 'pon my
word you are; and I can never say anything, nice or not nice, at this
time of night. Let's finish the _valse_."

"I'm afraid I must not stay any longer, Mr. Ashleigh! Really, it's
quite too cruel to poor mamma; and we've two dances to-morrow night
that we must go to. Besides, Lady Carabas is dying to get rid of us."

"Don't look as if she was, does she, Miss Grenville? Laughing away;
look at her. Wonderful woman, Lady Carabas!"

"Who is the gentleman she is talking to?"
"That? O, that's a man that's everywhere about."

"I'm as wise as I was before. What is his name? where does he come
from?"

"His name! 'pon my word, Miss Grenville, I forget. I'll go and ask
him, if you like. Ah, I know he's a great friend of Ticehurst's. You
know Ticehurst?"

"I have met Lord Ticehurst."

"Met him! O ah, yes; always know what ladies mean when they say
they've 'met' anybody; mean they hate 'em. Well, if you don't like
Ticehurst, I don't think you'd like that man; they're very much alike,
specially Pompey, don't you know? Bad egg, and that kind of thing."

"You are enigmatic, but sufficiently expressive, Mr. Ashleigh. I think
I comprehend you, at least. But if he is that kind of person, why is
he admitted here?"

"Dear Miss Grenville, it's exactly because he is that kind of person
that they're glad to see him here. He's somebody in his line, don't
you know; though it's a bad line. His name, which I forget, is always
mentioned in _Bell_ and the sporting-papers, and that kind of thing;
and he's a--what do you call it--notoriety on the turf. By Jove! Coote
is just going to make those fellows leave off. Do let's finish the
_valse_."

The couple whirled away to the last bars of the music; and Miles, who
had perforce overheard this conversation, glanced across the room at
the subject of it, who was still standing with his face averted,
talking to Lady Carabas. "A pleasant man that, if all my dancing
friend said of him is true," said Miles to himself. "I wonder what
Lord Sandilands would think of him? Pshaw! he'd take it like a man of
the world; and--eh? there is the old gentleman, making his way over
here; where can he have been all the evening?"

Whatever doubts Miles Challoner may have felt as to the line of
conduct which Lord Sandilands would adopt towards the gentleman on
whom Miles had bestowed so much observation, they were destined to be
speedily set at rest. As Lord Sandilands passed the group at the other
end of the room, Lady Carabas beckoned to him; and by the way in which
he and the unknown bowed to each other, Miles easily divined that the
ceremony of introduction had taken place. With a half-smile at the
incongruity just perpetrated, Miles was making his way across the
room, when a servant came up to him and said: "I beg your pardon, sir,
are you Mr. Lloyd?" Miles had scarcely time to reply in the negative,
when the groom of the chambers, a very solemn-looking personage, who
was passing at the moment, and who heard the inquiry, said, "That is
Mr. Lloyd talking to her ladyship, James. What is wanted?"

"Only Lord Ticehurst, sir, told me to tell Mr. Lloyd he couldn't wait
any longer;" and the man proceeded on his mission. Meanwhile Lady
Carabas' quick eye had spied Miles approaching, and she advanced to
meet him. "Mr. Challoner," said she, with a gracious smile, "I'm
afraid you've had a horribly dull evening; been dreadfully bored, and
all that kind of thing. O, don't deny it; I'm sure of it. But the fact
is I thought Lord Sandilands would tell you who people were, and
introduce you, and all that; and now I find he has been poked away in
the library all night, looking at some horrid old political
caricatures. Ridiculous of him, I tell him, to strain his eyes over
such nonsense. He looks quite pale and worn. You must come and help me
to scold him. By the way, I must introduce you to a very charming
friend of mine, who fortunately is still here.--Mr. Lloyd," touching
him--with her fan, "let me introduce Mr. Challoner."

The young man addressed wheeled round when he felt the touch on his
arm, and before the last words were uttered he confronted Miles
Challoner as Lady Carabas pronounced the name; and at that instant the
light died out of his small and sunken blue eyes, his cheeks became
colourless, and his thin lips closed tightly under his long fair
moustache. Simultaneously a bright scarlet flush overspread Miles
Challoner's face. Both then bowed slightly, but neither spoke; and
immediately afterwards Miles turned sharply on his heel, and wishing
Lady Carabas a formal "good-night," hurried from the room.

"My dear boy," said Lord Sandilands--they were in the brougham going
home--"you must pardon my saying that your treatment of Mr.--Mr. Lloyd
was _brusque_ to a degree. Supposing him even to be a highly
objectionable person, the fact that you were introduced to him by Lady
Carabas should have assured him a--well, a more gracious reception, to
say the least of it. You--why, what the deuce is the matter, Miles?
you're dead-white, and your hand shakes?"

"Nothing, dear old friend. I shall be all right again directly. That
man--was I rude to him? I scarcely knew what I said or did. That man
is one whom it was my father's most urgent wish I should never meet or
know."




CHAPTER V.
Memory-haunted.


Had Lord Sandilands been less preoccupied by certain thoughts, and
less disturbed by certain associations and recollections, suddenly
aroused by the incidents which had just taken place, and of a painful
and distracting kind, he would have been more strongly moved by Miles
Challoner's abrupt and extraordinary communication. But the old
nobleman's mood just then was a strange one; and the scene which had
passed before his eyes, the words which his young friend had spoken,
affected him but slightly and vaguely. There had been some
unpleasantness for Miles in the meeting with that clever-looking
fellow, Lloyd; and he was sorry for it. That was all. Old Mark has
desired Miles to avoid this man, had he? The Squire had been very odd
latterly, and had taken strong dislikes, and entertained strong
prejudices all his life, but especially since that bad business about
his son; and in the midst of his personal preoccupation and
abstraction, Lord Sandilands had time for a shudder at the thought of
his old friend's great grief, and a sort of pang of thankfulness that
it had come to an end, even though a life he valued dearly was
finished with it. But his mind was full of his own concerns, and
before he had reached the seclusion of his own particular sanctum--a
small room within the library--he had almost forgotten the occurrence.

Lord Sandilands sighed heavily as he sat down in a deep leather chair
by the window, which opened into a small verandah, with trellised
walls well clothed with creeping plants, and tiled with cool
quaint-patterned porcelain. A light iron staircase led thence to the
garden, which, though unavoidably towny, was cool, pretty, and
well-cared for. The summer air passed lightly over the flowers, and
carried their fresh morning breath to the old man. But he did not meet
its perfume gladly; it had no soothing, no refreshing influence for
him. He moved uneasily, as though some painful association had come to
him with the scented breeze; then rose impatiently, and shut the
window down, and paced the room from end to end. "A wonderful
likeness," he muttered; "quite too close for accident. There is more
expression, more power in the face, but just the same beauty. Yes, it
must be so; but why have I not been told?"--He stopped before a table,
and tapped it with his fingers. "And yet, why should I have been told?
I made the conditions, I defined the rules myself; and why should I
wonder that they have not been broken? What beauty and what talent!
Who would have thought it of poor Gerty's child!--for her child and
mine, Grace Lambert is, I am certain. What a strange sudden shock it
was to me! I wonder if anyone perceived it--thought I was ill,
perhaps. The room was hot and overcrowded, as usual; and Lady Carabas
cackled more unbearably than ever; still, I hope I did not make a fool
of myself; I hope I did not look upset."

Thus, Lord Saudi lands, true to the ruling principles of his order and
his age, was disturbed in the midst of greater and deeper disturbance,
and even diverted from his thoughts of it, by the dread so touchingly
proper to every British mind, that he had been betrayed into emotion,
into any departure from the unruffled and impassive calm which British
society demands.

At this stage of his soliloquy Lord Sandilands looked at himself in
the chimney-glass, passed his aristocratically slender fingers through
his aristocratically fine silver hair, and assured himself that his
outward man had not suffered from the internal perturbation and
surprise which he had experienced. This critical examination
concluded, he resumed his walk and his soliloquy, which we need not
follow in form. Its matter was as follows:

In Grace Lambert, Lord Sandilands had recognised so strong a likeness
to the mother of the little girl whom he had placed under Mrs.
Bloxam's care, and towards whom he had never displayed any fatherly
affection beyond that implied by the punctual and uninterrupted
discharge of the pecuniary obligations which he had contracted towards
that lady, that he entertained no doubt whatever of her identity with
Gertrude Keith. This discovery had agitated him less by reason of any
present significance which it possessed--the girl was clever, and had
achieved in his presence a success of a kind which was undeniably
desirable in such a position as hers--than because it had touched
long-silent chords, and touched them to utterances full of pain for
the old man, who had been so thoroughly of the world, and whom the
world had, on the whole, treated remarkably well. But Lord Sandilands
was growing old, and was naturally beginning to yield just a little to
the inevitable feeling, of being rather tired of it all, which comes
with age, to the best-treated among the sons of men, and had come
perceptibly to him, since Mark Challoner's death had done away with
the last of the old landmarks. Things might have been so different; he
had often thought so, and then put the thought from him hurriedly and
resolutely. He thought so to-day, and he could not put the thought
from him; it would not go; but, as he paced the room, it grew stronger
and stronger and came closer and closer to him, and at last looked him
sternly and threateningly in the face, demanding harbour and reply;
and Lord Sandilands gave it both--no more expelling it, but taking
counsel with himself, and repeating to himself an old story of the
past, which, with a different ending, might have set all his present
in another key;--which story was not very different from many that
have--been told, and not difficult to tell.

Lord Sandilands had not succeeded early in life to his old title and
respectable but not magnificent estates. The Honourable John Borlase
was much more clever, agreeable, and fascinating than rich, when,
having left the University of Oxford after a very creditable career,
he began to lead the kind of life which is ordinarily led by young men
who have only to wait for fortune and title, and who possess
sufficient means to fill up the interval comfortably, and sufficient
intellect to occupy it with tolerable rationality. The dilettanteism
which was one of Lord Sandilands' characteristics developed itself
later in life; while he was a young man, his tastes were more active,
and he had devoted himself to sporting and travel. In the pursuit of
the first he had made Mark Challoner's acquaintance; and the
_camaraderie_ of the hunting-field had strengthened into a strong and
congenial tie of friendship, which had been broken only by the
Squire's death. In the pursuit of the second, John Borlase had
encountered many adventures, and made more than one acquaintance
destined to influence his future, either sensibly or insensibly; and
among the many was one with whom we have to do, for a brief interval
of retrospection.

John Borlase did not affect "Bohemianism" (the phrase had not then
been invented, but the thing existed); but he liked character, and he
liked Art,--liked it better than he understood it, selected the
society of those who knew more about it than he did; and though he by
no means restricted himself to the society of artists, he certainly
frequented them more than any other class. It was at Berlin that he
fell in with Etienne Gautier, an eccentric and very clever Frenchman,
exiled by the cruelty of fortune from his native paradise, Paris, and
employed by the French Government in some mysterious commission
connected with the Galleries of Painting and Sculpture at Berlin,--a
city which he never ceased to depreciate, but where he nevertheless
appeared to enjoy himself thoroughly. Etienne Gautier was a dark,
active, restless man; vivacious of speech; highly informed on all
matters appertaining to Art; a liberal in politics and religion--of a
degree of liberalism very unusual at that period, though it would not
be regarded as particularly "advanced" at present; an oddity in his
manners; evidently in poor circumstances, which he treated with that
perfect absence of disguise and affectation which is so difficult for
English people to comprehend, so impossible for them to imitate; and
devotedly, though injudiciously, attached to his beautiful daughter,
Gertrude. The girl's mother, an Englishwoman, had died at her birth,
and her father had brought her up after a completely unconventional
fashion, and one which would have horrified his own countrymen in
particular. She was allowed as much freedom as "bird on branch," and
her education was of the most desultory description. Gertrude Gautier
was very handsome, very wilful, and totally destitute of knowledge of
the world. She was her father's companion in all places and at all
times; and when the Hon. John Borlase made Etienne Gautier's
acquaintance and took to frequenting his society, he found that it
included that of one of the handsomest, cleverest, and most spirited
girls he had ever met. John Borlase was not quite a free man when he
first saw Gertrude Gautier. Had her position in life been such as to
render his marrying her a wise and suitable proceeding, he could not
have offered to do so with honour, though the engagement, if so it
could be called, which bound him to the Lady Lucy Beecher, was of a
cool and vague description, and much more the doing of their
respective families than their own. But he had carried the not
unpleasant obligation cheerfully for a year or more; and it was only
when he fully and freely acknowledged to himself that he had fallen in
love with Gertrude Gautier, and felt a delightful though embarrassing
consciousness that she had fallen in love with him, that he grumbled
at his engagement, and persuaded himself that but for its existence he
would certainly have married Gertrude, and boldly set the opinions and
wishes of his family at defiance. It was a pleasing delusion: there
never existed a man less likely to have done anything of the kind
than John Borlase; but he cherished the belief, which nothing in his
former life tended to justify. He was a proud man in a totally
unaffected way; and only his fancy--not for a moment his real
practical self--regarded the possibility of the elevation into a
future British peeress of a girl whose father was a painter, of the
Bohemian order, and in whose maternal ancestry the most noteworthy
"illustration" was a wholesale grocer. As for Gertrude, she loved him,
and that was enough for her. The untaught, undisciplined, passionate
girl thought of nothing beyond; and her father, who was as blind as
fathers usually are to the fact that his daughter was longer a child,
but with all the charm and beauty of womanhood had entered upon all
its danger gave the matter no consideration whatever. This state of
things lasted for several months, and then came a crisis. Etienne
Gautier fell from a height, in one of the Berlin galleries, and died
of the injuries he had received, after recovering consciousness for
just sufficient time to commend his daughter to the care and kindness
of John Borlase.

"Send her to Leamington," said the dying man; "her mother's uncle
lives there. She knows his name."

There is little need to pursue the story of Gertrude Gautier further.
She never went to Leamington; she never saw the prosperous grocer, her
mother's uncle. The story is not a new one, but at least it ended
better than many a one like it has ended. Gertrude was happy; she had
no scruples; she knew no better. She had no friends to forfeit; she
had no position to lose. Her lover was true to her, and all the more
devoted that he had many stings of conscience of which she had no
suspicion, in which she never shared. He brought her to England, and
the girl was happy in her pretty suburban house, with her birds, her
flowers, and his society. But a time came in which John Borlase had
the chance of testing his own sincerity; and he applied the test, and
recognised its failure. When the institution of the suburban house was
a year old, and when he had frequently congratulated himself upon the
successful secrecy which had been maintained, John Borlase found a
letter to his address awaiting him at his father's town-house. The
letter was from Lady Lucy Beecher, and it contained the intelligence
of her marriage. "I knew you did not care for me," said the fair and
frank writer, "in any sense which would give us a chance of being
happy together; but I did not make a fuss about the family arrangement
before it became necessary to do so. That necessity arose when I found
myself deliberately preferring another man to you. I do so prefer
Hugh Wybrant, and I have married him. My people are very angry, of
course--perhaps yours will be so also; but you will not care much
about that; and I am sure you will heartily thank me for what I have
done. We shall always be good friends, I hope; and if we had married,
we could never have been more, and might easily--indeed should very
certainly, I am convinced--have been less." John Borlase was much
relieved by the intelligence contained in this characteristic letter.
Lady Lucy had troubled his mind, had been a difficulty to him. Under
the circumstances he would not have married, he would not have done so
doubly dishonourable an action; but he was very glad the ostensible
breach was of her making and not his. He derived a pleasant
self-congratulatory conviction that he was rather a lucky fellow from
this fortunate occurrence; and he answered Lady Lucy's flippant letter
by one which was full of kindliness and good-humour, and accompanied
by a set of Neapolitan coral.

Then came the question which would make itself heard. Should he marry
Gertrude? He could do so without risk of her antecedents being
discovered; the only odium he would have to bear would be that of her
foreign birth and insignificant, indefinite origin. The girl's own
feelings, strange to say, counted but little with John Borlase, in the
discussion he held with himself, and which need not be pursued
further. If he had decided in her favour, he felt that a first and
important preliminary would be that he should explain to her the
degradation of her present position, and the immense advantages to her
of the compensation which he should offer her by marrying her. Their
life would be changed, of course; and what had such a change to give
him? He reasoned entirely as a man of the world; and the upshot of his
deliberations was that he did not marry Gertrude Gautier. It made no
difference to her; she did not know that the subject had ever occupied
him; she had never heard Lady Lucy's name. Her calm, happy, guilty
love-dream went on for a little longer, and then it ended. The doom of
her mother was on Gertrude; and John Borlase came home one day, as
Etienne Gautier had come home, to find a dead woman and a helpless
infant where he had left youth and health and beauty in the morning.
The blow fell heavily upon John Borlase, and remorse as well as sorrow
was for a long time busy at his heart. During this period he was
extremely restless, and the world was quite concerned and edified to
see how much he had taken Lady Lucy's defection to heart. Who would
have thought a man could possess so much feeling? And then, the
generosity with which he acted, the pains he had taken to show how
completely he was _sans rancune_; how could Lady Lucy have done such a
thing! But everybody flocked to see Lady Lucy, for all that; and as
for Captain Wybrant, never was there anyone so charming. John Borlase
did not hear all the talk, or if he did, he did not heed it. He was
not a sentimental man, and he was sufficiently unscrupulous; but
Gertrude's death was more than a racking grief and loss to him.
Alongside of her shrouded figure he saw her father's; and now, too
late, he was haunted by the unfulfilled trust bequeathed him by the
dead. Deceiving himself again, he tried to persuade himself that only
the suddenness of Gertrude's death had prevented his marrying her; he
tried to throw the blame, which he could not ignore, on circumstances.
At first he succeeded, to a certain extent, in this--succeeded
sufficiently to deaden the acuteness--of the pain he could not escape
from. Then, after a time, he knew better; he no longer indulged in
self-deception; he acknowledged that the wrong was irreparable, and
the self-reproach life-long; and he bowed to the stern truth. John
Borlase was never afterwards talked of as a marrying man; and Lady
Lucy Wybrant, whose sources of social success were numerous and
various, enjoyed that one in addition, that the inexorable celibacy of
Lord Sandilands was ascribed to his chivalrous fidelity to her. She
knew that this was a fiction, as well as he knew it; but as it was a
gleam of additional glorification for her, and such a supposition
saved him a great deal of trouble, and preserved him from match-making
mammas, each acquiesced in the view which society chose to adopt, with
most amiable affability. Captain Wybrant laughed at the theory of
Sandilands' celibacy, as he laughed at most other theories; and said
(and believed) that if a man must be fool enough to wear the willow
for any woman, his Lucy was the best worth wearing it for, of all the
women in the world. And though the whole thing was a myth, Lord
Sandilands never cordially liked jolly Hugh Wybrant--perhaps no man
ever yet did cordially like the individual in whose favour he has been
jilted, though he may not have cared a straw for the fickle fair one,
but have honestly regarded her inconstancy as a delightful
circumstance, demanding ardent gratitude.

For several years after Gertrude Gautier's death, the Hon. John
Borlase indulged in frequent and extensive foreign travel; and during
this period the infant girl who had inherited her beauty, apparently
without her delicacy of constitution, was well cared for. The child's
father cared little for her, beyond scrupulously providing for her
physical welfare. She was an embodied reproach to him, though he never
said so to himself, but persuaded himself his indifference to the
little girl whom he saw but rarely and at long intervals, arose from
his not naturally caring about children. When she was eight years old,
and the memory of her mother had almost died out, though the indelible
effect of the sad and guilty episode in his life with which she was
connected remained impressed upon him, Lord Sandilands placed the
little girl under Mrs. Bloxam's care, with the conditions already
stated and the results already partially developed. He had provided
ample funds to meet the exigencies of her education; he had made due
arrangements for their safe and punctual transmission to Mrs. Bloxam;
he had but vague notions concerning the requirements and the risks of
girlhood: his dominant idea was, that in a respectable boarding-school
the girl must be safe; he did not want to see her; she must not know
him as her father; and he had no fancy for playing any part,
undertaking any personation,--in short, having any trouble
unrepresented by money,--about her. John Borlase had been
unscrupulous, and a trifle hard in his nature; and despite the
conflict in his breast which had ensued on Gertrude Gautier's death,
and which for all his impassive bearing had been fierce and long, Lord
Sandilands was not much more scrupulous, and was decidedly harder. If
the girl married, or if she died, he should be made acquainted with
the circumstance; and as a matter of fact--fact, not sentiment, being
the real consideration in this matter--either was all he need know. As
time went on, this frame of mind about his unknown daughter became
habitual to Lord Sandilands; and of late he had never remembered
Gertrude's existence, except when an entry in his accounts, under a
certain appointed formula, recalled the fact to his mind.

These were the circumstances on which Lord Sandilands mused, as he
paced his room in the early morning, after he had seen Grace Lambert
at Lady Carabas' concert. The girl's face had risen up before him like
a ghost,--not only her mother's, but that of his own youth; and in the
proud, assured, but not bold glance of her splendid brown eyes a story
which had no successor in the old man's lonely life was written. This
beautiful, gifted girl was his daughter. She might have been the pride
of his life, the darling, the ornament of his home, the light of his
declining years, the inheritor of his fortune, if-if he had done right
instead of wrong, if he had repaired the injury he had done to her,
whose grave lay henceforth and for ever between him and the
possibility of reparation.

"How very handsome she is!" he thought; "and how fine and highly
cultivated her voice! If I had known she possessed such a talent as
that!" And then he thought how that talent might have been displayed
in society, in which the possessor might have mixed on equal terms. A
long train of images and fancies, of vain and bitter regrets, came up
with the strong impression of the girl's grace, beauty, and gifts. Of
her identity there could be no doubt. As Gertrude Gautier had looked
out from the garden-gate, where she had bidden him the fond and
smiling farewell destined to be their last, so this girl, as beautiful
as his lost Gertrude, and with something of grandeur in her look,
which Gertrude had not, and which was the grace added by genius, had
looked that night, as she calmly, smilingly, received the applause of
her audience. As he recalled that look, and dwelt on it in his memory
with the full assurance that his conviction was correct, an idea
struck him. He was a known connoisseur in music, a known patron of
musical art; everyone who was anyone in the musical world sought an
introduction to Lord Sandilands. In the case of Miss Grace Lambert,
his generally extended patronage had been especially requested by Lady
Carabas for her _protégée_. Here was a fair and legitimate expedient
within his reach for securing access to Miss Lambert, without the
slightest risk of awakening suspicion, either in her mind or in that
of sharp-sighted observers, that he was actuated by any particular
motive in this instance. He must see her, he must know her! How
bitterly he lamented now, and condemned himself for the indifference
which had kept him for so many years contented that his child should
be a stranger to him! How ready he was, now that he saw her beautiful
and gifted, to accord credence and attention to the voice of nature,
in which he had never before believed, and which under other
circumstances would have found him just as deaf as usual! Then he
resolved that he would write to Mrs. Bloxam, and prepare her for a
long-deferred visit to her charge, stipulating in his letter that
Gertrude should know nothing of the intended visit, and that Mrs.
Bloxam should receive him alone. "She shall tell me my child's
history," he said; "at least it has been a bright and happy story
hitherto." And Lord Sandilands sighed, and his face looked old and
worn, as he arranged his note-paper, and dipped his pen in the ink,
and then hesitated and pondered long before he commenced his letter to
Mrs. Bloxam.

The letter consisted of but a few lines, and Lord Sandilands put it in
another cover, addressed to Mr. Plowden, his solicitor, and the medium
of his payments to Mrs. Bloxam. It was not until he had retired to
rest, after sunrise, and had been for some time vainly trying to
sleep, that his thoughts reverted to Miles Challoner and the incident
which had taken place just before they parted.

Miles Challoner, also wakeful, was thinking of it too, and debating
with himself whether he should mention the matter again to Lord
Sandilands. He shrank from reviving a subject so full of pain. The man
whom he had met evidently had an object in concealing his identity, or
he would not have been so reticent by a first impulse. They were not
likely to meet again. So Miles Challoner took a resolution to keep his
own counsel; and acted upon it.




CHAPTER VI.
Lloyd's Luck.


We have found Gilbert Lloyd the centre of an amused circle at Carabas
House. Let us see what has been his career since he parted with his
wife at the George Inn at Brighton.

He was free! That was his first thought when he began to ponder over
the probable results of the step he had taken,--free to come and go as
he liked, to do as he listed, without the chance of incurring black
looks or reproaches. Not that he had had either from Gertrude for a
very long time. When her faith in her husband was first shattered;
when she first began to perceive that the man whom in her girlish
fancy she had regarded as a hero of romance--a creature bright,
glorious, and rare--was formed of very ordinary clay, Gertrude was
vexed and annoyed by the discovery. She was young, too, and had a
young woman's belief in the efficacy of tears and sulks; so that when
Gilbert stayed out late, or brought home companions to whom she
objected, or went away on business tours for several days together,
Gertrude at first met him with sharp reproaches, dissolving into
passionate fits of weeping, or varied with sufficiently feeble
attempts at dignity. But Gilbert laughed these last to scorn, and
either took no notice of the reproaches, or with an oath bade them
cease. And then, the glamour having utterly died out, and the
selfishness and brutality of her husband being fully known to her,
Gertrude's manner had entirely changed. No sighs were ever heard by
Gilbert Lloyd, no red eyelids, no cheeks swollen by traces of recent
tears were ever seen by him. If the cold cynical expression on his
wife's face had hot been sufficient, the bitter mocking tones of her
voice never failed to tell him of the contempt she felt for him. That
she was no longer his dupe; that she bitterly despised herself for
ever having been fooled by him; that she had gauged the depth of his
knavery and the shallowness of his pretensions,--all this was
recognisable in her every look, in her every word. No brutality on her
husband's part--and his brutality sometimes found other vent than
language--no intermittent fits of softness towards her such as would
occasionally come over him, had the smallest effect on her face or on
her voice. She bore his blows silently, his caresses shudderingly, and
when they were over she looked up at him with the cold cynical face,
and replied to him with the bitter mocking voice.

Gilbert Lloyd's friends--by which expression is meant the men of the
set in which he regularly lived--saw little of Mrs. Lloyd, who was
popularly supposed by them to be next to a nonentity, Lloyd being a
man who "always had his own way." And indeed, so far as those words
were ordinarily understood, Gilbert Lloyd's acquaintances were right.
For months and months his comings and goings, his long absences, his
conduct while at home, had been uncommented upon by Gertrude, save in
the expression of her face and in the tone of her voice. But these,
even at such rare intervals as he was subjected to them, were quite
enough to goad a man of his temperament, by nature irritable, and
rendered doubly petulant by the exciting life he led; and the
knowledge that he was free from them for ever, came to him with
immense relief. He was "on his own hook" now, and had the world before
him as much as he had before he committed the ridiculous error of
letting his passion get the better of his prudence, and so binding a
burden on to his back. A burden! yes, she had been a burden--a useless
helpless dead-weight--even when his fleeting passion for her began to
wane, he had hopes that after all he had not done such a bad thing in
marrying her. To a man who looked for his prey amongst the young and
inexperienced, a pretty woman would always prove a useful assistant,
and Gilbert Lloyd at one time thought of using his wife as a lure and
a bait. But any hopes of this nature which he may have entertained
were speedily uprooted. "Right-thinking" Gertrude Lloyd certainly was
not; of mental obliquity in the matter of distinguishing between good
and evil, she had her full share; but she was as proud as Lucifer, and
her pride stepped in to her aid where better qualities might not have
interfered. Her natural quickness enabled her at once to see through
her husband's designs, and she told him plainly and promptly that he
must seek elsewhere for a confederate; nay more, when Lloyd would have
insisted on her presiding at his table, and making herself agreeable
to his friends, her resistance, hitherto passive, became active; she
threatened to make known some of his proceedings, which would have
seriously compromised him in the eyes of persons with whom he wished
to stand well, and neither entreaties nor commands could alter her
resolution.

She had been a burden, and he was rid of her. The more he thought it
over, the more he congratulated himself on the step which he had
taken, and felt that he had the best of the arrangement just
concluded. He had never loved anyone; and the caprice, for it was
nothing more, which he had once felt for Gertrude had long since died
away. He was free now to pursue his own career, and he determined that
his future should be brighter and more ambitious than he had hitherto
hoped. Now was his chance, and he would take advantage of it.
Heretofore he had lived almost entirely in the society of the
Ring-men--among them, but not of them--despising his associates, and
using them merely as a means to an end. He had had more than enough of
such companionship, and would shake it off for ever. Not that Gilbert
Lloyd intended quitting the turf and giving up his career as a
betting-man. Such a thought never occurred to him; he knew no other
way by which he could so easily earn so much money, while its
Bohemianism, and even its chicanery, were by no means unpleasant
ingredients to his fallen nature. All he wished was to take higher
rank and live with a different section of the fraternity. There were
betting-men and betting-men; and Gilbert Lloyd knew that his birth and
education fitted him more for the society of the "swells" who looked
languidly on from the tops of drags or moved quietly about the Ring,
than for the companionship of the professionals and welchers who drove
what was literally a "roaring" trade outside the enclosure. There was,
moreover, considerably more money to be made amongst the former than
the latter. Opportunity alone had been wanting; now he thought that
had come, and Gilbert Lloyd determined on trying his luck and going
for a great _coup_.

He had a hundred pounds in hand and a capital book for Doncaster, so
he made up his mind to leave the last to the manipulation of an
intimate friend, who would watch the alterations in the market, and
report them to him at Baden, whither he started, at once. Here he
established himself in a pleasant little bedchamber in the bachelor's
wing of the Badischer Hof, and proceeded to commence operations. The
language, the appearance, the manners of the regular turfite he at
once discarded, though an occasional hint dropped in conversation at
the _table d'hôte_ or in the Kursaal, at both of which places he soon
made many promiscuous acquaintances, conveyed a notion that the
_arcana_ of the Ring were, or had been, sufficiently familiar to him.
At the tables he played nightly, with varying fortune it was thought,
though those who watched him closely averred that he was a
considerable winner. His pecuniary success, however, affected him very
slightly; he was glad, of course, to have been able to live
luxuriously during a month, and to leave the place with more money
than he took into it; but Gilbert Lloyd had done far better than
merely winning a few hundred louis--he had made his _coup_.

He made it thus. Staying at the Badischer Hof was the Earl of
Ticehurst, a young English nobleman who had recently succeeded to his
title and estate, and who, during the previous year, had caused a
great deal of talk in London. He was a big, heavy-looking young man,
with a huge jowl and a bull neck, coarse features, and small sunken
eyes. At Eton he had been principally noticeable for his cruelty to
animals and his power of beer-drinking. At Oxford these charming
qualities were more freely developed, but whereas they had been called
by their proper names by Viscount Etchingham's schoolfellows, they
became known as "high spirits", to the college dons and the
tuft-hunting tutors. It is probable, however, that even these
long-suffering individuals would have had to take notice of his
lordship's vivacious proceedings, had not his father died during his
first year of residence; and on succeeding to the earldom of
Ticehurst, Lord Etchingham at once left the University and entered
upon London life. This means different things to different people. To
the nobleman just interred in the family vault at Etchingham, in the
presence of the Premier and half the Cabinet, it had signified the
commencement of a brilliant political career. To his son, who had
succeeded him, it meant the acquisition of a stud of racers, the
sovereignty of the coffee-room at Hummer's, the well-known sporting
hotel, and the obsequious homage of some of the greatest scoundrels in
London. The young man delighted in his position, and felt that he had
really come into his kingdom. His name was in everyone's mouth, and
people who scarcely could distinguish a racer from a towel-horse had
heard of young Lord Ticehurst. The names of the horses which he owned
were familiar in the mouths of the most general of the "general
public," the amount of the bets which he won or lost was talked of in
all classes of society, and by the "sporting world" he was looked upon
as the great revivalist of those pastimes which are always described
by the epithets "old" and "British." The fighting of mains of cocks,
the drawing of badgers, the patronage of the rat-pit and the P.R.
("that glorious institution which, while it exists among us and is
fostered by the genial support of such true Corinthians as the E-- of
T--, will prevent Englishmen from having recourse to the dastardly use
of the knife," as it was prettily described by Snish, the fistic
reporter of the _Life_), the frequent fuddling of himself with ardent
spirits, the constant attendance at night-saloons, and the never going
home till morning--came into this category. Elderly Haymarket
publicans and night-cabmen began to think that the glorious days of
their youth had returned, when they witnessed or listened to the
pranks of Lord Ticehurst; and in his first London season he had
established a reputation for gentlemanly black-guardism and
dare-devilry quite equal to any in the records of the Bow-street
Police-court.

Needless to say that with Lord Ticehurst's reputation Gilbert Lloyd
was perfectly familiar, and that he had long and ardently desired the
opportunity of making the acquaintance of that distinguished nobleman.
To use his own language, he had "done all he knew" to carry out this
desirable result; but in vain. There are hawks and hawks; and the
birds of prey who hovered round Lord Ticehurst were far too clever and
too hungry to allow any of the inferior kind to interfere with their
spoil. Not that Gilbert Lloyd was inferior in any sense, save that of
mixing with an inferior class. Lord Ticehurst knew several men of
Lloyd's set--knew them sufficiently to speak to them in a manner
varying from the _de haut en bas_ style which he used to his valet to
the vulgar familiarity with which he addressed his trainer; but it
would not have suited Gilbert Lloyd to have been thrown in his way,
and he had carefully avoided being presented or becoming known to Lord
Ticehurst in an inferior position.

When Gilbert arrived at the Badischer Hof, the first person he saw at
the late _table d'hôte_ was Lord Ticehurst; the second was Plater
Dobbs, who acted as his lordship's henchman, Mentor, and confidential
upper servant. A stout short man, Plater Dobbs (his real name was
George, and he was supposed once to have been a major in something,
the nickname "Plater" attaching to him from the quality of the
racehorses he bred and backed), with a red face, the blood strangled
into it by his tight bird's-eye choker, a moist eye, a pendulous under
lip, a short gray whisker and stubbly moustache of the same colour, a
bell-shaped curly-brimmed hat, and a wonderful vocabulary of oaths.
Plater Dobbs was one of the old school in everything--one of the
hard-drinking, hard-riding, hard-swearing, five-o'clock-in-the-morning
old boys. A sportsman of the old school, with many recollections of
Pea-green Hayne, and Colonel Berkeley, and the Golden Ball, and other
lights of other days; a godless abandoned old profligate, illiterate
and debauched, but with a certain old-fashioned knowledge of
horse-flesh, an unlimited power of drinking without being harmed by
what he drank, and a belief in and an adherence to "the code of
honour" as then understood amongst gentlemen, as he had proved in
person on various occasions at home and abroad. He had taken entire
sway over Lord Ticehurst, bought racers with the young nobleman's
money, and trained and ran them when he chose; went with him
everywhere; and was alternately his Mentor and his butt--acting in
either capacity with the greatest equanimity.

Now, above all other men in the world, Lloyd hated Plater Dobbs. He
had long envied the position which the "vulgar old cad," as he called
him, had held in regard to Lord Ticehurst; and when he saw them
together at Baden, his rage was extreme, and a desire to supplant the
elderly Mentor at once rose in his breast. Not that Gilbert had any
feeling that the counsels or the example given and shown to Lord
Ticehurst by Plater Dobbs were wrong or immoral. All he felt about
them was that they were rococo, old-fashioned, and behind the mark of
the present day. The appointment of "confederate" to such a man as
Ticehurst, was one of the most splendid chances of a lifetime; and it
had now fallen to the lot of a senile debauchee, who was neither doing
good for himself nor obtaining credit for his pupil. If Ticehurst were
only in _his_ hands, what would not Gilbert Lloyd do for him and for
himself? Ticehurst should be in his hands, but how? That was the
problem which Lloyd set himself to solve. That was the thought which
haunted him day and night, which dulled his palate to M. Rheinbolt's
choicest _plats_, which even made him sometimes inattentive to the
monotonous cry of the _croupiers_. To secure Plater Dobbs' position
would be to land a greater stake than could be gained by the most
unexpected fluke at _trente et quarante_. Let him only hook Ticehurst,
and--_rien ne va plus!_

An ordinary sharper would have taken advantage of the frequent
opportunities afforded by the _table d'hôte_ and continental life
generally, have spoken to Lord Ticehurst, and managed to secure a
speaking acquaintanceship with him. But Gilbert Lloyd was not an
ordinary sharper, and he saw clearly enough how little that course
would tend to the end he had in view. He foresaw that Plater Dobbs'
jealousy would be at once aroused; and that while the acquaintance
with the bear was ripening, the bear-leader would have ample
opportunity of vilifying his would-be rival. He put it to himself
clearly that success was only to be gained by adventitious chance, and
that chance came thus.

Among the frequenters of the Kursaal was a French gentleman of
some thirty-five years of age, black-bearded, bright-eyed, and
thin-waisted. André de Prailles was this gentleman's name, Paris was
his nation, and, to carry out the old rhyme, the degradation of
England and her children was apparently his vocation. In private and
in public he took every opportunity of saying unpleasant things about
_la perfide Albion_, and the traitors, native and domiciled, nourished
by her. He had, for a Frenchman, an extraordinary knowledge of English
ways and manners of life--of life of a certain kind--which he amused
himself and certain of his immediate friends by turning into the
greatest ridicule. He played but little at the tables; indeed those
who had watched him narrowly avowed that there was a certain
understanding between him and the _croupiers_, who discouraged his
attendance; but be this as it might, he frequented the promenade and
the baths, lived in very fair style at the Hotel Victoria, and was "a
feature" in the society of the place. M. de Prailles' Anglophobia had
contented itself with disdainful glances at the representatives of the
land which he detested, and with muttering with bated breath at all
they said and did, until the arrival at Baden of Mdlle. de Meronville,
the celebrated _ingénue_ of the Vaudeville, with whom M. de Prailles
had an acquaintance, and for whom he professed an adoration.

Mdlle. de Meronville was a bright lithe little woman, with large black
eyes, an olive complexion, and what Lord Ticehurst called a "fuzzy"
head of jet-black hair; a pleasant good-natured little woman, fond of
admiration and _bonbons_ and good dinners and plenty of champagne; a
little woman who played constantly at the tables, screaming with
delight when she won, and using "strange oaths" when she lost--who
smoked cigarettes on the promenade, and gesticulated wildly, and beat
her companions with her parasol, and, in fact, behaved herself as
unlike a British female as is possible to be imagined. Perhaps it was
the entire novelty of her style and conduct that gave her such a charm
in the eyes of Lord Ticehurst, for charm she undoubtedly had. A
devotion to the opposite sex had never hitherto been classed among the
weaknesses of that amiable nobleman; but he was so completely overcome
by the fascinations of Eugénie de Meronville, that no youth ever
suffered more severely from "calf-love" than this reckless roisterer.
He followed her about like her shadow; when in her company, after he
had obtained an introduction to her, he would address to her the most
flowery compliments in a curious _mélange_ of tongues; and when absent
from her he would sit and puff his cigar in moody silence, obstinately
rejecting all efforts to withdraw him from his sentimental
abstraction. Plater Dobbs regarded this new phase in his pupil's
character with unspeakable horror, and was at his wits' end to know
how to put a stop to it. He endeavoured to lead Lord Ticehurst into
deeper play; but unless Mdlle. de Meronville were at the tables the
young man would not go near them. He organised a little supper-party,
at which were present two newly-arrived and most distinguished
beauties: an English grass-widow whose husband was in India, and a
Russian lady, who regarded the fact of her liege lord's being ruined,
and sinking from a position of affluence into that of a hotel-keeper,
as quite enough to excuse her leaving him for ever. But Ticehurst
sulked through the banquet, and the ladies agreed in voting him _bête_
and _mauvais ton_. The fact was that the man was madly in love with
Eugénie de Meronville, and cared for nothing but her society.

What one does and where one goes and with whom one passes one's time
is, of course, very easily known in a small coterie such as that
assembled in the autumn at Baden; and it is not to be wondered at that
M. André de Prailles suffered many a bad quarter of an hour as he
witnessed and heard of the amicable relations between his fair
compatriot and one of the leading representatives of that nation which
he detested. What added to M. de Prailles' anger was the fact that
whereas in Paris, where he was known to be the friend of certain
_feuilletonistes_ with whom it was well for every actress to be on
good terms, he had had cause for believing himself to be well thought
of by the _ingénue_ of the Vaudeville, at Baden, where no such
inducement existed, he had been completely snubbed by Eugénie, and
treated with a _hauteur_ which set his blood boiling in his veins. M.
de Prailles resented this after his own fashion. First, he addressed a
passionate letter to his idol, reproaching her for her perfidy. To
this he received a very short, and, to tell truth, a very ill-spelt,
answer, in which the goddess replied that it was not his "_afair_,"
and that she would behave herself "_come je voulai_" wheresoever and
with whomsoever she pleased. Then he took to a more open course of
defiance--following on the trail of Mdlle. de Meronville and Lord
Ticehurst, standing behind them at the table, occupying adjacent seats
to theirs in the Kursaal or on the promenade, and enunciating, in by
no means a hushed voice, his opinion on Englishmen in general and Lord
Ticehurst in particular. But Lord Ticehurst's comprehension of the
French language was limited, his comprehension of the English
language, as spoken by M. de Prailles, was still more limited; and the
strongest comment with which he favoured his opponent's ravings was a
muttered inquiry as to what "that d--d little Frenchman was jabbering
about."

At last, one night, the long-threatened explosion took place. A sudden
storm of wind and rain swept down from the Black Forest, and the
curious vehicle attached to the Hôtel d'Angleterre was sent for to
convey Mdlle. de Meronville from the Kursaal to her rooms. The little
actress had been playing with great ill-luck, and had been duly waited
upon by Lord Ticehurst; but at the moment when the arrival of the
droschky was notified to her, he had been called into another part of
the room by Plater Dobbs, and only arrived in time to see her,
mortified and angry, being conducted to the carriage on the arm of M.
de Prailles. Rushing forward to make his excuses, Lord Ticehurst
caught his foot in the train of Mdlle. de Meronville's gown, and, amid
the suppressed burst of laughter from the bystanders, pulled her
backwards and fell forward himself. He had scarcely recovered himself
when the roll of the departing vehicle was in his ears, and M. de
Prailles was standing before him fuming.

"An accident? nothing of the sort! _Exprès! tout à fait exprès!_"

A crowd gathered at the ominous words and at the tone of voice in
which they were uttered: Plater Dobbs and Gilbert Lloyd foremost among
the concurrents, the one flushed and excited, the other cool and
collected; Lord Ticehurst, very pale, and with an odd twitching in the
muscles of his month.

"It was no accident, that tumble!" shrieked M. de Prailles. "It was a
studied insult offered to a lady by a barbarian! _Exprès,
entendes-vous, messieurs, exprès?_"

Then, seeing that his opponent stood motionless, the little Frenchman
drew himself on tiptoes, and hissed out,

"_Et il ne dit rien? Décidément, milor, vous êtes un lâche!_" and he
made a movement as though he would have struck Lord Ticehurst with his
open hand.

But Plater Dobbs, who had been puffing and fuming and gasping for
breath, caught the angry Frenchman by the arm, and called out,

"Holla, none of that! We'll produce our man when he's wanted. We don't
want any rough-and-tumble here! _Ally, party, mossoo!_"

"_Au diable, ivrogne!_" was all the response which M. de Prailles
chose to make to this elegant appeal; but he turned to some of his
compatriots, and said, "_Regardez donc la figure de ce milor là!_" And
in truth Lord Ticehurst was almost livid, and the chair against which
he was leaning trembled in his grasp. At that moment Gilbert Lloyd
stepped forward.

"There's no question of producing any man on this occasion, except a
_gensdarme_," said he, addressing Plater Dobbs.

A hush fell on the little crowd--the Englishmen silenced by what they
heard, the foreigners by the effect which they saw the words had
produced. Only Dobbs spoke, and he said, "What the devil do you mean?"

"What I say," replied Lloyd; "it's impossible for Lord Ticehurst to
fight this fellow," with a contemptuous wave of the hand at De
Prailles. "I've long thought I recognised him; now I'm sure of it. I
don't know what he calls himself now, but he used to answer to the
name of Louis three years ago, when he was a billiard-marker at the
rooms over the Tennis-court, just out of the Haymarket."

"_Tu mens, canaille!_" screamed M. de Prailles, rushing at him; but
Gilbert Lloyd caught his adversary by the throat, and with every nerve
in his lithe frame strung to its tightest pitch, shook him to and fro.

"Drop that!" he said; "drop that, or by the Lord I'll fling you out of
the window. You know the height you'd have to fall!" and with one
parting shake he threw the Frenchman from him. "I'm glad my memory
served me so well; it would have been impossible for your lordship to
have gone out with such a fellow."


M. André de Prailles left Baden very early the next morning: but the
events of that night affected more than him. Although he was not of a
grateful or recognisant nature, Lord Ticehurst felt keenly the
material assistance which Gilbert Lloyd afforded him at what in his
inmost heart his lordship knew to have been a most critical and
unpleasant time, and he showed at once that he appreciated this
assistance at its proper value. He made immediate advances of
friendship to Gilbert, which advances Gilbert received with sufficient
_nonchalance_ to cause them to be repeated with double ardour. At the
same time he by no means declined the acquaintance which Lord
Ticehurst offered him, and in the course of various colloquies
contrived to indoctrinate his lordship with a notion of his
extraordinary 'cuteness in things in general, and in matters
pertaining to the turf and to society in particular. The world, as
viewed through Gilbert Lloyd's glasses, had to Lord Ticehurst quite a
different aspect from that under which he had hitherto seen it, and he
raged against opportunities missed and stupid courses taken while
under the tutelage of Plater Dobbs. To rid himself of that worthy's
companionship and to instal Gilbert Lloyd in his place was a task
which Lord Ticehurst set himself at once, and carried out with great
speed and success. He found little opposition from the Plater. That
worldly-wise old person had seen how matters stood--"how the cat
jumped," as he phrased it--from the first, and was perfectly prepared
to receive his _congé_. Nor, indeed, was he altogether displeased at
the arrangement. His good qualities were few enough, but among them
was the possession of personal pluck and courage, and a horror of
anyone in whom these were lacking. "I always knew Etchingham was a
duffer, sir," he would say in after-days--"a pig-headed, obstinate,
mean duffer--but I never thought he was a cur until that night. He was
in a blue funk, I tell you--in a blue funk of a d--d little Frenchman
that he could have swallowed whole! I don't complain, sir. He hasn't
behaved badly to me, and I hope he'll find he's done right in holding
on to Master Lloyd. A devilish slippery customer that, sir. But him
and me couldn't have been the same after I saw he funked that
Frenchman, and so perhaps it's better as it is." So Major Plater Dobbs
retired on an allowance of three hundred a year from his ex-pupil to
the cheerful city of York, and this history knows him no more.

When Gilbert Lloyd returned to England in time to accompany his patron
to Doncaster, where they witnessed the shameful defeat of all Lord
Ticehurst's horses, which had been trained under the Dobbs' _regime_,
he felt that he had made his _coup_; but he did not anticipate such
success as fell to his lot. By an excellent system of tactics, the
mainspring of which was to make himself sought instead of to seek, and
to speak his mind unreservedly upon all points on which he was
consulted, taking care never to interfere in cases where his opinion
was not asked, he obtained a complete ascendency over the young man,
who, after a very short time, made him overseer, not merely of his
stable, but of his house, his establishment, and his estates. And
excellently did Lloyd perform the functions then allotted to him. He
had a clear head for business, and a keen eye for "a good thing," and
as a large portion of all Lord Ticehurst's luck and success was shared
by his "confederate," it was not surprising that Lloyd employed his
time and brains in planning and achieving successes. Not a little of
his good fortune Lloyd owed to keeping in with his former allies the
Ring-men, who were treated by him with a frank cordiality which stood
him in excellent stead, and who were delighted to find that one of
their own order, as they judged him, could climb to such a height
without becoming stuck-up or spiteful. The old trainer, the jockeys,
and all the Dobbs' satellites were swept away as soon as Gilbert Lloyd
came into power, and were so well replaced that Lord Ticehurst's stud,
which had previously been the laughing-stock of Tattersall's, now
contained several animals of excellent repute, and one or two from
which the greatest things were expected.

Nor was the change less remarkable in Lord Ticehurst himself. Of
course his new Mentor would have lacked the inclination, even if he
had had the power, to withdraw his pupil from turf-life; but to a
certain extent he made him understand the meaning and the value of the
saying "_noblesse oblige_." It was understood that hence-forward Lord
Ticehurst's horses were run "on the square," and that there was to be
no more "pulling," or "roping," or any other chicanery. And after a
good deal of patience and persuasion Gilbert Lloyd succeeded in
indoctrinating his patron with the notion that it was scarcely worth
while keeping up the reputation of being "British" with a small
portion of the community at the expense of disgusting all the rest;
that if one had no original taste in the matter of costume, and needs
must copy someone else, there were styles not simpler perhaps, but at
all events as becoming as those of the groom; and that all the
literary homage of the _Life_ scarcely repaid a gentleman for having
to associate with such blackguards as he met in his patronage of the
prize-ring, the cock-pit, and the rat-hunt. The young man, who being
young was impressionable, was brought to see the force of these
various arguments; more easily, doubtless, because they were put to
him in a remarkably skilful way, without dictation and without
deference--simply as the suggestions of a man of the world to another
worldling, the force of which he, from his worldly knowledge, would
perfectly understand and appreciate. And so, within a year after
submitting himself to Gilbert Lloyd's tutelage, Lord Ticehurst, who
had been universally regarded as a "cub" and a "tiger," was admitted
to be a doosid good fellow, and his friends laid all the improvement
to Gilbert Lloyd.

Amongst those friends, perhaps the warmest of Lloyd's supporters was
Lord Ticehurst's aunt, Lady Carabas. Lady Carabas had always delighted
to have it thought that she was a _femme incomprise_; that while she
was looked upon as the mere worldling, the mere butterfly of fashion,
she had a soul--not the immortal part of her system which she took
notice of once a week in St. Barnabas's Church, but such a soul as
poets and metaphysical writers spell with a large S,--a Soul for
poetry, romance, love, and all those other things which are never
heard of in polite neighbourhoods. The Marquis of Carabas was quite
unaware of the existence of this portion of his wife's attributes, and
if he had known of it, it is probable it would have made very little
difference to him: it was nothing to eat, nothing to be shot at or
angled for, at least with a gun or a rod, so had no interest for his
lordship. But there was always someone sufficiently intimate with Lady
Carabas to be intrusted with the secret of the existence of this Soul,
and to be permitted to share in its aspirations. Lady Carabas had
married very early in life, and although she had two large and
whiskered sons, she was yet a remarkably handsome woman; so handsome,
so genial, and so winning, that there were few men who would not have
been gratified by her notice. And here let it be said, that all her
friendships--she had many, though never more than one at the same
time--were perfectly platonic in their nature. She pined to be
understood--she wanted nothing else, she said; but people remarked
that those whom she allowed to understand her were always
distinguished either by rank, good looks, or intellect. The immediate
predecessor of Gilbert Lloyd in dominion over Lady Carabas' Soul, was
an Italian singer with a straight nose, a curling brown beard, and a
pair of luminous gray eyes; and he in his turn had supplanted a Prince
of the Blood. Gilbert Lloyd was prime favourite now, and was treated
accordingly by the "regulars" in Beaumanoir-square. It was Lady
Carabas' boast that she could be "all things to all men." Thus while
her Soul had gushed with the regal romance of Arthur and Guinevere in
its outpourings to the Prince--an honest gentleman of limited
intellect and conversation restricted to the utterance of an
occasional "Hum, haw, Jove!"--it had burned with republican ardour in
its conference with the exiled Italian; and was now imbued with the
spirit of Ruff, _Bell_, Bailey, and other leading turf-guides, in its
lighter dalliance with Gilbert Lloyd. And this kind of thing suited
Lloyd very well, and tended to secure his position with Lord
Ticehurst.

At the time of Gilbert Lloyd's introduction to Miles Challoner at
Carabas House, that position was settled and secured. Not merely was
Lord Ticehurst, to all appearance, utterly dependent on his Mentor for
aid and advice in every action of his life, but Lloyd's supremacy in
the Ticehurst household was recognised and acquiesced in by all
friends and members of the family. It was so recognised, so apparently
secure, and withal so pleasant, that Lloyd had put aside any doubt of
the possibility of its ever being done away with; and the first idea
of such a catastrophe came to him as the old name, so long unheard,
sounded once more in his ears, and as in the handsome man before him
he recognised his elder brother. Miles Challoner, as we have seen,
sought safety in flight. Gilbert Lloyd, the younger man, but by far
the older worldling, soon recovered from his temporary disquietude, so
far as his looks were concerned, and gazed after the vanishing figure
of his brother with eyebrows uplifted in apparent wonderment at his
_gaucherie_. But in the solitude of his chamber, before he went to bed
that morning, he faced the subject manfully, and thought it out under
all its various aspects.

Would Miles betray him? That was the chief point. The blood surged up
in his pale face, and the beating of his heart was plainly audible to
himself as he thought of that contingency, and foresaw the unalterable
and immediate result. Exposure! proved to have been living for years
under an assumed name and in a false position--A slight ray of hope
here. The real name and the real position were incomparably better
than those he had assumed. Had he not rather lost than gained
by--Dashed out at once? Why did he hide his name and position? Forced
to. Why? O, that story must never be given up, or he would be lost
indeed. And then his thoughts digressed, and he found himself
picturing in his memory that last night in the old house--that
farewell of Rowley Court. Good God! how he recollected it all!--the
drive in the dogcart through the long lanes redolent of May; the
puzzled face of the old coachman, who knew young Master was going
away, and yet could not make out why old Master, and Master Miles, and
the household had not turned out to wish him "God speed;" the last
glimpse which, as he stood at the station-door, he caught of the
dog-cart thridding its way homewards through the lanes, almost every
inch of which he knew. Would Miles betray him? No, he thought not--at
least wilfully and intentionally. If the Miles of to-day had the same
characteristics as he remembered in the boy, he had an amount of pride
which would render it impossible for him to move in the matter.
Impossible! Yes, because to move in it would be to announce to the
world that he, the Squire of Rowley Court, was the brother of Mr.
Lloyd the turfite, the "confederate" of Lord Ticehurst, the--and
Gilbert cursed the pride which would make his brother look down upon
him, even though to that pride he principally looked for his own
safety. But might not Miles unintentionally blunder and blurt out the
secret? He had been hot-headed and violent of speech as a boy, and his
conduct at Carabas House on the introduction had proved that he had no
command over his feelings. This was what it was to have to do with
fools. And then Gilbert Lloyd recollected that, on the only other
occasion in his life when the chance of compromising his future was in
the hands of another person, it was his wife to whom the chance was
allotted; and he remembered the perfect security which he felt in her
sense and discretion. His wife! He had not thought of her for a very
long time. He wondered where she was and what she was doing. He
wondered whether she had altered in personal appearance, whether
anyone else had--pshaw! what the deuce did it matter to him?
Nevertheless, he angrily quickened the step with which he was pacing
the room as the thought crossed his mind. O no, Miles would not betray
him! There were other reasons why he should not. Did he not--perhaps
it was a mistake after all his having broken with Gertrude in that
manner? She would have been in his way here and there, perhaps; but
she was wonderfully accommodating, even in letting him have his own
way so far as coming and going were concerned; and how shrewd and
clear-headed she was! So good-looking, too! He found himself idly
tracing her profile with his finger on the table in front of him.
Strange girl--what an odd light there was on her face that--that night
when they parted! And Harvey Gore--O, good Lord! what had started that
vein of thought? That confounded meeting with Miles had upset him
entirely. Harvey Gore!--did Gertrude suspect--she knew. He was
certain, she knew, and that was what--It was for the best that he had
got rid of her; for the best that he was on his own hook--only himself
to consult and rely upon, and no one else with a chance of selling
him. All women were unreliable, and interfered with business. By the
way, what was that Ticehurst was saying as they came away in the
brougham about some woman who had sung in the early part of the
evening, before he got to Carabas House? Ticehurst was wonderfully
enthusiastic for him--such a face, such a figure, such a lovely voice!
These raptures meant nothing serious, Gilbert supposed; at all events
he intended to take care that they should mean nothing serious. That
affair of Eugénie de Meronville, when Ticehurst's admiration very
nearly brought him under an infuriated Frenchman's fire, had been of
infinite service, Gilbert reflected with a grin, in cooling his
lordship's love ardour, and indeed had kept him very much aloof from
the sex. It was better so; if Lord Ticehurst married, more than half
Gilbert Lloyd's influence would be gone, if indeed the turf were not
abandoned, and the "confederate" _chasséd_; and any other arrangement
in which a woman might be concerned would be equally unsatisfactory.
Fancy his having seen Miles, and heard the old name too! How much did
Miles know? He turned on his heel as if--and yet the old man would
never have told him. _His_ pride would have prevented that; at all
events nothing could be gained by keeping awake now. He had thought it
out, and decided that, for several reasons, his brother would not
betray him; and so Gilbert Lloyd turned into bed, and slept as
peacefully and as easily as the darkest schemers often do, despite all
the romancists say to the contrary.

Next day he was walking through the Park with his patron, on their way
to Tattersall's, when, just as they crossed the Drive, a brougham
dashed rapidly by them. Lord Ticehurst clutched his companion's arm,
and said eagerly, "Look, Gilbert--quick! there she is." Gilbert Lloyd
looked round, and said in a tone of irritation, "What? Who?" "The girl
who sang last night at Carabas's. The stunner I told you of." "Then I
wish the stunner had gone some other way," said Lloyd. "I didn't even
have the satisfaction of seeing her; and I was just totting-up how we
stood on the Ascot Cup, and you've startled all the figures out of my
head."




CHAPTER VII.
The Linnet's Cage.


Mrs. Bloxam had had no reason to regret the assent which she had given
to the proposition made to her by her ex-pupil Gertrude Lloyd. The
arrangement had turned out successfully, and the far-seeing astute
lady, who had had quite enough of school-keeping considerably before
she saw her way to the abandonment of that uncongenial occupation,
soon began to see visions and dream dreams of a very different and
much more enjoyable kind of life in the future. For a calm person, not
to be taken in by appearances, and habitually distrustful of first
impressions, Mrs. Bloxam may be said to have been astonished when she
beheld her former pupil, after the lapse of two years and a half,
during which Gertrude had been learning experience in a school which,
though always severe, was sufficiently varied; and Mrs. Bloxam, when
she remembered the girl at all, thought of her only as the clever and
handsome pupil, who had outwitted her indeed (but that was a feat
which she was not likely to overrate--she never imposed any magnified
notion of her own vigilance upon herself), but who was not likely to
turn out in any way remarkable. Gertrude's letter had struck her
rather forcibly as being out of the common way; apart from the unusual
nature of the circumstances which had given rise to it, its coolness,
firmness, and businesslike precision were not common in the
schoolmistress's experience of feminine correspondence; and there was
nothing in her previous knowledge of Gertrude's intellect and
character which would have naturally led her to take such a
manifestation of those qualities for granted. Mrs. Bloxam thought a
good deal about Gertrude's letter in the interval between the receipt
of it and the arrival of its writer. It occurred to her that the girl
who took her life into her own management, after the clear cool-headed
fashion in which it was plain that Gertrude was acting, must have been
rather a difficult wife to manage, and not a particularly safe one to
deceive and injure. From thinking of Gertrude as the wife and the
enemy of Gilbert Lloyd, it was an easy transition to think of Gertrude
as possibly her (Mrs. Bloxam's) enemy--easy, not pleasant--and
significantly encouraging to that lady, in the resolution she had
formed, to treat Gertrude in all respects well, and with loyalty. Mrs.
Bloxam conceived, in the course of her cogitations, a very reasonable
certainty that Gertrude had developed into a kind of person, who, if
she made up her mind to discover the secret of her birth, parentage,
and previous position, would inevitably do so, or make herself
extremely disagreeable in the process of failure. When this notion
associated itself with the recollection of the comfortable sums of
money which she had continued to receive for Gertrude's benefit, when
Gertrude was absent and her fate unknown, Mrs. Bloxam congratulated
herself on the course she had adopted, and made such virtuous
resolutions that she would advance Gertrude's interests in every way
within her power, that she soon succeeded in compounding with her
conscience for the--indiscretion.

When Gertrude made her appearance at the Vale House, Mrs. Bloxam's
anticipations were more than fulfilled. The young woman's easy and
assured grace of manner, the calmness with which she inducted herself
into the place which she had assigned to herself in the establishment,
and the conviction with which she inspired Mrs. Bloxam that, if she
desired to possess her confidence, she must patiently await the time
and manner of her accordance of it, at her own will, were simply
inimitable. The schoolmistress contemplated the girl with wonder and
secret admiration. She had seen so much of the vapidity, the
frivolity, the dependence, and the littleness of feminine human
nature, that (as she did not care for Gertrude sufficiently to be
alarmed by the dangerous side of her complex character) it was a
positive pleasure to her to observe a disposition so exceptional. In
person she was also changed and much improved, though Mrs. Bloxam was
not slow to notice the discordant expression which occasionally
deprived her face of its youthfulness by lending it an intensity
beyond her years.

Gertrude Lloyd had been settled at the Vale House for more than a
week, and had entered on her duties with a grave alacrity which
surprised Mrs. Bloxam, whose recollection of her as a desultory pupil
had left her unprepared to find the girl an active and conscientious
teacher, before she accorded to Mrs. Bloxam any more confidence
than that which her letter had conveyed. When so much time had
elapsed, she informed Mrs. Bloxam that she intended to commence her
singing-lessons, and invited that lady to be present at the trial of
her voice. The masters who attended at the Vale House were all of a
superior class, and Gertrude was satisfied to abide by the opinion
which Signor da Capo should express concerning her musical capacity.
The testimony of that dark-eyed and sentimental exile was most
reassuring; he had rarely heard such a voice as Miss Lambert's,
and it was perfectly fresh and uninjured, susceptible of the
highest training. He could conscientiously assure Miss Lambert no
concert-singer in London possessed a finer organ, not even
Mademoiselle Roulade, who was just then making such a sensation at the
private concerts of the nobility--she was quite the rage at Carabas
House in particular.

Miss Grace Lambert was not interested in Mademoiselle Roulade, and cut
the worthy signor's raptures rather unceremoniously short; but he
produced a second edition of them for the benefit of Mrs. Bloxam, when
Miss Lambert had left the room, and evinced so much curiosity
concerning Miss Lambert's future plans, throwing out hints of the
advantage to be derived from the judicious promulgation of reports as
_avant-coureurs_ of a _débutante_, that Mrs. Bloxam felt convinced of
his sincerity, and forthwith began to form a pleasant scheme for the
future in her fancy.

On the same evening Gertrude requested audience of Mrs. Bloxam in her
private sitting-room; and having been cordially welcomed, briefly
expressed her appreciation of the kindness with which she had been
received at the Vale House, and asked Mrs. Bloxam's opinion of what
Signor da Capo had said. Mrs. Bloxam thought nothing could be more
satisfactory, nothing more encouraging; and if Gertrude really
intended to become a public singer--

"I do intend it," interrupted Gertrude, with a slight expressive
frown; "understand this once for all, Mrs. Bloxam, my mind is quite
made up. I may succeed, I may fail; but at least I will make the
attempt; and I feel that I _shall_ succeed. I am confident this will
not be a losing speculation for you."

"My dear girl," said Mrs. Bloxam,--and she said it quite sincerely,
with true interest: there had been a fascination for her about the
girl since her return, a charm partly arising from the uncommonness of
her disposition and manners, and partly from the elder woman's dim
perception of the pitifulness of her story,--"I am not thinking about
that. I am thinking about you, and of what you must have suffered, to
have made you turn your back so resolutely on your past life. You are
so young, Gertrude."

"Grace, if you please," said the younger woman, and she touched Mrs.
Bloxam's hand for a moment. In the slight caress there was a little
softening, and the other took advantage of it.

"You may trust me, my dear, you may indeed," she said. "I don't
pretend to be disinterested in many of the occurrences of my life; I
could not afford to be so--no woman can who has her bread to earn--and
I have not acted disinterestedly towards you; but I will if you will
trust me."

An unusual expression of gentleness was in Mrs. Bloxam's face, and her
shallow shifty blue eyes grew almost deep and almost steady under the
influence of unwonted feeling.

Gertrude sat still before her, with downcast eyes. A little interval
of silence passed, and then she looked up, and spoke.

"I will trust you, Mrs. Bloxam, as much as I can ever trust anyone in
this world. I am separated for ever, of my own free will, by my own
irrevocable decision, from my husband. I cannot tell you why in more
than general terms. Gilbert Lloyd is a bad man--I am not a
particularly good woman; but I could not live with him, and I trust I
may never see him again. My life is at my own disposal now; I have no
friend but you."

There was no tremor in her voice, no quiver through her slight frame,
as this young girl gave so terrible an account of herself.

"But if he claims you?" said Mrs. Bloxam.

"He will never claim me," replied Gertrude; and there was that in her
voice and in her look which carried conviction to her hearer's mind.
"He is more than dead to me--he is as though he had never lived."

"My poor child, how wretched you must be!" exclaimed Mrs. Bloxam,
almost involuntarily.

"I am not wretched," said Gertrude; and again she frowned slightly,
and again her face looked old, and her voice sounded hard. "I feel
that there has been a chapter of misery and of degradation in the
story of my life; but I have closed it for ever. I will never speak of
it again, I will never think of it again, if by any effort of my will
I can keep my mind clear of it. I am young, strong, clever, and
ambitious; and I am not the first woman who has made a tremendous
mistake, and incurred a dreadful penalty, in the outset of her life;
but I daresay few, if any, have had such a chance of escape from the
consequences as I have. I will take the fullest advantage of it. And
now, Mrs. Bloxam, we will talk of this no more. Let that man's name be
as dead to you and me as all feeling about him is dead in my heart for
ever; and help me to make a new line in life for myself."

Mrs. Bloxam looked at her silently, and sighed. Then she said:

"You are a strange young woman, and have suffered some great wrongs, I
am sure. It shall be as you wish, my dear, and I will try to forget
that you ever were anything but Grace Lambert. And now let us talk of
affairs--yours and mine, if you like; for I have something to tell
you, and to consult you about."

Gertrude looked round her, and smiled. The scene of their interview
and its associations were strangely familiar to her. It seemed as
though it were only the other day she had sat in that same room,
summoned to a consultation with Mrs. Bloxam about the expenditure of
her quarter's allowance, and the fashion of her summer costume. The
same bureau lay open, disclosing a collection of tradesmen's books and
bills of well-known aspect. Gertrude knew in which of the little
drawers the reserve of prospectuses, in which the innumerable and
incomparable advantages of the Vale House were set forth, was kept. A
low chair, with a straight, upright, uncompromising back, whereon a
very frosty-looking bunch of yellow dahlias had been worked in harsh
worsted by a grateful pupil, stood in the position it had always
occupied within Gertrude's memory, beside the bureau. It was known as
"the client's chair." Moved by a familiar impulse, Gertrude rose and
seated herself in this chair, and looked up at Mrs. Bloxam, with the
old look so completely banished from her face, with so exactly the
same girlish smile which she remembered, that Mrs. Bloxam started.

"You might have never gone away," she said, "for all the change there
is in you now. What a chameleon you are, Gertrude--"

"Grace!" said Gertrude once more; and then the consultation, whose
details there is no need to follow, as they will be made plain by
their results, proceeded without interruption.


*    *    *    *    *


Signor da Capo was right in his judgment of Miss Lambert's voice. Her
industry in the study of her art, her unflinching labour, and her
great talent were alike conspicuous. After the interview with Mrs.
Bloxam, Miss Lambert did not make her appearance very often in the
school-room, and it was rumoured that she was not going to be exactly
a teacher. This report proved to be correct. She gave a few occasional
lessons, but only in a casual way; and it was understood among the
pupils that not only did Miss Lambert receive lessons of preternatural
duration from Signor da Capo, but that she went very often into
London, and took instruction from a still more eminent professor of
music, a beatified creature, glorious on the boards of the Italian
Opera. It was even said, and with truth, that Miss Lambert's singing
was beginning to be talked of outside the precincts of the Vale
House; and that great ladies with coronets on their carriages and
pocket-handkerchiefs had questioned Signor da Capo about his gifted
pupil, and even called on Mrs. Bloxam. When these rumours had been for
some time in circulation, and Grace Lambert's appearance in the
school-room had become an event so rare as not to be looked for more
than once in ten days or so, another report, and one of a startling
nature, disturbed the small world of the Establishment for young
Ladies. This tremendous _on dit_ foretold an event of no less moment
than the relinquishment of the "Establishment" by Mrs. Bloxam, and
that lady's retirement into the genteel tranquillity of private life.
The Vale House had been disposed of; so ran the rumour; and Mrs.
Bloxam was communicating with the "parents and guardians," and making
over her interest and "connection" to her successor. The announcement
would be made at breaking-up time. Much excitement prevailed. Most of
the young ladies entertained a lively hope that their parents would
not feel unreserved confidence in the successor, and that thus they
should gain an indeterminate addition to the vacation. Those who had
no such hope rather liked the novelty of the substitution. They
"didn't mind old Bloxam;"--but anything new must be welcome. For once
rumour was not mistaken. When breaking-up time came, Mrs. Bloxam took
leave of her dear young charges in a touching speech, and consigned
them, with many expressions of interest, to the care of the Misses
Toppit, who were henceforth to preside over the Vale House.

It was generally understood that Mrs. Bloxam's retirement had taken
place under pecuniary conditions of a satisfactory character, and that
Mr. Dexter had acted in the matter with becoming zeal for the
interests of his client. A few days after the departure of her "dear
young friends" for their several homes, Mrs. Bloxam left the Vale
House. She was accompanied by Grace Lambert, who remarked, as they
drove away, "It must be painful to you, after all, to leave a place
where you have lived so long."

"No," said Mrs. Bloxam, "it is not. _I_ feel what the girls _fancy_
about it: I have had too much work and too little play there, to be
able to regret the Vale House."


*    *    *    *    *


The carriage placed at her disposal by the Marchioness of Carabas
whirled Miss Grace Lambert, after her brilliantly successful first
appearance at Carabas House, to a small but remarkably pretty villa at
Bayswater. The detached house, intensely modern and white, with the
largest possible windows for its size, and the prettiest possible
ornamentation about it--of carved wood in the Swiss style, and curly
iron railings and posts and verandahs in the Birmingham style, with
neat flower-beds, the colours all _en suite_, in the miniature
Tuileries style--was very pretty and very comfortable. Mrs. Bloxam
interested herself in every detail of the small establishment, which
she had not found any difficulty in "starting" with her own funds, and
which she fully expected to be able to maintain most creditably with
those which should accrue from the success of Miss Grace Lambert,
about which she was assured by competent authorities no reasonable
doubt could be entertained.

And now that success seemed to be assured indeed. The little coterie
which was wont to assemble almost daily at the villa would rejoice
hugely on the morrow of the grand concert at Carabas House, and the
grand Carabas Marchioness would no doubt speed the fame of her
_protégée's_ success far and wide in the most profitable directions.

The Marchioness had "taken up" Signer da Capo's favourite pupil,
concerning whom the gushing Italian was wont to tell wonderful things,
while he was pretending to administer instruction to the Lady
Angelica, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of the most noble
the Marchioness, who had a remarkably pretty throat, which the singing
attitude exhibited in a favourable light, but who possessed about as
much talent for music, or indeed for anything, as the favourite
Persian cat of the most noble. Signor da Capo was very good-looking,
and was one of those who, at a respectable distance, and in a modified
sense, "understood" the Marchioness, and she responded to his gushing
communications about Miss Lambert's talents and attractions, and the
inevitable _furore_ which she was indubitably to create, by a
vehemently-expressed desire to befriend that young lady, and an
amiable determination to bring her out at Carabas House, and so at
once serve Miss Lambert, and prevent Lady Lowndes, who was her
intimate enemy, and a rival patroness of genius, art, literature, and
fashionable religion, from "getting hold of" the promising young
_débutante_. The pleasure of the honest signor--who was truly
interested in his young friend, and who religiously believed every
word he had said in her favour--when Lady Carabas announced her
intention of making Miss Lambert's acquaintance, was genuine and
demonstrative, and he readily gave the pledge which she exacted from
him, that he would not let Lady Lowndes know of the existence of this
unsunned treasure.

"I cannot answer for the discretion of M--, my lady," said the signor;
"he knows Miss Lambert's genius as well as I do, and he goes to Lady
Lowndes' oftener than I do; but there is always the chance for us that
M-- never thinks and seldom talks of anybody but himself."

The acquaintance made under such favourable auspices ripened rapidly
into intimacy, very flattering, and likely to prove very profitable,
to Miss Lambert. The Marchioness was almost as much delighted with the
girl as she professed to be; and Miss Lambert, who "understood" the
_grande dame_ in quite a different sense from that in which she was in
the habit of using the word, was quite alive to the profit and the
pleasure to be derived from such exalted patronage. The calmness, the
reserve, the unbending self-respect of the girl had a powerful effect
on Lady Carabas. They excited her curiosity, and awakened her
interest. She had a good deal of the former in her disposition,
apropos of everything, and particularly apropos of the love affairs of
her friends and acquaintances, and she naturally felt strong curiosity
on this subject as regarded Grace Lambert. She arrived, as she
thought, at a tolerably accurate knowledge of who Miss Lambert saw,
and where Miss Lambert went; but she never came upon the traces of the
slightest "tendre."

"How very charming!" said the Marchioness of Carabas to herself, a day
or two before the grand concert at Carabas House; "this young
creature's heart has evidently never spoken. She will be a _débutante_
in every sense."

The heart of the most noble had spoken so frequently, that it might
fairly be supposed to be a little hoarse. Hence her admiration of the
inarticulatism of that organ in the case of Grace Lambert. As she
drove in the Park that day, she actually meditated upon the expediency
of introducing to the special notice of her charming _protégée_ a
delightful man in the Blues, who had up to a late period "understood"
her, but who had had the misfortune to bore her lately, and the bad
taste to take his dismissal in dudgeon.

"He knows about music," thought her ladyship; "yes, that will do;" and
then she pulled the deck-string, and gave the order "home," and had
scribbled half-a-dozen notes of invitation to a little dinner _en
petit comité_ on the following Sunday, before post-hour. One of the
half-dozen notes was addressed to Lord Sandilands, a second to the man
in the Blues, and a third to Miss Grace Lambert. The destination of
the other three is no concern of ours.

When Miss Lambert's page brought her the much-monogramed note which
contained Lady Carabas' invitation, she observed that a second missive
lay on the salver. It was addressed to Mrs. Bloxam, who was sitting in
the same room, at a little distance from the piano before which Grace
was seated. The page crossed the room, and held the salver towards
Mrs. Bloxam, who took the letter, and as she glanced at the
superscription, turned deadly pale. She held the letter in her hand
unopened, and glanced with a strange uneasiness in her usually placid
face towards Grace. But Grace had thrown the note she had just read on
the floor beside her, and her fingers were scampering over the keys,
and her Voice was pouring out volumes of sound; she seemed unconscious
even of Mrs. Bloxam's presence. Seeing which that lady rose and went
to her own room. Having reached that sanctum, and carefully bolted the
door, she broke the seal of the letter which had caused her to
experience so much emotion, and found, as she expected, that it came
from Lord Sandilands. Its contents were brief and businesslike. Mrs.
Bloxam knew his lordship's style of old. He told her that he wished to
see her alone, for a reason which he would explain in person, should
he be so fortunate as to procure the desired interview, on calling at
the villa on the following day, at three o'clock in the afternoon. He
would take his chance of finding her at home, and, if he should be
unsuccessful, would call again.

The receipt of this letter threw Mrs. Bloxam, who had been prevented
by indisposition from accompanying Grace Lambert to Carabas House, and
was therefore unaware that Lord Sandilands had been present at the
concert, into a state of the utmost perturbation. She dreaded she knew
not what. It was in vain she asked herself what had she to fear. If,
indeed, the design of Lord Sandilands in coming to see her were to
inquire after his daughter, he would find her in the care to which he
had committed her. With regard to the career which she had chosen, he
certainly could not possess the right, nor could she imagine his
having the inclination, to interfere. Was he coming to destroy the
long-maintained _incognito_, to make himself known to his daughter?
Was he coming to demand from her, to whose care he had committed the
child, a stern account of her stewardship? Had he any suspicion of the
truth? Had any rumour of Gertrude's miserable marriage reached her
father? Was he coming in anger, or in curiosity, or in an access of
newly-awakened conscience, of newly-born feeling? She could not tell,
and yet she was forced to ask herself these questions, vain though
they were; and Mrs. Bloxam acknowledged to herself afterwards that she
had seldom passed through more miserable hours than those which
elapsed between the receipt of Lord Sandilands' letter, and the page's
announcement that Lord Sandilands was awaiting her presence in the
drawing-room, on the afternoon of the same day.

At the hour which he had named Lord Sandilands presented himself at
the villa. Mrs. Bloxam was alone, and received him with much more
composure than she really felt, while he, in his turn, did not betray
any symptoms of the unaccustomed mental perturbation which had led him
to seek her presence. Years had elapsed since Mrs. Bloxam had last
seen Lord Sandilands; years had changed him from a hale middle-aged
man to one on whom the burden of age was beginning to tell. Those
years had made less alteration in her; and the first desultory thought
that occurred to her when she saw him was, how completely the likeness
she had formerly traced in his features to those of Gertrude had
ceased to exist. Lord Sandilands entered at once on the business of
his visit.

"I have come to ask you, Mrs. Bloxam," he said, "whether I am not
right in supposing that the young lady whom I saw at Carabas House two
nights ago is the same whom I placed with you under the name of
Gertrude Keith?"

"Miss Lambert is that young lady," replied Mrs. Bloxam.

"I thought I could not be mistaken. I have never seen her since her
childhood, as you know, and did not purpose to see her. But I have
changed my mind. She is very handsome and very clever, Mrs. Bloxam;"
and Lord Sandilands' voice took almost a pleading tone. "She is a girl
who would do credit to such a position as--as I cannot give her
now--but I should like to serve her in any way that is open to me; and
I have come to you to ask your advice as to how this is to be done."

"Miss Lambert is in the house now," said Mrs. Bloxam; "but I have not
mentioned your name to her, or your intended visit. I fancied you
might have some such purpose as you tell me of in coming, and thought
it better to wait until I should know more."

"You did very right, Mrs. Bloxam," said Lord Sandilands. "I think it
is better I should not see Gertrude now; and I do not think she ought
ever to know the truth--to know that I am her father. It could do no
good to her or to me; there is no undoing the past; but I see no
objection, if you have none, to my being introduced to her in the
character of an old friend of yours, interested in her because you
are, and anxious to serve her. Do _you_ see any reason why this should
not be, Mrs. Bloxam?"

"Certainly not, my lord," replied Gertrude's friend; "it requires
little consideration, I think, and I shall be happy to carry out your
wishes now as formerly."

Mrs. Bloxam spoke with her usual fluent composure. It had forsaken her
for a little while after Lord Sandilands' appearance, but now it was
perfectly restored. Things were taking the best possible turn. Lord
Sandilands was putting himself into the position of her debtor, making
a compact of positive friendship with her. What an escape from the
danger she dreaded, the risk she felt she had so duly incurred! He had
no suspicion, not the slightest--the terrible episode of Gertrude's
disastrous marriage was, then, safely concealed from the only human
being whom, beside herself and her husband, it concerned! With steady
serenity she turned her attention to what Lord Sandilands had to say
to her. Their interview was long and uninterrupted, until, a few
minutes after they had heard the sound of carriage-wheels in the
little avenue, Grace Lambert entered the room abruptly. She was
looking handsome, and in high spirits, and came in saying:

"I beg your pardon--I thought you were alone."

"This is Lord Sandilands, my dear," said Mrs. Bloxam, as the old
nobleman rose and bowed. "Lord Sandilands, Miss Lambert. His Lordship
saw you the other night at Carabas House, Grace.

"Indeed!" said Grace, with a perfectly unembarrassed smile. "I am
going there now--Lady Carabas has sent the carriage for me--so I came
to tell you." Then, with a gesture of leave-taking, she said to Lord
Sandilands, "Ah, yes, I remember now, quite well. You were in the
front seats, next to a tall young man with a very thick dark beard."




CHAPTER VIII.
The Linnet's first Flight.


There were many phases of this life in which Lord Sandilands enjoyed a
singular and an extensive popularity, many varieties of the social
scale in which his name was mentioned with respect, and not a few in
which he was regarded with far more than ordinary interest. In the
first place, he was a man well born and well bred, and did honour to
his position by his appearance, his manners, and the constant decorum
which pervaded and formed part of his life. City merchants, members of
parliament, who, having swept out their own counting-houses, of course
became rigidest Conservatives, when by those wonderful gradations
which are known to the reverent as "honest perseverance," and to the
irreverent as "lucky flukes," they rose to be heads of the firm, felt
immensely honoured by being permitted to play in the same rubber at
the Portland with the calm, quiet, self-possessed, bald-headed,
silver-fringed old nobleman, who was a model of courtesy throughout
the game, but who never missed a point or gave a chance. Young men
imbued with slang, as are the young men of the present day, dropped
the metaphor of the prize-ring, music-hall, and the _demi-monde_ villa
in the presence of the "high-dried old boy," of whose position there
could not be the smallest doubt, and who, on occasion, had shown that
he owned a tongue which could make itself felt "doosid unpleasantly,
don't you know!--kind of rough side of it, and all that sort of thing,
you know!" To women he was always scrupulously attentive, and was in
consequence in the greatest favour amongst them. The fact of his
wearing the willow for his old love, Lady Lucy Beecher, was _répandu_
from Belgrave- to Grosvenor-squares; and the story, which had won for
him such affectionate interest amongst those who were young at the
time when, as all supposed, he was jilted by the fair one, and bore
his jilting so manfully, yet lived amongst their descendants, and
caused Lord Sandilands to be regarded as "a sweet old thing," who had
suffered in Love's cause, by _débutantes_ who were unborn when John
Borlase first won Gertrude Gautier's childish heart.

And yet Lord Sandilands was by no means a representative man. For
politics he cared little or nothing. On special occasions he went down
to the House and voted with his party, but in that was comprised his
whole Parliamentary career. He never spoke and never intrigued; the
Custom-house and the Inland Revenue enrolled no members who had
obtained their appointments at his instance; his personal appearance
was unknown to the private secretary of the Postmaster-general; nor
was his handwriting to be found in the bulging pigeon-holes of the
Treasury. Many years had elapsed since he had arrayed himself in the
charming court-costume which intelligence has retained from the
customs of the dark ages, and presented himself at the levees of his
sovereign. At flower-shows and races, at afternoon Park or morning
Row, at garden-parties or _fêtes champêtres_, at none of those
gatherings where pleasant Frivolity rules, was Lord Sandilands
known--at none, rather, save one--the Opera. There he was _facile
princeps_; there he was king of the place. The check-takers and the
box-keepers knew him as well as they knew the lessee, and stood in as
much awe of him. The principal librarians, Messrs. Ivory, MacBone, and
Déloge, prostrated themselves before him, and were always most anxious
to learn his opinion of any novelty, as on that opinion they were
accustomed to base their calculation of profit or loss. With Schrink,
the critic of the _Statesman_--a cynical, humpbacked man, who had
a spite against mankind, and "took it out" in writing venomous
articles abusive of the world in general, and the musical world in
particular--Lord Sandilands was the only man who had the smallest
weight; and many a neophyte has owed the touch of oil which she
received, instead of the pickling which threatened her, to a kind word
dropped by his lordship in the seclusion of that box on the pit tier
to which he alone was admitted, where Schrink sat nursing his leg,
biting his nails, and glowering with fury alike at singers and
audience. Behind the scenes his popularity was equally great; the
sulky tenors gave up sucking their cough-lozenges and grinding their
teeth at his approach, and welcomed him with courteous salutations;
the basso roused himself from his stertorous sleep; the prima donna
gave up that shrill altercation with her snuffy old mother; the
property-men and the scene-shifters, who dashed indiscriminately
against the gilded youth who roamed vacantly about, took special care
to steer clear of Lord Sandilands, and touched their paper caps to him
as he passed by; and the little ballet-women and chorus-singers
dropped deepest curtsies to his lordship, and felt that so long as he
was satisfied with them their pound a week was safe.

Had he any interest in the management? That was a moot point. Ever
since the publication of the bankrupt's schedule made patent the fact
that a well-known advertising teacher of languages was identical with
an even more notorious agricultural-implement maker, one has been
afraid to give any positive opinion as to who is who in this most
extraordinary world of ours. Mr. Boulderson Munns was the responsible
lessee of the Grand Opera, and held the reins of management; but whose
was the money embarked in the speculation it was impossible to say.
Young Jeffcock, the China merchant (Jeffcock Brothers of Shanghai),
used to attend all the rehearsals, had boxes always at his command,
and was treated with great deference by Mr. Boulderson Munns; but in
all these respects he was equalled by Jack Clayton of the Coldstreams,
who was notoriously impecunious, who owed even for his button-hole
bouquets, and--who spent all his ready-money in hansom cabs and
sprat-suppers for the _corps de ballet_. Tommy Toshington, who knew
most things, declared that Lord Sandilands had no monetary interest in
the house, but that his position gave him greater influence with Mr.
Boulderson Munns than was enjoyed by any of the others. "Sandilands,
sir," Tommy would say, when he had dined well at somebody else's
expense,--"Sandilands is the man to give a stamp to a thing of that
sort! Don't know what there is in him, but there's something that when
he says a musical thing's all right, it's safe to go. Why, when that
old gray horse and green brougham of his are seen at the door of
Canzonet's shop, as they are day after day in the season, it's worth a
fortune to Sam Canzonet--he told me so himself. Money? Not a sixpence,
not a sous. When he was John Borlase he was a regular screw, and he's
not improved with age; but it is not money Munns wants out of him.
Jeffcock? nonsense! Jack Clayton? bah! The real capitalist there, sir,
is-;" and here Mr. Toshington whispered in your ear the name of a
well-known Evangelical M.P., whom you would have as soon accredited
with Mormonism as with connection with theatrical affairs; and having
made his point, hobbles off chuckling.

There was truth in this, although it was said by Tommy Toshington.
There was no doubt that Lord Sandilands had powerful interest in all
the ramifications of the musical world; and though this fact must for
a long time have been patent to him, he never thought of it, never, at
least, felt it so strongly as when he was turning over in his mind the
curious chance which had brought him face to face with his daughter,
and had been casting about as to how he best could serve her. That the
girl had musical talent he was certain. He had served too long an
apprenticeship, all amateur though it was, to his favourite science
not to be thoroughly convinced of that; and he knew perfectly well
that Grace Lambert's voice and style were both far beyond those
possessed by most of the gifted pupils of the Academy of Music: for
the most part delightful young persons, who came out with a gush, and
went in with a run; who gave immense delight to their personal friends
at the few concerts at which they sung gratuitously; and who may,
according to the orthodox ending of the children's tales, "have lived
happy ever after," but who, at all events, passed the remainder of
their lives in obscurity, and were never heard of again.

No; Grace Lambert--what the deuce had made her assume so unromantic a
name? Gertrude Keith was fifty times as pretty--Grace Lambert was not
to be measured by the usual bushel. Her voice, as Lord Sandilands
recollected it at Carabas House, was one of the sweetest, the most
_trainante_ and bewitching which, in all his great experience, he had
ever listened to; and there was something about her personal
appearance, her hair and _tournure_, which completely lifted her out
of the common. "Psht!" said the old gentleman to himself, as he lay
back in his easy-chair, revolving all these things in his mind--"how
many of 'em have I seen? There was Miss Lavrock--charmin' voice she
had, bright and shrill, like a bird's pipe--a little fat, dumpy body,
that made the plank in the _Sonnambula_ creak beneath the weight of
her ten stone, and looked more like a cook than Lucia; and there was
Miss Greenwood--Miss Bellenden Greenwood, I beg her pardon--with her
saucy black eyes, and her red-and-white complexion, and her corkscrew
ringlets--gad, how horrible! But this child is marvellously
_distinguée_ and bred-looking; the way her head is set on her
shoulders, the shape of her head, the curve of her nostrils, and the
delicacy of her hands--I'm always telling myself that blood's all
bosh, as they say in their modern slang; but 'pon my word, one finds
there's something in it after all!"

Lord Sandilands was a constant visitor now at the pretty Bayswater
villa, and had conducted himself with such courtesy and kindness as to
render his presence anything but disagreeable to Grace. The time
during which she had lived with her husband, short though it had been,
had been quite long enough to give her an unconquerable aversion for
slanginess, and bad taste, and enable her to appreciate the spirit of
the gentleman, which showed itself in every action, in every word of
the old nobleman. Nor did Lord Sandilands, after a little time, care
to conceal the great interest which he took in Miss Lambert's career.
While carefully veiling everything which might show the relationship
in which he stood to the young girl, and while never ceasing to
impress on Mrs. Bloxam--much to that worthy woman's secret annoyance,
for was she not the possessor of a secret even more mysterious and
more compromising in connection with Gertrude--the necessity of
reticence, Lord Sandilands confessed to Miss Lambert that, actuated by
the purest and most honourable motives, he wished to place himself at
her service in advancing her interests in the profession which she had
chosen, and in which she was evidently destined to take a high
position, and in being of use to her in society. And in both these
ways the old nobleman was of the greatest assistance to the
_débutante_. As has been before said, his verdict in musical matters
was immensely thought of; while, though it must be acknowledged that
the open and avowed support of many elderly noblemen would be anything
but fortunate in securing the interests of a young musical lady with
the members of her own sex, that of such a known Galahad as Lord
Sandilands had due weight, and his protégée, duly escorted by Mrs.
Bloxam, "went everywhere." "Everywhere" included Lady Lowndes'; and
the Marchioness of Carabas knew of this, as how could she do
otherwise? being a diligent student of the _Morning Post_, in addition
to having it told her by seven of her dearest and most intimate
friends, who called for the express purpose of startling her with the
information during the next afternoon. But the Marchioness knew of
Miss Lambert's appearance at Lady Lowndes' house, and yet received
her the next day with a welcome which had in it even more than the
usual _empressement_. Why? impossible to say, save that people
were beginning to talk more and more of Miss Grace Lambert's
voice and appearance, and specially of her manners. "Something
odd about her, don't you know--frigid, unimpressionable,
something-which-one-can't-make-out sort of thing, you know!" the
ladies said; while the delightful creature in the Blues, to whom she
had been specially introduced with the view of eliciting the speaking
of her heart, declared she was "doosid hard nut to crack," and
something which had beaten him, the delightful creature in the Blues,
"by chalks." So that Lady Carabas, carefully noting all the phases of
society, felt more bound than ever to "keep in" with the _protégée_
whom she had introduced; and the ambrosial footmen with the powdered
locks went more frequently than ever between the halls of Carabas and
the Bayswater villa, and the much-monogramed notes which they conveyed
were warmer than ever in their expressions of admiration and
attachment, and hopes of speedily seeing their most charming &c.; and
more than ever was Lady Carabas Miss Grace Lambert's dearest friend.
But Lady Carabas was a very woman after all, and as such her
friendship for her dearest friend stopped at a certain point; she
brooked no interference in matters where her Soul (with the big S) was
concerned. Other women, not possessing so much worldly knowledge,
might have given their dearest friends opportunity for intimacy with
the temporary possessor of the Soul, and then quarrelled with them for
causing the Soul to be depressed with the pangs of jealousy and
distrust. Lady Carabas knew better than that. He whose image the Soul,
however temporarily, enshrined must be kept sacred and apart, so far
as it was possible to keep him, and must be troubled with no
temptation. Hence it happened that Gilbert Lloyd, then regnant over
Lady Carabas' Soul, was never permitted to meet, or scarcely even to
hear of, the young lady in whom he would have recognised his wife.

Of Miles Challoner, however, Miss Grace Lambert saw a great deal; not,
indeed, at Carabas House. Ever since the eventful evening of his
introduction to Mr. Gilbert Lloyd, Miles had crossed the threshold of
Lady Carabas' mansion as seldom as social decency, in deference to the
Marchioness's constantly renewed invitations, would permit him. The
invitations were constantly renewed; for Lady Carabas had taken a
liking to the young man, and, indeed, the idea had crossed her
ladyship's mind that when Gilbert Lloyd's time of office had
expired--and his tenure had been already more than the average--she
could scarcely do better than intrust Miles Challoner with the secret
of the existence of her Soul, and permit him to share in its
aspiration. There was a freshness, she thought, about him which would
suit her admirably; a something so different from those _fades_ and
jaded worldlings among whom her life was passed. But though the
invitations were constant, the response to them was very limited
indeed, and only on one or two occasions subsequent to his
introduction did Miles avail himself of the hospitality of Carabas
House. On none of these occasions did he meet Mr. Gilbert Lloyd. The
same reason which induced Lady Carabas to manoeuvre in keeping her
friend for the time being from meeting her handsome protégée suggested
to her the expediency of preventing any possible collision between the
actual and the intended sharers of her Soul; collision, as Lady
Carabas thought, by no means unlikely to occur, as she was a shrewd
observant woman of the world, and had noticed the odd behaviour of
both gentlemen at the time of their introduction.

But Lord Sandilands, loving Miles Challoner for his own and for his
father's sake, and noticing the strong impression which Miss Lambert's
voice and beauty had made upon the young man, had taken him to the
Bayswater villa, and formally introduced him; and both Mrs. Bloxam and
Grace had "hoped they should see more of him." He was a gentleman. You
could not say much more of him than that; but what an immense amount
is implied in that word! He was not very bright; he never said clever
or smart things--consequently he kept himself from evil-speaking,
lying, and slandering; he had no facility for gossip--consequently he
never intruded on the ladies the latest news of the _demi-monde_
heroines, nor the back-stairs' sweepings of the Court; he was earnest
and manly, and full of youthful fervour on various subjects, which he
discussed in a bright, modest way which won Mrs. Bloxam's by no means
impulsive heart, and at the same time made that impulsive heart beat
quickly with its knowledge of Gertrude's secret: a secret with which
the unexpressed but impossible-to-be-mistaken admiration of this young
man might interfere.

Impossible-to-be-mistaken admiration? Quite impossible. Lord
Sandilands--though years had gone by since he had been a proficient in
that peculiar vocabulary, whose expressions are undefined and
untranslatable--recognised it in an instant, and scarcely knew whether
to be pleased or vexed as the idea flashed upon him. He loved Miles
like his own son, believed in all his good qualities, recognised and
admitted that the young man had all in him requisite to make a good,
loving husband; his social status, too, was such as would be most
desirable for a girl in Gertrude's position. But Lord Sandilands knew
that any question of his natural daughter's marriage would entail the
disclosure of the relation in which he stood to her; and he dreaded
the ridicule of the world, dreaded the banter of the club, dreaded
more than all the elucidation of the fact that the _répandu_ notion of
his wearing the willow for Lady Lucy Beecher had been all nonsense,
and that he had consoled himself for her ladyship's defalcation by an
intrigue of a very different calibre.

"I should be laughed at all over town," the old gentleman said to
himself; "and though it must come, by George, it's best to put off the
evil day as long as possible. I don't know. I'm an old fellow now, and
have not as keen an eye for these things as I had; but _I_ don't
perceive any sign of a _tendresse_ on Gertrude's part; and, all things
considered, I'm glad of it."

And Lord Sandilands was right. There was not the smallest sign of
any feeling for Miles Challoner in Grace Lambert. Had she had the
least spark of such a feeling kindling in her heart, it is very
doubtful--whether she would have permitted it to be remarked in her
outward manner; but her heart was thoroughly free from any such
sentiment. She liked Miles Challoner--liked his frank bearing, and was
touched, after her fashion, by the respect which he showed her. It was
something quite new to her, this old-fashioned courtesy from this
young man. Of course, during her schooldays she had seen nothing of
mankind, save as exemplified in the foreign professors of languages
and music, whose courtesy was for the most part of the organ-monkey
order--full of bows and grins. After her marriage, the set in which
she was thrown--though to a certain extent kept in order by the
feeling that Gilbert Lloyd was "a swell," and had peculiar notions as
to how his wife should be treated--never had scrupled to talk to her
without removing their hats, or to smoke in her presence. And though
the gentlemen she had met at Carabas House had been guilty of neither
of these solecisms, there had been a certain _laissez-aller_ air about
them, which Grace Lambert had ascribed to a _tant soit peu_ disdain of
her artistic position; the real fact being that to assume a vice if he
have it not, and to heap as much mud as possible on that state of life
into which it has pleased Providence to call him, is the chosen and
favourite occupation of a high-born and wealthy young man of the
present day. So Grace Lambert recognised Miles Challoner as a
gentleman _pur sang_, and appreciated him accordingly; had a bright
glance and a kindly word of welcome for him when he appeared at the
Bayswater villa, made him at home by continuing her singing-practice
while he remained, made him happy by asking him when he was coming
again as he said his adieux; but as to having what Lord Sandilands
called a _tendresse_ for the man, as to being in love with him--Love
came into Gertrude Keith's heart three months before she walked out of
the laundry-window over the roof of the school-room, and stepped down
on to the driving-seat of the hansom cab, in which Gilbert Lloyd was
waiting to take her off to the church and make her his wife. Love
died out of Gertrude Lloyd's heart within three months of that
marriage-day; and as for Grace Lambert, she never had known and never
intended to know what the sentiment meant. So, so far, Lord Sandilands
was right; and the more he watched the conduct of the two young people
when alone towards each other--and he watched it narrowly enough--the
more he took occasion to congratulate himself on his own perspicacity
and knowledge of the world. But at the same time he reflected that the
life which Miss Grace Lambert was leading was but a dull one, that she
took but little interest in these society successes; and he took
occasion to glean from her what he knew before--that her heart and
soul were bound up in her profession, and that she was by no means
satisfied by the hitherto limited opportunities afforded her of
showing what she really could do therein. This ambition of the girl's
to make for herself name and fame in the musical world by no means
jarred against the ideas of the old nobleman. He should have to
acknowledge her as his daughter some day or other, that he saw clearly
enough; and it would be infinitely preferable to him, and would render
him infinitely less ridiculous in the eyes of that infernal bantering
club-world of which he stood so much in awe, if he could point to a
distinguished artist of whom all the world was talking in praise, and
say, "This is my child," than if he had to bear the brunt of the
parentage of a commonplace and unknown person. There were half-a-dozen
other ladies occupying a somewhat similar position to Miss Lambert's
in society, as queens of amateur singing sets; and though she was
acknowledged by all disinterested people to be far and away the best
of them, it was necessary that she should have some public
ratification of her merits, or, at all events, that some professional
opinion, independent of that of Da Capo or her other singing-master,
who would naturally be biassed, should be given. The other ladies were
daughters and wives of rich men, who sang a little for their friends'
and a great deal for their own amusement; but Miss Lambert's career
was to be strictly professional, and a touchstone of a very different
kind was to be applied to her merits.

That was a happy time for Miles Challoner, perhaps really the happiest
in his life. His first love, at least the first passion really
deserving that name, was nascent within him, and all the environing
circumstances of his life were tinged with the roseate hue which is
the necessary "local colour" of the situation. Moreover, his feelings
towards Gertrude were at present in that early stage of love in which
they could be borne and indulged in without worrying and making him
miserable. She was the nicest woman he had ever seen, and there was
something marvellously attractive about her, something which he could
not explain, but the magnetic influence of which he knew it impossible
to resist. So he abandoned himself to the enjoyment of this pleasant
feeling, enjoying it doubly perhaps, because up to this point it had
been, and seemed to promise to continue to be, a mild and equable
flame; not scorching and withering everything round it, but burning
with a pleasant, steady heat. You see, at present Mr. Challoner had
not seen much, if anything, of Miss Lambert alone; his admiration
sprung from observation of her under the most commonplace
circumstances, and his passion had never been quickened and stung into
fiercer action by the thought of rivalry. True, that whenever Miss
Lambert went into society she was always surrounded by a bragging
crowd of representatives of the gilded youth of the period, who did
their best to flatter and amuse her; attempts in which, if her grave
face and formal manner might be accepted in evidence, they invariably
and signally failed. And at the Bayswater villa he might be said to
have her entirely to himself, he being the only young man admitted
there, with the exception occasionally of some musical professor,
native or foreign; the delightful creature in the Blues, and other
delightful creatures who had made Miss Lambert's acquaintance in
society, having tried to obtain the _entrée_ in vain.

So Miles went on pleasantly in a happy dream, which was very shortly
to come to an end; for Lord Sandilands, thinking it full time that
some definite steps should be taken in regard to Gertrude's
professional future, arrived one morning at the Bayswater villa, and
was closeted with the young lady for more than two hours. During this
interview, the old gentleman, without betraying his relationship with
her, told Gertrude that, far beyond anything else, he had her
interests at heart; that he had perceived her desire for professional
distinction; and that, as he saw it was impossible to combat it, he
was ready then and there to advance it to the best of his ability.
Only, as the training was somewhat different, it was necessary that
she should make up her mind whether she would prosecute her career in
the concert-room or on the operatic stage.

It was a pity Miles Challoner was not present to mark the brilliant
flush which lit up Gertrude's usually pale cheeks, the fire which
flashed in her eyes, and the proud curl of her small lips, as this
proposition was made to her. For a few moments she hesitated, a
thousand thoughts rushed through her mind--thoughts of her real
position, retrospect of her past life--a wild, feverish vision of
future triumph, where she, the put-aside and rejected of Gilbert
Lloyd, the pupil-teacher of the suburban boarding-school, should be
queen regnant, and have some of the greatest and highest in the
kingdom for her slaves. As _prima donna_ of the Opera, what position
might she not assume, or where should her sway stop, if ambition were
to be gratified? And then the old cynical spirit arose within her, and
she thought of the tinsel and the sham, the gas and the gewgaws; and
the light died out of her eyes, and her cheeks resumed their usual
pallor, and it was a perfectly cold hand which she placed in Lord
Sandilands', as she said to him, without the smallest tremor in her
voice, "You have indeed proved yourself a perfectly disinterested
friend, my lord; how could I do better than leave the decision on my
future career in your hands?"

Lord Sandilands was rather unprepared for this speech, and a little
put out by it. He had an objection to accepting responsibility in
general; and in this instance, where he really felt deeply, he thought
naturally that Gertrude would scarcely think of him with much
gratitude if his choice did not eventuate so happily for her as he
intended. However, there was nothing else to be done; so he raised the
cold hand to his lips with old-fashioned gallantry, and promised to
"think the matter over," and see her again on the following day. With
many people, to think a matter over means to discuss it with someone
else. Lord Sandilands was of this class; and though he accepted the
commission so glibly from Gertrude, he never had the smallest
intention of deciding upon it without taking excellent advice. That
advice he sought at the hands of Mr. Déloge, the "librarian" of
Jasmin-street.

An odd man, Mr. Déloge--a character worth a passing study. His father,
who had been a "librarian" before him, had amassed a large sum of
money in those good old days when speculations in opera-boxes and
stall-tickets were highly remunerative to those who knew how to work
them, had given his son an excellent education abroad, and had hoped
to see him take a superior position in life. But, to his parent's
disappointment, young Déloge, returning from the Continent with a
knowledge of several languages, and an acquaintance with life and the
world which serves anyone possessing it better than any other
knowledge whatsoever, determined to follow the family business, adding
to it and grafting on to it such other operations as seemed to be
analogous. These operations were so admirably selected and so well
conducted, that before the old man died he had quite acquiesced in his
son's decision, and at the time of our story there was no more
thriving man in London. The old-fashioned shop in Jasmin-street bore
the name over the door still; but that name was now widely known
throughout England and Europe. No Secretary of State was harder worked
than Mr. Déloge, who yet found time to hunt once or twice a week, to
live at Maidenhead during the summer, and at Brighton during the
autumn, and generally to enjoy life. In person he was a tall thin man,
with an excellently-made wig and iron-gray whiskers, always calm and
staid in demeanour, and always irreproachably dressed after the
quietest style. He looked like a middle-aged nobleman whose life had
been passed in diplomacy; and people who asked who he was--and most
people did, so striking was his appearance--were surprised to hear
that he was only "the man who sells the stalls, don't you know?" in
Jasmin-street. Nothing pleased him more than to observe this
astonishment, and he used to delight in telling a story against
himself in illustration of it. One day, in the course of business, he
had occasion to wait on a very great lady, one of his customers. He
drove to the house in his perfectly-appointed brougham, and the door
was opened by a strange footman, to whom he gave his card for
transmission to her grace. The footman led the way into the library,
poked the fire, wheeled the largest arm-chair in front of it, and
placed the _Morning Post_ in the visitor's hands. Mr. Déloge had
scarcely finished smiling at the extreme empressement of the man's
manner, when the door was opened, and the same servant pushed his head
in. "Her grace don't want no hop'ra-box to-night," were his charming
words, delivered in his most offensive manner. The scales had fallen
from his eyes, and the great creature found he had deceived himself
into being civil to a "person in business."

Mr. Déloge had gone through what to many men would have been an entire
day's business in the morning before Lord Sandilands called upon him.
He had read through an enormous mass of letters, and glanced over
several newspapers--had pencilled hints for answers on some, and
dictated replies to others at full length. His business seemed to have
ramifications everywhere: in Australia, where he had an agent
travelling with the celebrated Italian Opera _troupe_, the soprano,
basso, tenor, and baritone, who were a little used up and bygone in
England, but who were the greatest creatures that had ever visited
Australia--so at least said the _Wong-Wong Kangaroo_, a copy of which
the agent forwarded with his letter; in America, where Schlick's
opera, in which Mr. Déloge possessed as much copyright as the
large-souled American music-sellers could not pillage him of, was a
great success; in India, whence he had that morning received a large
order for pianos--for Mr. Déloge is not above the manufacture and
exportation of musical instruments, and, indeed realises a handsome
yearly revenue from that source alone. Before eleven o'clock he had
come to terms, and signed and sealed an agreement with Mr. McManus,
the eminent tragedian, for a series of readings and recitations
throughout the provinces, thus giving the "serious" people who
objected to costume and gas a quasi-theatrical entertainment which
they swallowed eagerly; he had sent a cheque for ten pounds to Tom
Lillibullero, who was solacing his imprisonment in Whitecross-street
by translating a French libretto for the house of Déloge; he had given
one of his clerks a list of a few friends to be asked down to
Maidenhead the next Sunday--all art people, writers, painters,
singers, who would have a remarkably jolly day, and enjoy themselves,
as they always do, more than any other set of people in the world 5
and he had written half-a-dozen private notes--one among the rest
addressed to the Marchioness of Carabas, telling her that as her
ladyship particularly wished it he should be happy to purchase and
publish Mr. Ferdinand Wisk's operetta, which had been performed with
such success at Carabas House, but that he must stipulate that the
operetta must be dedicated to her ladyship, and that each _morceau_
must have a vignette from her ladyship's portrait on the cover. Mr.
Déloge had not half completed his business for the day when he was
informed, through the snake-like elastic pipe that lay at the
right-hand of his writing-table, that Lord Sandilands was in the shop
and asking to see him, but he gave orders that his visitor should at
once be admitted. He was far too recognisant of the old nobleman's
position in the musical world to have kept him waiting or allowed him
to feel the smallest slight, if indeed there had not been, as there was,
a feeling of respect between the two men, which, had they been on the
same social footing, would have been strong friendship.

"How d'ye do, Déloge?" said Lord Sandilands, walking up and heartily
shaking hands; "this is very kind of you, my good fellow, to allow me
to come and bother you when you're over head and ears in business, as
you always are--very kind indeed."

"I don't want to say a pretty thing, my dear lord," said Mr. Déloge,
"but when I can't find leisure from my business to attend to you when
you want to see me, I'd better give that business up."

"Thanks, very much. Well, what's the news? Been to Tenterden-street
lately? Any very promising talent making itself heard up there, eh?"

"No, my lord, none indeed--I'm glad to say," replied Déloge with a
laugh.

"Glad to say! eh, Déloge? that's not very patriotic, is it?"

"O, I did not mean to confine my gladness to the dearth of native
talent. If you only knew, my dear lord, how I'm hunted cut of life by
promising talent, or by talent which considers itself promising and
wants to perform, you would know fully how to appreciate, as I do,
good steady-going mediocrity."

"By Jove, Déloge! this is not very encouraging for me! I came to ask
your advice on the question of bringing out a young lady of
unquestionable genius."

"Unless her genius is quite unquestionable I should advise you to let
the young lady remain in. Why, think for yourself, my dear lord; you
know these things as well as I do, and have every singer for the past
quarter of a century in your mind. Run over the list and tell me which
of them--always excepting Miss Lavrock--has made anything like a
success."

"Ha!" said Lord Sandilands, "yes, the Lavrock--what a voice, what a
charming trill! not but that I think Miss Lambert--"

"Is it a question of Miss Lambert--Miss Grace Lambert?"

"It is. Miss Lambert has decided upon adopting the musical profession,
and my object in coming here was to consult you as to the best means
to give effect to her wishes."

"That's quite another affair. I have only heard Miss Lambert once. I
was engaged by Lady Lowndes to pilot Miramella and Jacowski to one of
her ladyship's wonderful gatherings, and after they had finished their
duet we went to the dining-room to get some of that curious
refreshment which is always provided there for the artists. They had
scarcely begun to eat when the whole house rang with a trill of melody
so clear and bird-like that the Miramella only drank half her
glass of sherry, and Jacowski put down his sandwich--I don't wonder at
it--untasted. We all rushed upstairs, and found that the singer was
Miss Grace Lambert. She sang so exquisitely, and produced such an
immense effect, that Madame Miramella was seized with one of her
violent headaches, and was obliged to be taken home."

Lord Sandilands was delighted. "Poor Miramella!" said he, chuckling
quietly, "and Ger-- and Miss Lambert was successful?"

"Successful! I have not heard such a combination of voice and style
for years! But I thought she was merely an amateur, and had no idea
she intended to take to the profession."

"Yes, she is determined to do so; and as I take the greatest interest
in her, I have come to ask your advice. Now, should she select the
concert-room or the stage as her arena?"

"The stage! the stage!" cried Déloge excitedly; "there can be no
question about it, my dear lord! With that personal appearance and
that voice, she must have the whole world at her feet, and make her
fortune in a very few years. Any dumpy little woman who can sing
tolerably in tune, and face an audience without the music in her hand
visibly trembling, will do for a concert-room; but this young lady has
qualities which--Good heavens! fancy the effect she'd make in Opera,
with that head and that charming figure!"

"My good friend!" said the delighted old nobleman, "you are becoming
positively enthusiastic. In these days of total suppression of
feelings, it does one good to hear you. I am charmed to see you think
so highly of my _protégée_. Now tell met what's the first step to be
taken towards bringing her out?"

"I should let Munns hear her," said Mr. Déloge.

And Lord Sandilands' face fell, and he looked very grave. Why? Well,
the mention of Mr. Munns' name was the first thing that had jarred
disagreeably on Lord Sandilands' ears and feelings in connection with
Gertrude's intended adoption of the musical profession; and it _did_
jar. Why, Lord Sandilands knew perfectly, but could scarcely express.

Who was Mr. Boulderson Munns? You might have asked the question in a
dozen different sets of society, and received a different answer in
each. What was his birth or parentage no one, even the veriest club
scandal-monger, ever assumed to know; and as to his education, he had
none. He had been so long "before the public" that people ad forgotten
whence he came, or in what capacity his _début_ was made. Only a very
few men remembered, or cared to remember, that when Peponelli's
management of the Grand Scandinavian Opera came to smash disastrously,
by reason of Miramella, Jacowski, Courtasson, and Herzogenbusch, the
celebrated singers, revolting and going over in a body to the Regent
Theatre, the opposition house, Messrs. Mossop and Isaacson, of
Thavies' Inn, put themselves in communication with the agents of the
Earl of Haremarch, the ground landlord, and proposed their client, Mr.
Boulderson Munns, as tenant. Lord Haremarch's agent, old Mr.
Finchingfield, of New-square, Lincoln's Inn, looked askance through
his double eyeglass at Messrs. Mossop and Isaacson's letter. He
had heard of those gentlemen, truly, and knew them to be in a
very large way of business, connected generally with people "in
trouble"--criminals and bankrupts. Of Mr. Boulderson Munns, the
gentleman proposed as tenant, Mr. Finchingfield had never heard; but
on consulting with Mr. Leader, his articled clerk, a young gentleman
who saw a good deal of "life," he learned that Mr. Munns had been for
some time lessee of the Tivoli Gardens over the water, and was
supposed to be a shrewd, clever, not too scrupulous man, who knew his
business and attended to it. Mr. Finchingfield was a man of the world.
"I don't know anything about such kind of speculations, and indeed it
is strongly against my advice that my Lord Haremarch permits himself
to be mixed up in such matters," he said. "But I should imagine that
from a person tendering for a theatre you do not require a certificate
of character from the clergyman of his parish; and if Mr. Munns is
prepared to deposit a year's rent in advance, and to enter into the
requisite sureties for the due performance of the various covenants of
the lease, I see no reason why I should not recommend my lord to
accept him as his tenant." And Mr. Leader, remembering this
conversation, made a point of letting Mr. Munns know as soon as
possible that if he, Mr. Munns, should get the theatre it would be
owing entirely to his, Mr. Leader's, representations,--a statement
made by Mr. Leader with a view to the future acquisition of gratuitous
private boxes, and that much coveted _entrée_ known as "going behind."

So Mr. Boulderson Munns became the tenant of the Grand Scandinavian
Opera House, and took up his position in society, which at once began
to pick holes in his garments, and to say all the unpleasant things it
could against him. Some people said his name was not Boulderson at
all, nor Munns much; that his real appellation was Muntz, and that he
was the son of a German Jew sugar-baker in St. George's-in-the-East.
People who professed to know said that Mr. Munns commenced his career
in the useful though not-much-thought-of profession of a chiropodist,
which they called a corn-cutter, in which capacity he took in hand the
feet of Polesco Il Diavolo, the gentleman who made a rushing descent
down a rope with fireworks in his heels at the Tivoli Gardens; and
that by these means the youthful Muntz was brought into relations with
Waddle, who then owned the gardens, and to whom Muntz lent some of the
money he had inherited from the parental sugar-baker, at enormous
interest. When Waddle collapsed, Muntz first appeared as Munns, and
undertook the management of the gardens, which he carried on for
several years with great success to himself and gratification to the
public--more especially to the members of the press, who were always
free of the grounds, and many of whom were entertained at suppers, at
which champagne--known to Mr. Munns by the name of "sham"--flowed
freely. He was a genial, hospitable, vulgar dog, given, as are the
members of his nation, to the wearing of rich-coloured velvet coats
and waistcoats, and jewelry of a large and florid pattern, to the
smoking of very big cigars, the driving of horses in highly-plated
harness in mail-phaetons with wheels vividly picked out with red, to
the swearing of loud and full-flavoured oaths, and to Richmond dinners
on the Sunday. When he entered on the lesseeship of the Grand
Scandinavian Opera House, he continued all these eccentricities of
pleasure, but mixed with them some excellent business habits. On the
secession of Miramella, Jacowski, and all the rest, the public
pronounced the Scandinavian Opera to be utterly dead and done for; but
after the first few weeks of his season Mr. Munns produced Fräulein
Brödchen, from the Stockholm Theatre, who fairly routed everyone else
off their legs, and took London by storm. Never had been known such a
triumph as that achieved by the Brödchen; boxes and stalls fetched a
fabulous price, and were taken weeks in advance. It began to be
perceived that the right thing was that Norma should have bright red
hair; and people wondered how they had for so long endured any
representative of Lucrezia without a turn-up nose. Miramella of
the classic profile and the raven locks was nowhere. Jacowski the
organ-voiced bellowed in vain. The swells of the Young-England
party--guardsmen and impecunious youths, who were on the free list at
the Regent--tried to get up an opposition; but Munns ran over to
Barcelona, and came back with the Señorita Ciaja, whose celebrated
back-movement in the Cachuca finished the business. The people who
really understood and cared for music were delighted with the
Brödchen; the occupants of the stalls and the omnibus-box--crabbed age
and youth, who, despite the old song, manage to live together
sometimes, and on each other a good deal--revelled in the Ciaja, and
the trick was done. Mr. Munns realised an enormous sum of money, and
was spoken of everywhere as "a marvellous fellow! a cad, sir, but a
genius!"

He was a cad, there was no doubt of that. The Earl of Haremarch, who,
with all his eccentricities, was a highly-polished gentleman, suffered
for days after an interview with his tenant, who would receive him in
his managerial room with open bottles of "sham," and "My lord" him
until the wine had done its work, when he would call him "Haremarch,
old fellar!" with amiable frankness. He always addressed the foreign
artistes in English; told them he didn't understand their d--d
palaver, and poked them in the ribs, and slapped them on the back,
until they ground their teeth and stamped their feet in inarticulate
fury; but his money was always ready when due, and his salaries were
liberal, as well as promptly paid. The _corps de ballet_ adored him,
admired his velvet waistcoats, and screamed at his full-flavoured
jokes. In person, Mr. Munns was a short stout man, with an enormous
chest, a handsome Hebraic face, with dyed beard and whiskers, and
small keen eyes.

To such a man as this, Lord Sandilands, the polished old nobleman, had
naturally a strong antipathy; and yet Lord Sandilands was almost the
only man of his _clientèle_ to whom Mr. Munns showed anything like
real respect. "There's something about that old buffer," he would say,
"which licks me;" and he could not have paid a greater compliment. The
Brödchen had retired into private life before this, and the Ciaja had
gone to America on a starring tour; but Mr. Munns had replaced them
with other attractions, had well maintained his ground: and when Mr.
Déloge told Lord Sandilands that from Mr. Munns it would be best to
obtain the information and the opinion he sought, the old nobleman
knew that the librarian was right; though he hated Mr. Munns from the
bottom of his heart, yet he made up his mind to get the great
_impresario_ to hear Miss Grace Lambert, and determined to abide by
his advice.

So, one fine afternoon, the little road in which the pretty Bayswater
villa was situated was thrown into a state of the greatest excitement
by the arrival of the dashing phaeton with the prancing horses in
their plated harness; and Mr. Boulderson Munns alighting therefrom,
was received by Lord Sandilands, and duly presented to Miss Lambert.
After partaking somewhat freely--for he was a convivial soul--of
luncheon and dry sherry--which wine he was pleased to compliment
highly, asking the "figure" which it cost, and the name of the
vendor--the great _impresario_ was ushered into the drawing-room,
where Signor Da Capo seated himself at the piano, and Gertrude,
without the smallest affectation or hesitation, proceeded to sing. Mr.
Munns, who had--been present at many such inaugural attempts, seated
himself near Lord Sandilands with a resigned countenance; but after a
very few notes the aspect of his face entirely changed; he listened
with the greatest attention; he beat time with his little podgy
diamond-ringed fingers, and with his varnished boots; and at the
conclusion of the song, after a strident cry of "Brava! brava!" he
winked calmly at the radiant nobleman, laid his finger alongside his
nose, and whispered, "Damme, that'll do!"

After a further hearing the great _impresario_ expressed himself more
fully, after his own symbolic fashion.

"That's the right thing," said he; "the right thing, and no flies! or
rather it will be the right thing a few months hence.--My dear," he
continued, laying his hand on Gertrude's arm, and keeping it there,
though she shrank from his touch, "no offence, my dear; you've got the
right stuff in you! No doubt of that! Now what we've got to do is to
bring it out of you. Don't you make any mistake about it; it's there,
but it wants forcing. What's to force it? why, a mellower air a and
few lessons reg'larly given by someone who knows all about it. No
offence again to Da Capo here, who's a very good fellow--him and me
understand each other; but this young lady wants someone bigger than
him, and quiet and rest and freedom from London ways and manners. Let
her go to Italy and stop there for nine months; meanwhile you and me,
my lord, the Marsh'ness Carabas, and the rest of us, will work the
oracle, and then she shall came back and come out at the Grand
Scandinavian Opera House; and if she ain't a success, I'll swallow my
Lincoln and Bennett!"

There was a pause for a minute, and then Lord Sandilands said: "Do you
mean that Miss Lambert should make her _début_ on the Italian stage?"

"Not a bit of it," shrieked Mr. Munns; "keep her _début_ for here! A
gal like that, who can walk up to the piano and sing away before me,
won't have any stage-fright, I'll pound it! Let her go to Florence, to
old Papadaggi--which you know him well, my lord, and can make it all
square there; let her take lessons of him, and make her _début_ with
me. I'm a man of my word, as you know, and I see my way."

Within a fortnight from that time Miles Challoner, who had been out of
town, called at the Bayswater villa, found it in charge of a policeman
and his wife, learned that Miss Lambert and Mrs. Bloxam had gone to
Hit'ly for some months, and--went away lamenting.




CHAPTER IX.
Soaring.


The novelty of her life in Italy was full of charm for Gertrude. She
was still so young that she could escape, in any momentary emotion of
pleasure, from the hardening influence of the past, and the entire
change of scene had almost an intoxicating effect upon her. Here was
no association with anything in the past which could pain, or in the
present which might have the power to disconcert her. Her husband's
foot had never trodden the paths in which she wandered daily, with all
the pleasure of a stranger and all the appreciation of natural beauty
which formed a portion of her artistic temperament. He had never
gazed upon the classic waters of the Arno, or roamed through the
picture-galleries which afforded her such intense delight, and would
have been almost without a charm for his cynical materialistic nature.
At least, if he had ever visited Italy, Gertrude did not know it; and
with all her very real indifference, despite the wonderfully thorough
enfranchisement of her mind and heart from the trammels of her
dead-and-gone relation to him, Gertrude, with true womanly
inconsistency, still occasionally associated him sufficiently with her
present life to feel that distance from Gilbert Lloyd, that the
strangeness of the unfamiliar places with  which he was wholly
unassociated, added to the reality of her sense of freedom, gave it
zest and flavour. She understood this inconsistency. "If I go on like
this," she would think, "it will never do. I am much too near hating
him at present to be comfortable. So long as he is not absolutely
nothing to me I am not quite free; so long as I prefer the sense of
the impossibility of my seeing him by any accident--so long as I am
more glad to know that he is staying with Lord Ticehurst, and Lord
Ticehurst's reputable friends, than I should be to know that he was in
the next house on the promenade--so long as either circumstance has
the smallest appreciable interest or importance for me--I am not free.
I must regard him as so utterly nothing, that if I were to meet him
to-morrow at the Cascine, or passing my door, it could have no
importance, no meaning for me. I don't mean only in the external
sense, of not appearing to agitate or concern me, but in the interior
convictions of my own inmost heart. Such freedom I am quite resolved
to have. It will come, I am sure, but not just yet. I am far too near
to hating him yet."

Gertrude had unusual power in the distribution of the subjects on
which she chose to exercise her thinking faculty, and in the absolute
and sustained expulsion from her mind of such topics as she chose to
discard. This faculty was useful to her now. There were certain phases
and incidents of her life with Gilbert Lloyd which she never thought
about. She deliberately put them out of her mind, and kept them out of
it. Among these were the occurrences which had immediately preceded
the strange bargain which had been made between her and her husband.
Of that bargain herself she thought with ever-growing satisfaction,
remembering with complacent content the obscurity in which she had
lived, which rendered such an arrangement possible, without risk of
detection. But she never travelled farther back in memory than the
making of that bargain. So then she determined to carry it out to the
fullest, to have all the satisfaction out of it she possibly could. "I
am determined I will bring myself to such freedom that the sight of
him could not give me even an unpleasant sensation--that the sound of
his name announced in the room with me should have no more meaning for
me than any other sound devoid of interest."

Gertrude was more happily circumstanced now for the carrying out of
this determination. All her surroundings were delightful and novel,
she was in high health and spirits, and her prospects for the future
were bright and near. The climate was enchanting, the hours and the
ways of foreign life suited her; and her masters pronounced her voice
all that could be desired in the case of a daughter of sunny Italy,
and something altogether admirable and extraordinary in the case of a
daughter of foggy Albion. She worked very hard. She kept her ambition,
her purpose steadily before her, and her efforts to obtain the power
of gratifying it were unrelaxing.

Hitherto Gertrude's experiences had been those only of a school-girl
and a woman married to an unscrupulous man who lived by his wits. She
had never been out of England before; and the interval of her life at
the villa, under the beneficial influence of the Carabas patronage,
though very much pleasanter than anything she had before experienced,
Lad not tended much to the enlargement and cultivation of her mind or
the expansion of her feelings. But this foreign life did tend to both.
She was entirely unfettered, and the sole obligation laid upon her was
the vigilant precaution it was necessary she should observe against
taking cold. It was in Gertrude's nature to prize highly this
newly-acquired sense of personal freedom, and to enter with avidity
into all that was strange in her life abroad. Her enjoyment of the
difference between the habits and customs of Italy and those of
England was unintelligible to Mrs. Bloxam, who had also never before
been out of England, and who carried all the true British prejudice in
favour of everything English with her. She could not be induced to
admit the superiority of foreign parts even in those lesser and
superfluous respects to which it is generally conceded. "I cannot
see," she remarked to a sympathising soul, whose acquaintance she had
made shortly after her arrival--a lady held in foreign bondage by a
tyrannical brother and his wife addicted to travel--"I cannot see,
Miss Tyroll, that the new milk can be so much better. Just look at the
cows! I'm sure I've seen some at Hampstead twice the size; and as for
condition! And then the bread again: how can we tell what stuff they
put into it to make it white? At home, we know there's alum in it; and
that's the worst of it, and all about it. But here, I never dare think
about it. Miss Lambert is quite foolish about violets; and I don't
deny it is very nice indeed to have them when you certainly could not
in England, and I like them as well as anyone; but I don't know that
it makes so much difference after all, in one's comfort, in the
long-run."

"Certainly not," replied Miss Tyroll, who was a person of decisive
mind and manners. "Foreign countries are much the best places for
having things which you can very well do without; but, for my part, I
like England best. Don't you get very tired of marble and pillars and
church-bells? I do."

"So do I," assented Mrs. Bloxam; "and all the places one is obliged to
go to are so large and bare." And then the two ladies discussed the
subject just started at great length. Even the climate had little
merit in the prejudiced estimation of Mrs. Bloxam. She had felt it
quite as cold by the Arno as ever she had felt it by the Thames; and
she thought the _tramontana_ was only a piercing wind with a pretty
name. She had felt very much the same sort of thing in London, where
she could take refuge from it in a snug room with warm curtains and a
coal fire. She had no fancy for sitting with her feet baking over
_braise_, and she had seen at Dulwich and Hampton Court pictures
enough to satisfy all her aspirations after art. There was something
educational in the way in which visitors to Florence--and, indeed,
Gertrude herself--did the churches and the galleries which was rather
oppressive to Mrs. Bloxam. She hated all that reminded her of the life
of sordid toil she had lived through and freed herself from; she did
not like to learn anything, because she could not get rid of the
feeling that by doing so she was exposing herself to the danger of
having to teach it again. But all her personal discontent did not
interfere with Mrs. Bloxam's interest in Gertrude, and did not render
her an unpleasant companion. She was not sympathetic; but Gertrude had
been little used to sympathy, and she did not greatly care about
it--it never interfered with her enjoyment of anything, that she had
to enjoy it alone. She did all in her power to make Mrs. Bloxam's life
comfortable and happy, and she never interrupted or withheld her
assent from the frequent reminiscences of Bayswater in which her
friend indulged; but she liked her life in Italy, and she entertained
a strong conviction that, as she had never been so happy before (for
she had come to regard the brief period of her love for Lloyd as an
interval of hallucination), so the future could hardly bring her
anything better. She had no doubts, no fears about success in her
adopted profession. The favourable opinions which had been pronounced
by competent judges in England were confirmed and strengthened by
those to which she attached most value in Italy, and her progress was
surprising to herself and her instructors.

The correspondence between Mrs. Bloxam and Lord Sandilands was
frequent and _suivie_. Mrs. Bloxam was a clever letter-writer, and the
recipient of her epistles found in them a source of interest which
life had long lacked for him. If the young lady in whom he had
discovered Gertrude Gautier's daughter had been merely handsome, he
would have been pleased with her, doubtless would have taken a kindly
interest in her; had she been only clever he would have felt a secret
pride in her talent, and watched its manifestations with a hidden
interest: but she was both handsome and clever, and highly gifted; and
all the feelings which, but for his own fault, he might once have
declared and indulged openly, had been gratified to the fullest
extent.

As time went on, the "working of the oracle" was done in London by the
_impresario_ and his assistants in a masterly fashion. The higher
branch of the same industry was also conducted by the Marchioness of
Carabas with all the success to which her ladyship was so well
accustomed in her social manoeuvrings. To such members of her coterie
as understood her passionate devotion to art, her untiring exertions
in its interests, and to its professors, she spoke in raptures of her
"dear Grace Lambert," carefully avoiding the distant precision of the
"Miss" and the too fond familiarity of the "Grace;" she read what she
called "pet bits" of her young _protégée's_ letters, which were
neither numerous nor lengthy; predicted the future value of those
precious autographs, and contrived to keep a flickering flame of
interest in Grace Lambert alive, which her appearance would readily
blow into a blaze. The steadiness of dear Lady Carabas to this
"fancy," as her friends called it, created some astonishment among her
circle. She was more remarkable for the vehemence than for the
duration of her attachments. It had happened to many aspirants for
fame, or for social success, or some other of the many objects--which
people think worth attainment, even if a little self-respect has to
be sacrificed in the process, to find themselves somehow unaccountably
set aside by Lady Carabas after a certain season of favour--happily,
sometimes, long enough to have enabled them to extract from it all the
profit they desired: not "dropped"--that is a rude proceeding, wanting
in finesse, quite unworthy of the Carabas _savoir faire_--but calmly,
imperceptibly set aside; whereat the wise among the number were
amused, and the foolish were savage. But Grace Lambert held her place
even during her absence. There was something captivating to the fancy
in the idea of the cultivation in "seclusion" of that great talent of
which the world had got an inkling, under the auspices of Lady
Carabas, and which would inevitably be a splendid testimony in the
future to her judgment and taste. Thus, the way for her appearance and
success in London being made plainer, easier, and pleasanter for her
day by day, and the purpose of her sojourn in Italy fulfilled in a
like ratio, time slipped away, and the period named for the return of
Grace Lambert and Mrs. Bloxam--who hailed it with delight, and who now
positively pined for Bayswater--drew near.


There had not been seen such a house at the Grand Scandinavian Opera
for years; there had not been heard such long-continued thunders of
applause, such rounds of cheering, since the Brödchen's _début_. Lady
Carabas and Mr. Munns had each "worked the oracle," according to their
lights; but the discrimination of her ladyship's friends rendered the
managerial _claque_ quite unnecessary. The opera was the _Trovatore_,
and Gertrude's entrance as Leonora was the signal for a subdued murmur
of applause. People were too anxious to see and hear her to give vent
to any loud expression of their feelings; but when, with perfect
composure, and without the smallest trace of nervousness in face or
voice, the girl burst into the lovely "Tacea la notte," the
connoisseurs knew that her success was accomplished; and long before
the enthusiastic roar surged forth at the conclusion of the air Mr.
Boulderson Munns, who had been nervously playing with the ends of his
dyed moustache, shut up his opera-glass, and said to his treasurer and
alter-ego, Mr. William Duff, "By--, Billy, she'll smash the other
shop!"

The lobbies and the refreshment-room were emptying of the crowds which
had been raving to each other after the first act of the beauty and
talent of the _débutante_, when Lord Ticehurst, who had been among the
loudest demonstrators in the omnibus-box, whither he was returning,
met Gilbert Lloyd quietly ascending the stairs.

"Only just come in?" asked his lordship.

"Only this instant; straight from Arlington-street; it's all right
about Charon."

"O, d--n Charon!" said Lord Ticehurst; "you've missed the most
splendid reception--Miss Grace Lambert, you know!"

"My dear fellow, I know nothing--except that Lady Carabas insisted on
my going to her box to-night, to hear a new singer."

"There never was such a cold-blooded fish, as you, Gilbert! Now be
quick, and you'll be in time to see her come on in the second act!"

Gilbert Lloyd walked very leisurely to Lady Carabas' box on the grand
tier, and received his snubbing for being late with due submission.
When the roar of applause announced the reappearance of the evening's
heroine, he looked up still leisurely; but the next instant his glass
was fixed to his eyes, and then his hand shook and his cheeks were
even whiter than usual, and his nether-lip was firmly held by his
teeth, as in Miss Grace Lambert, the successful _débutante_, he
recognised his wife.





BOOK THE SECOND.




CHAPTER I.
Progress.


Mr. Boulderson Munns was right in the remark which he made to his
treasurer and _fidus Achates_, Mr. William Duff, in regard to Miss
Grace Lambert's success, and to the effect which it would have on the
future of the opposition opera-house. That very night the triumph was
achieved. Ladies who "looked in for a minute" at various balls and
receptions after the opera talked to each other of no one but the new
singer; the smoking-rooms of the clubs rang with her praises. Schrink,
the humpbacked, critic of the _Statesman_, went off straight to the
Albion in Drury-lane; called for some hot brandy-and-water and a pen
and ink; seated himself in his accustomed box, into which no one else
dared intrude, and dashed off something, which, when it appeared in
print the next morning, proved to be an elaborate and scholarly eulogy
of the new singer. The other journals were equally laudatory, and the
result of the general commendation was soon proved. The box-office was
besieged from morning till night; boxes and stalls were taken for
weeks in advance; crowds began to collect round the pit and gallery
doors at three o'clock in the afternoon, and remained there,
increasing in size and turbulence, until the doors were opened; while
the fugitive Miramella and the recreant Jacowski were singing away for
dear life at the Regent Theatre, to empty benches. The fact of Miss
Lambert's being an Englishwoman was with many people a great thing in
her favour. Old people who recollected Miss Paton, and middle-aged
people who still raved about Miss Adelaide Kemble, hurried off to see
the young lady who had succeeded to the laurels erst won so gallantly
and worn so gracefully by these two great English singers, and came
back loud in her praise. The _Mirror_--the weekly journal of
theatricals and music--uplifted its honest, ungrammatical, kindly
voice in favour of the _débutante_, and gossiped pleasantly of Kitty
Stephens, Vestris, and the few other English-women who have ever sung
in time and tune. The _Illustrated News_ published Miss Lambert's
portrait on the same page with the portrait of the trowel with which
the Mayor of Mudfog had laid the foundation-stone of the Mudfog
Infirmary; and the _Penny Woodcutter_ reproduced the engraving
which had previously done duty as Warawaki, Queen of the Tonongo
Islands, and subscribed Miss Lambert's name to it. A very gorgeous
red-and-white engraving of the new singer figured also on the "Grace
Valse," inscribed to her by her obedient humble servant Luigi Vasconi,
who was leader of the orchestra of Mr. Munns' establishment, and who
played first fiddle under the renowned conductor, Signor Cocco; while
the enterprising hosier in the Arcade under the opera-house produced a
new style of neck-tie which he christened "The Lambert," and of which
he would probably have sold more had the Arcade been anything of a
thoroughfare. As it was, the young man who kept the books of Mssrs.
Octave and Finings, the wine-merchants, and who was known to have
plunged madly into love with the new singer when he went in once with
a gallery-order, sported a "Lambert," and led the fashionable world of
Lamb's-Conduit-street in consequence.

Was this fame? It was notoriety, at all events. To have your portrait
in all the photograph-shops and the illustrated journals; to see your
name blazing in large type in every newspaper, and on every hoarding
and dead-wall of London; to read constant encomiastic mention of
yourself in what are called, or miscalled, the organs of public
opinion; to be pointed out by admiring friends to other admiring
friends in the streets; to be the cynosure of crowds; to be the butt
of the _Scarifier_--when some artist or contributor to that eminent
journal has seen you on horseback while he was on foot, or seen
you clean while he was dirty, or heard you praised while he was
unnoticed--these are the recognitions of popularity received by
art-workers, be they writers, or painters, or actors. Not very great,
not very ennobling, perhaps, but pleasant--confess it, O my sisters
and brethren in art! Pleasanter to earn hundreds by the novel, or the
picture, or the acting--imperfect though each may be in its way--which
shall cause thousands to think kindly of us, than to receive two
guineas for verbal vitriol-throwing in the _Scarifier_; pleasanter
than to stand up, earning nothing at all, to be howled at night after
night by the vinous members of the opposite political party, and to be
switched morning after morning by their press-organs; pleasanter than
to go for forty years for six hours a day to the Tin-tax Office, and
at last to arrive at six hundred a-year, with the chance of receiving
a pension of two-thirds of the amount, if you prove by medical
certificate that you are thoroughly worn out! That worn, gray old
gentleman going in to enjoy the joint, and the table, and a pint of
sherry at the Senior United, lost his youth and his hopes and his
liver in India, and in a few years may perhaps get--just in time to
leave it to his heir--the prize-money which he won a quarter of a
century ago; that Irish gentleman with a chin-tuft has sold the last
of his paternal acres to carry him through his third election, and may
possibly obtain from the Government, which he has always earnestly
supported, a commissionership of five hundred a-year. We can do better
than that, we others! So, let us say, with the French actress, "_Qu'on
leur donne des grimaces pour leur argent et vivons hereux!_" and in a
modified and anglicised sense, "_Vive la vie de Bohème!_"

Did Gertrude care much for this kind of cheap incense burnt in her
honour? Truth to tell, she cared for it very little indeed. When she
accepted the stage instead of the concert-room for her career, she was
influenced, as we have seen, by an idea of the brilliancy of her
triumph, should she succeed; but that triumph once secured, there was
an end to such feeling in the matter, so far as she was personally
concerned. She took it all in a perfectly businesslike manner; it was
good, she supposed, for the theatre that she had succeeded. Gratified?
O yes, of course, she was gratified; but when people came and told her
there had never been anything heard like her, she was compelled to
show them that, in accepting professional singing for her livelihood,
she had not quite abnegated any pretension to common sense. With the
exception of devoting the necessary time to rehearsals and study, her
time was spent very much as it was before her departure to Italy. The
drawing-room of the little Bayswater villa was gorgeous and fragrant
with anonymous bouquets, offerings left the previous night at the
stage-door; but Miss Lambert had not made one single new acquaintance
since the night of her _début_. Occasionally on "off-nights" she would
be seen at Carabas House, or at one or two of the other houses which
she had been in the habit of visiting before the commencement of her
professional career; but though she was inundated with invitations,
she steadfastly refused to increase her visiting-list; and the
lion-hunters, male and female, in vain sought to get her to their
houses, and equally in vain sought admittance to hers.

To none was she a greater enigma than to her manager, Mr. Boulderson
Munns. Proud of her success, and disposed in his open-hearted
vulgarity to testify to her his appreciation of it, that liberal
gentleman purchased a gaudy and expensive diamond-bracelet, had an
appropriate inscription in gilt letters put on to its morocco-leather
case, and sent it to Miss Grace Lambert. The next morning, bracelet,
case and all were laid on the managerial table, with a little note
from Miss Lambert thanking Mr. Munns very sincerely for his kindness,
but declining the present on the grounds that Miss Lambert was doing
no more than fulfilling the terms of her engagement, and adding, that
if Mr. Munns had found that engagement profitable, the time to show
his appreciation of it would be when they came to settle terms for the
next season. There was a combination of independence and business in
this reply, which tickled Mr. Munns exceedingly. At first he was
annoyed at the note, read it with a portentous frown, and strode up
and down his room, plucking at the dyed whiskers wrathfully. But by
the time Mr. Duff arrived with his usual budget of letters to be read,
bills to be paid, questions to be asked, &c., the great _impressario_
had softened down wonderfully, and had forgotten his rage at what he
at first imagined the slight put upon him by his new singer, in his
impossibility to comprehend her.

"I can't make her out, Billy," said he, "and that's the fact. I've
known 'em of all kinds; but she licks the lot. Look here at her
letter! She won't have that bracelet, Billy--just shove it into the
strong-box, will you? we can get the inscription altered, and it'll do
for somebody else--and talks about fresh terms for next season.
Reg'lar knowing little shot, ain't she? Quiet little devil, too;
wouldn't come down to my garden-party at Teddington, on Wednesday,
though I had the Dook and Sir George, and a whole lot of 'em dyin' to
be introduced to her, 'No go, your Grace!' I said, 'she won't come;
but when Venus is bashful let's stick to Bacchus, who's always our
friend.' I haven't had a classical education, Billy, but I think that
was rather neat; and so they did, and punished the 'sham' awfully.
However, it's all good for trade. She and that old cat, her aunt--not
her aunt? well, Bloxam; you know who I mean--go about to Lady
Carabas', and all the right sort of people, and the more she won't
know the wrong sort of people, the more they want to know her, and the
'let's' tremendous. The other shop's done up, sir; chawed up, smashed!
MacBone and Ivory and Déloge, and the rest of 'em, tell me they can't
sell a stall for the Regent; and I hear that Miramella threatened
Jacowski with a fork at dinner the other day, because he spoke of Miss
Lambert, and swore she'd go to America. Best thing she could do,
stupid old fool!"

Although this feeling in regard to Miss Lambert was perhaps nowhere
expressed in language, so strongly symbolical as that used by Mr.
Munns, there is no doubt that it was generally felt. There is a
certain class of artist-patronising society which has the _mot
d'ordre_ of the _siffleur's_ box, and revels in the gossip of the
_coulisses_. These worthy persons were in the habit of talking to each
other constantly of the new _prima donna_--how she came in "a regular
fly, my dear;" how she was always dressed in black silk, "made quite
plain, and rather dowdy;" how she was always accompanied by the same
old lady, who, whether at rehearsal or in the evening, never left her
side; and how, with the exception of Lord Sandilands, with whom she
seemed to be very intimate, she entered into conversation with no one
during the performance;--in all which things Miss Grace Lambert
differed very much from Madame Miramella, who--depending on the kind
of temper in which she might happen to be--alternated between the most
gorgeous garments and the most miserable _chiffons_; between a
coroneted brougham with a five-hundred-gninea pair of horses, and a
four-wheeler cab; between the loveliest complexion, and the most
battered old parchment mask; between the most queenlike courtesy to
all around her in the theatre, and the use of French and Italian
_argot_-abuse, which fortunately was incomprehensible to those to
whom it was addressed. In this society Lord Sandilands was far too
well-known for the smallest breath of scandal ever to attach to Miss
Lambert's name by reason of his intimacy with her. People remembered
how devoted he had been to the Rossignol--who died, poor lady, in the
height of her success--who had the voice of an angel, and the face of
a little sheep; how he had fought an uphill fight for Miss Laverock
until he had seen her properly ranked in her profession; how he had
always been the kind and disinterested friend of musical talent. They
wondered that somebody else did not arrive, some English duke, some
Italian prince, some _millionnaire_, and bear her away as Madame
Sontag, Miss Chester, Miss Stephens, and Madame Duvernay had been
borne away before her. She was "thoroughly proper, my dear," they told
each other in confidence; and the obvious result of propriety being
marriage, they waited for that result with great impatience.

The successful _début_ of the young lady whom the world regarded as
his _protégée_, but whom he in his secret soul acknowledged as his
daughter, had given Lord Sandilands unmitigated satisfaction!
Unmitigated, because his worldly knowledge had given him sufficient
insight into Gertrude's character to enable him to perceive that she
could ride in safety over billows and through tempests in which a less
evenly-ballasted bark would inevitably suffer shipwreck; to perceive
that the triumph which she had achieved would leave her head unturned;
while in the position which she had gained, her heart would be just as
much at her command as it was when she first surprised society in the
drawing-room of Carabas House. So, thoroughly happy, the old nobleman
permeated society, listening with eager ears, to all comments on Miss
Grace Lambert. He heard them everywhere. Steady old boys at the
Portland had heard of the new singer from their "people," and
intended, the first evening they had to spare, to make one in
the family-box, and hear her. Fast men, young and old, at the
Arlington, relaxing their great minds--_neque arcum semper tendit
Apollo_--between turf-talk and whist-playing, spoke of her in
exaggerated laudation. In many of the houses where he had formerly
been accustomed to drop in with tolerable regularity, he had renewed
the habit since Gertrude's arrival in London; pleasant, genial,
hospitable houses, all the more genial that neither frisky matrons,
nor foolish virgins, nor gilded youth, were to be reckoned among the
component parts of the society to be found in them; and there he
found that Miss Lambert was universally popular. A very great lady
indeed--one who held herself, and, truth to tell, was generally held,
far above the Carabas set, or any other of the kind--no less a lady
than the Dowager Duchess of Broadwater--wrote to Lord Sandilands,
saying that she had heard very much of Miss Lambert, and hoping that
through Lord Sandilands' influence the young lady might be induced to
come and see an old woman who never went out. If you have studied
polite society and its Bible--the Peerage--you will know that the
dowager duchess is the widow of that good, kind duke who was nothing
more than the best landlord, and the most perfectly representative
English nobleman of his time; who reduced the rents of his tenants,
and built model cottages for his labourers, and loved music next to
his wife, and composed pretty little pieces, which were played with
much applause at the Ancient Concerts. A stately gentleman, tall,
clean shaven, with his white hair daintily arranged, with his blue
coat, buff waistcoat, and tight gray trousers in the morning; his
_culotte courte_, black-silk stockings, and buckled shoes in evening
attire. His son, the present duke, wears a rough red beard, buys his
frieze shooting-coat and sixteen-shilling trousers from a cheap
tailor, smokes a short pipe, and talks like a stable-man. His mother
who adores him--he adores her, let us confess, and is as soft and
docile with her as when he was a child--looks at him wonderingly; she
is of the _vieille cour_, and cannot understand the "lowering" tone of
the present day. _Grande dame_ as she is, she relaxes always towards
the professors of that art which her husband so loved; and when Miss
Lambert was brought to her by Lord Sandilands, and sang two little
convent-airs which the old lady recollected having heard, ah, how many
years ago! she drew the girl towards her, and with streaming eyes
kissed her forehead, and bade her thank God for the great talent which
He had bestowed upon her, and which ought always to be used in His
service. After that interview, Gertrude saw a great deal of the old
duchess, who always received her with the greatest affection, and
introduced her to the small circle of intimate acquaintances by which
she was surrounded.

And Lady Carabas, who was necessarily apprised of all that happened in
Grace Lambert's life, was by no means annoyed at or jealous of her
_protégée's_ introduction to the Dowager Duchess of Broadwater, of
whom, in truth, her ladyship stood somewhat in awe; not that she ever
confessed this for an instant, speaking of her always as a "most
charming person," and "quite the nicest old lady of the day;" but
having at the same time an inward feeling that the "charming person,"
though always perfectly polite, did not reciprocate the respect which
Lady Carabas professed, and, indeed, really felt for her. The dowager
duchess's society was as rigidly exclusive as Lady Carabas' was
decidedly mixed; and the platonic _liaisons_ into which the
Marchioness's Soul was always leading her were regarded with very
stony glances from under very rigid eyebrows by the Broadwater
faction. Lady Carabas had somewhat more than a dim idea of all this,
and had quite sufficient sense of the fitness of things to be aware
that it was more politic in her to accept the position than to fight
against it--to know that for a recognised _protégée_ of hers to be
received by the Broadwater clique tacitly reflected credit on her; and
so, while she shrugged her shoulders when she heard of Lady Lowndes,
and undisguisedly expressed her scorn at the attempts made by other
lion-hunters to get hold of Gertrude, she warmly congratulated Lord
Sandilands on the Broadwater connection, and redoubled her praises of
Miss Lambert's voice and virtues. These laudations, skilfully served,
as a woman of Lady Carabas' worldly experience alone knows how to
express them, were always well received by the old nobleman, who could
not hear too much in Gertrude's favour, and who day by day felt
himself growing fonder of her, and more thoroughly associated with her
plans and her welfare.

And there was one other person to whom this lady was equally
enchanting, who never wanted the song pitched in any other key, who
listened in rapt delight so long as he was allowed to listen and gaze
and dream--Miles Challoner, who had left town so soon as he found the
pretty Bayswater villa deserted, on Gertrude's departure for Italy. He
had no farther tie to London, and cared not to remain haunting the
neighbourhood of the nest whence his "bird with the shining head" had
fled. He became suddenly convinced of the utter emptiness of
metropolitan existence, and expatiated thereon to Lord Sandilands in a
way which greatly amused the old nobleman. He declared that these
nineteenth-century views of life were false and wrongly based; that
half the vices and shortcomings of the provincial poor and the
labouring classes were due to the absenteeism of the landlords, who by
example should lead their inferiors. The holder of an estate, Miles
said, be it small or large, had duties which should keep him among his
people. He felt that he had neglected these duties; and though he was
not specially cut for a country gentleman's life, he knew that he
ought to go down to Rowley Court, and do his best to get on in that
sphere of life to which he had been called. The young man said all
this with great earnestness, for at the moment he really believed it;
and he was half-inclined to be angry when Lord Sandilands, who had
listened to the rhapsody with a grave and attentive face, could
contain himself no longer, but broke into a smile as he said that he
thought Miles perfectly right, "particularly as the shooting-season
was coming on." So Miles left London, and went to his old ancestral
home. The bright bountiful beauty of summer still decked the woods and
fields; the old servants and the villagers vied with each other in
welcoming the young squire; and Miles felt that he had done rightly in
following what he was pleased to call the dictates of his conscience,
in coming back. The small sum of money which he had expended on the
estate had been judiciously laid out, and improvement was manifest
everywhere--in heavy crops, mended fences, and common land drained and
reclaimed; in repaired outhouses, and shooting properly preserved;
and, better than all, in a higher class of tenantry, and larger rents.
Miles Challoner had never felt the pleasant sense of proprietorship
until this visit to his home. He walked round his fields, he stood on
little vantage-points and surveyed his estate, with an inward feeling
of pride which he did not care to check. It _was_ something to be an
English country gentleman, after all. He had been nothing and no one
in London, a hanger-on, a unit in the great social stream--no better
than a dancing barrister, or a flirting clerk in a government office;
two-thirds of the people he visited knowing his name, and that he had
been properly introduced to them by some accountable person, but
nothing more. While here, he was the young squire; as he passed, the
"hat was plucked from the slavish villager's head;" everybody knew
him, and was anxious to be seen by him; he was the man of the place,
and--Yes, it would not be difficult to make out one's life in that
position; not as a bachelor, of course, but provided he had someone
with him. Someone? No difficulty in finding her! If he knew the
language of laughing eyes, Emily Walbrook would not object to become
the mistress of Rowley Court. And with her father Sir Thomas's money
what might not be done? The old place might be rehabilitated, the lost
lands recovered, the old dignity of the family restored.

But Miles Challoner, being a gentleman and not an adventurer, told
himself, after very little self-examination, that he did not care for
Miss Walbrook, and that he never could care for her, consequently that
he would be a scoundrel to think of proposing for her hand; told
himself further that he only did care and only had cared--apart
from some boyish follies which had not done him nor anyone else any
harm--for one person in the world, Grace Lambert. Did she care for
him? He did not know; but, honestly, he thought she did not. And if
she did, should he bring her there, to Rowley Court, as his wife? Did
he care for her sufficiently to suffer the universal inquiries as to
who she was, the generally uplifted eyebrows and supercilious remarks
when the reply was given? At present she was only known as a young
lady received in excellent society on account of her musical talents;
but if this report was true--this report that she had gone to Italy
with the intention of perfecting herself as a singer on the operatic
stage? A singer? The stage? The general and only notion of the stage
in the neighbourhood of Rowley Court was founded on reminiscences of
the travelling troupe of mummers who had once or twice come to
Bleakholme Fair; poor half-starved creatures, who had performed a
dismal tragedy in an empty barn, by the light of a hoop of guttering
tallow candles. How could he prepare the Bosotian mind of
Gloucestershire to receive as his wife a woman who would bring with
her such associations as these? What would be said by the old county
neighbours, by whom the old Challoner name was yet held in the highest
respect and regard? What by the wealthy new-comers, whose influence
was day by day increasing, and who gave themselves airs of pride and
position and exclusiveness far more intolerable than the loftiest
hauteur of the real territorial _seigneurie?_ Poor Miles! and after
all--even if he had made up his mind to brave all the outcry that
might arise; to say, "I love this woman, and I bestow on her my rank
and my position; accept her as my wife, or leave her alone; think as
you please, talk as you please, and go to the deuce!"--he was by no
means certain that Miss Grace Lambert would see the magnitude of the
sacrifice he was making for her, or, indeed, that she would have
anything to say to him.

That was a dull winter for Miles Challoner, that duty season when he
steadfastly went through the character of the English country
gentleman, to the tolerable satisfaction of his neighbours and his
tenants, but to his own intense disgust. He hunted twice a week, he
shot constantly; he attended church regularly, and kept rigidly awake
during the dear old vicar's dull sermons; he gave two or three dull
bachelor dinners, where the vicar, the curate, little Dr. Barford, and
two or three neighbouring foxhunting squires, ate and drank, and
prosed wearily for three or four hours; and he went out occasionally.
He dined with Lord Boscastle, the lord-lieutenant and principal
grandee of the county, where he met all "the best people," but where
his attention was principally concentrated on his hostess; for Lady
Boscastle was _née_ Amelia Milliken, and, as Amelia Milliken, had been
the great attraction for two seasons at the Theatre Royal Hatton
Garden, during the lesseeship of the great Wuff. Miles could
hardly realise to himself that the mild, elegant, dried-up,
farinaceous-looking old lady had been the incomparable actress who, as
he had heard his father relate, entered so thoroughly into her art
that she would shed real scalding tears upon the stage; and whose
Juliet yet remained in the memory of old playgoers as the most perfect
impersonation ever witnessed. She was an actress when Lord Boscastle
married her; and see her now, with a cabinet minister on her right
hand, and the best families of the county honoured by her intercourse!
Why could not he do the same with Grace Lambert? And then Miles
recollected that he was not so great a man as Lord Boscastle, had not
the same weight and _prestige_; remembered also that he had heard his
father say that Lady Boscastle made her way very slowly into the
county society; that she had an immense number of disagreeables to
contend with at first; and that it was only the sweetness of her
disposition, and her wonderful patience and forbearance, that carried
her through. And though Miles Challoner was undoubtedly in love with
Miss Lambert, he scarcely thought that sweetness of disposition,
patience, and long-suffering were the virtues in which she specially
excelled. Miles also dined with Sir Thomas Walbrook, where there was
much more display and formality than at Lord Boscastle's--only
that the display was in bad taste, and the formality betokened
ill-breeding; and he went to a hunt-ball, and tried to attend the
weekly meetings of a whist-club, but broke down in the attempt. In the
daytime he did not fare so badly, for he was full of life and health,
and the love for field-sports which had distinguished him when a boy
came back renewed when he again joined in those sports; but in the
long evenings he moped and moaned, and was dreadfully bored.

The fact is that, however much he endeavoured to persuade himself to
the contrary, he was in love with Miss Grace Lambert; and the more
persistently he turned his thoughts from that young lady, the more he
found himself taking interest in persons and things associated with
her. He corresponded regularly with Lord Sandilands, and his every
letter contained some inquiry after or allusion to "your young friend
in Italy." The old nobleman chuckled over the frequency and the tone
of these letters, but replied to them regularly, and invariably said
something about Grace; something, too, which he thought would please
the recipient of the letter, for he loved Miles with fatherly
affection; and, if Gertrude saw fit, nothing would have pleased him
better than that the two young people should make a match of it. That,
however, was entirely for Gertrude to determine; and nothing could
come of it yet, at all events, as she had the stage career before her.
Meantime, there was no reason why pleasant reports of her progress
should not go down to Rowley Court. And when Miles received the
letters, he ran his eye over them hurriedly to see where _the_ name
appeared, and read those bits first, and re-read them, and then
dropped very coolly and leisurely into the perusal of his old friend's
gossip.

He was a queer, odd fellow, though, this Miles Challoner; full of that
dogged determination which we call "British," and are extremely proud
of (though, like the man who "treated resolution," in the end we often
do the thing which we have so stubbornly refused to do); and although
he knew that Miss Lambert had returned, and was about making her
_début_ in public, he remained stationary at Rowley Court. He received
letters regularly from Lord Sandilands, but none of them ever
contained a hint or a suggestion that he should come up to town;
indeed, Miles guessed that Miss Lambert would be far too much occupied
to admit of his seeing her, and he had said he would "give that
up"--"that" being the guiding motive of his life--and he would hold to
it. So Miles Challoner was not in the Grand Scandinavian Opera-house
on the night when Gertrude made her triumphal entry into theatrical
life. But when, the next day, he read the flaming accounts of her
success in the newspapers; when he received letters from Lord
Sandilands and other friends, filled with ravings about her voice, her
beauty, and her elegance; when he felt that this fresh flame would
enormously increase the circle of her admirers, many of whom might
have the chance--which they would not neglect as he was neglecting
it--of personal acquaintance with her,--he could withstand the
influence no longer, but made immediate arrangements for returning to
London.

His old friend received him with his accustomed warmth, talked about
the length of time he had been away, and rallied him on the probable
cause of his detention. "I know, my dear boy!" said Lord Sandilands;
"I know all about what you're going to tell me,--the pleasure a man
feels in his own _terre_; the delightful days you used to have with
Sir Peter's pack; the unequalled cover-shooting, and all the rest of
it. Those things don't keep a young man down in the country, leading
that frightful dead-alive existence which we try to think pleasant. I
know all about it; and I know that there's nothing more horrible.
There must be _beaux yeux_ somewhere, when a man voluntarily accepts
that kind of life; and, by Jove! it's a kind of life to make one find
the most ordinary eyes _beaux_. That confounded country life has
produced more _mésalliances_, and more--hem! What are you going to do
with yourself to-day?" The old nobleman stopped his discourse
abruptly; with the reflection, perhaps, that _mésalliances_ scarcely
fitted him for a theme. Answering him, Miles said that he had nothing
to do, and that he was entirely at his friend's disposal.

"Then," said Lord Sandilands, "suppose we stroll out Bayswater way?
You have not seen Miss Lambert for a long time now, though you
know--for I wrote to you, and you must have heard in a hundred other
places--of her success. Really, the greatest thing for years.
Everybody enchanted; and, best of all, has not made the smallest
difference in her; just the same unaffected, quiet, unpretending girl
as when we met her that first night--don't you recollect?--at Carabas
House."

They walked across Kensington-gardens and speedily reached the
bye-road in which Miss Lambert's pretty villa was situated. Up and
down this road, fretting against the slowness of the pace allowed
them, stepping grandly, and sending the foam in flying flakes around
them, were a pair of horses in a handsome mail-phaeton, driven by a
correctly-appointed groom.

"Mr. Munns here!" said Lord Sandilands testily, as this sight broke
upon him. "Horribly vexing, when we hoped to have the young lady all
to ourselves, eh, Miles? A worthy man, Mr. Munns, but a dreadful
vulgarian. Tell me, is it my shortsightedness, or has this fellow
really mounted a cockade in his man's hat?"

"There certainly is a cockade in the man's hat," said Miles, with a
smile which died away as, on a nearer approach, he added, "and a
coronet on the harness."

"A coronet? Why, the man can never hare been ass enough to--eh? O dear
me, impossible! Who's phaeton's that, sir, eh?"

"Earl of Ticehurst's, my lord!" said the groom, touching his hat;
"lordship's in there, my lord," pointing to the villa with his whip,
"with her ladyship."

"With her ladyship!" echoed Lord Sandilands in bewilderment. "Let us
go in, Miles, and see what it all means."

They saw what it all meant when they found Lady Carabas talking about
education to Mrs. Bloxam in the drawing-room, and saw Lord Ticehurst
walking with Miss Lambert round the little garden. Lord Sandilands
frowned very gloomily, but Lady Carabas made straight at him. She had
been dying to see dear Miss Lambert; she wanted so to see how she bore
her success--ah, what a success!--and how charming she is over it all!
not changed in the smallest degree. And her own horses were regularly
knocked up with all their work just now; and as it was such a long way
(fashionable people think anything west of Apsley House or north of
Park-lane quite out of bounds), she had asked her nephew Etchingham to
drive her over. Lord Sandilands bowed very grimly, and Miles Challoner
then came forward. Lady Carabas was enchanted to see him; rallied him
on his absence on the night of the _début_; hoped to have him
constantly at Carabas House, and was overwhelmingly gracious. Then
Lord Ticehurst and Gertrude came in, and after a few conventional
remarks, the young patrician, after a casual glance out of the window,
informed his aunt that "the chestnuts had already stamped up the road
into a regular ploughed field, by Jove! and that, as the parish would
probably send in the paving-bill, perhaps the best thing they could do
was to be off;" and accordingly he and Lady Carabas retired, with many
adieux.

When they were gone, Lord Sandilands approached Gertrude and
congratulated her with mock solemnity on her new acquaintance. "You
have achieved an earl, my dear child, and there is no saying now to
what you may not aspire. Charles the Fifth picking up Titian's pencil
will be equalled by Lord Ticehurst's turning over the leaves of your
music-book for you. Or in time we might get a duke to--"

"We want no higher member of the peerage than a baron, apparently, to
render his order ridiculous," said Gertrude, turning upon him with a
sarcastic bow and a little _moue_. "Don't be angry, dear friend," she
continued; "but I own I cannot stand raillery where Lord Ticehurst is
concerned. I have no doubt he means well--I am sure of it; all he says
is genuine, and, so far as he can make it, polite; but he is very
silly and very slangy, and--I can't endure him.--And now, Mr.
Challoner, tell me of all your doings during your long absence in the
country."

Lord Sandilands had a great deal to say to Mrs. Bloxam on the subject
of any future visits which Lord Ticehurst might wish to pay to the
Bayswater villa, and said it pointedly, and without circumlocution.
When he rejoined the young people, he found them deep in conversation,
and Miles, at least, looking very happy.




CHAPTER II.
Integratio Amoris.


When Gilbert Lloyd satisfied himself that the new opera-singer, at
whose most successful debut he had "assisted," was none other than his
wife, the momentary agitation which had so shaken him passed away, and
he sat himself down at the back of Lady Carabas' box--not in the chair
usually reserved for the controller for the time being of the Soul,
but in a more retired position--and gave himself up, as any
uninterested auditor might have done, to listening to the singing. He
had never been particularly fond of music, and though he had always
known that his wife possessed a fine voice, and had even at one time
taken into consideration the probable profits which would accrue were
he to _exploiter_ her musical talent, he had never imagined the
possibility of her taking such a position as that in which he now
found her. Gilbert Lloyd was a man who believed thoroughly in the
truth of that axiom which tells us that "there is a time for
everything;" it would be quite time enough for him to analyse the new
light which had been let into his life, to weigh and balance the pros
and cons connected with the appearance of Gertrude on a scene which he
was accustomed to tread, mixed up with people with whom he was to a
certain extent familiar; it would be time enough for him to enter into
those business details on the next morning, when his brain would be
fresh and clear, and he would be recruited by his night's rest, and
able more clearly to see his way, and arrive at a more accurate
decision as to the advisability of steps to be taken. Meanwhile, he
would listen with the rest; and he did listen, with great pleasure,
joining heartily in the applause, and delighting Lady Carabas by the
warmth of his outspoken admiration of her favourite. And he escorted
her ladyship to her carriage, and went to the club, and played
half-a-dozen rubbers with admirable coolness and self-possession. It
was one of Gilbert Lloyd's strongest points that he could put aside
anything unpleasant that might be pressing upon him, no matter how
urgently, and defer it for future consideration. In the midst of
trouble of all kinds--pecuniary complications, turf anxieties, on the
issue of which his position in life depended--he would, after looking
at them vigorously with all his power, turn into bed and sleep as
calmly as though his mind were entirely free, rising the next morning
with renewed health and courage to tackle the difficulties again. Just
at this period of Miss Lambert's _début_, Lloyd happened to be
particularly busy; the Derby--on which he and his party were even more
than usually interested--was close at hand, and all Gilbert's time was
absorbed in "squaring" Lord Ticehurst's book and his own. But he knew
that he need be under no alarm from the new element in his life which
had just cropped out: though he had seen Gertrude, she had not seen
him; there was no reason as yet--why they should be thrown together;
and even if they were, he was too fully aware of her coldness and her
pride to imagine she would for an instant attempt to thrust herself
upon him, or even acknowledge him. So Gilbert Lloyd made no difference
in his life, beyond noting the name under which his wife was charming
the public, and paying attention whenever that name was pronounced in
his presence. He heard all that--as we know--people said about her;
but as that all was praise of her public performance, and astonishment
at the quietude of her private life, it caused him very little
emotion, and that little of no pleasurable kind.

It was the intervening week between Epsom and Ascot, and the season
was at its height. The Ticehurst party, thanks to the astute
generalship of Gilbert Lloyd, had pulled through the Derby very well.
Lord Ticehurst's horse had not won--no one had ever imagined that
possible--but it had been brought up to such a position in the betting
as to secure the money for the stable, and save its owner's credit
with the public. Matters for the future looked promising. To be sure,
Lord Ticehurst had not taken so much interest of late in his turf
speculations; but that did not particularly affect Mr. Lloyd. So long
as his patron kept up his stud, and left the entire management of
everything to him, that gentleman was content. It was not unnatural
that a man of Lord Ticehurst's youth and health and position should
wish to enjoy himself in society; and Gilbert rather encouraged his
pupil's new notions on this point. It was not that Orson was endowed
with reason, but rather that Orson had found out some _jeux innocens_
for himself, of which he did not require his keeper's constant
supervision.

One morning in the above-named week, Gilbert Lloyd was sitting in his
own room in Lord Ticehurst's bachelor-house in Hill-street. It was a
pleasant room on the first floor, and was furnished in a manner
half-substantial and half-pretty. The large oak writing-table in the
centre, the two or three japanned deed-boxes on the floor, the
handful of auctioneers' bills pinned to the wall, announcing property
to be disposed of at forthcoming sales--all these looked like
business; but they were diametrically contradicted by the cigar-boxes,
the pipe-rack, the Reynolds proofs, and the Pompeian photographs on
the walls; the ivory statuettes and the china monsters on the
chimney-piece; the deer-skins and the tiger-skins, the heavy bronzes,
the velvet _portières_, and the luxurious chairs and ottomans; all of
which indicated the possession of good taste and the means of
gratifying it. Gilbert Lloyd had chosen these rooms--his bedchamber
adjoined his sitting-room--when the _ménage_ was first transplanted to
Hill-street from Limmer's--where, during the reign of Plater Dobbs,
Lord Ticehurst had resided--and had kept them ever since. He had
chosen them because they were pleasant and airy, and so far out of the
way, that the ribald friends of the real proprietor--who were dropping
into their companion's rooms on the ground-floor at all hours of the
day and night--never thought of ascending to them. Trainers and
jockeys made their way up the stairs with much muttered cursing,
hating the ascent, which was troublesome to their short legs, and
hating the business which brought them there; for Mr. Lloyd had a
sharp tongue, and knew how to use it; and if his orders were not
carried out to the letter, so much the worse for those who had to obey
them. And latterly, a different class of visitors found their way to
Gilbert's room, demure attorneys and portly land-agents; for Mr. Lloyd
was now recognised as Lord Ticehurst's factotum; and all matters
connected with the estates, whether as regards sale, purchase, or
mortgage, passed through his hands.

It was twelve o'clock in the day, and Gilbert was seated at the oak
writing-table. A banker's pass-book lay open at his right hand, and he
was busied with calculations on a paper before him, when there was a
knock at the door, and upon the cry "come in," Lord Ticehurst entered
the room. Gilbert looked up from his writing, and on seeing who was
his visitor, gave a short laugh.

"Won't you send up a servant with your name, next time?" said he; "the
idea of a man knocking at a door in his own house--at least, when that
isn't the door of his wife's room! Then, I've heard it's advisable to
knock or cough outside, or something of that sort, just to keep all
straight, you know!"

"Funny dog!" said Lord Ticehurst, indolently dropping into an
easy-chair and puffing at his cigar. "How are you?"

"Well, but worried," answered Gilbert.

"That goes without saying," said his lordship; "you always are
worried, or you would never be well!"

"Look here, Etchingham," exclaimed Gilbert Lloyd, with a mock air of
intense interest, "you mustn't do this, 'pon my soul you mustn't, or
you'll hurt yourself. I've noticed lately a distinct tendency on your
part to be epigrammatic; you weren't intended for it, and it won't
agree with you. Take a friend's advice, and cut it."

"Considerate old boy! Tell me the news."

"Tell _you_ the news--I like that. Tell the news to a man whose life
is passed in what the newspaper fellows call the 'vortex of fashion:'
who is so much engaged that his humble servant here can't get five
minutes with him on business, when it's most particularly wanted. Tell
_you_ the news, indeed!"

"No. But I say, you know what I mean, Gilbert. How are we getting on?
Ascot, you know, and all that?"

"O, business! Well, Bosjesman will win the Trial Stakes, and Plume
will be beaten like a sack for the Cup; both of which facts are good
for us. We shall get Dumfunk's Derby-money, or most of it; he's come
to terms--nice terms--with that discount company at Shrewsbury; and
little Jim Potter's shoulder's better, and he'll be able to ride."

"And what about the house?"

"What house? Parliament? Does your lordship intend to put me in for
Etchingham? I'm as tit a fiddle for that work, and could roll them
speeches off the reel--"

"Don't be an ass, Gilbert! I mean the house for the week--at Ascot?"

"O, I see! Yes, that's all settled. I couldn't get anything nearer
than Windsor; but I've got a very pretty little box there. Charley
Chesterton rents it for the year--he's there with the Blues, you know;
but Mrs. Chesterton's going away, and Charley will go into barracks
for the week, and we can have the house. It's a stiffish figure, but
they can get any amount that week, you know."

"O yes, of course, that don't matter. And it's a nice house, you say?"

"Very pretty little place indeed--do very well for us."

"Yes. And Mrs. Chesterton's been living there? She's a nice woman,
ain't she?"

"Yes, she's nice enough, as women go. But what has she to do with it?"

"Well--I mean to say, it's a sort of crib that--don't you know--one
could ask a lady to stop in?"

"O--h!" exclaimed Gilbert Lloyd, with a very long face--"that's it, is
it?"

"No, no, 'pon my soul, you don't understand what I mean," said Lord
Ticehurst hurriedly. "Fact of the matter is, Lady Carabas wants to
come down for the Cup-day; and she'll bring a friend, of course; and I
told her about my having a house somewhere in the neighbourhood for
the week, and thought she and the other lady, and their maids and
people, could--don't you see--stay. What do you think?"

"My dear Etchingham, whatever you wish, of course shall be carried
out. It is not for me to teach etiquette to any lady, especially to
Lady Carabas, who despises conventionality, and who, besides, is quite
old enough to take care of herself. I should have thought that for a
lady to come to a bachelor's house--however, of course she'll have her
maid and her footman, and some one to act as her _âme damnées_--her
sheep-dog. Who is the sheep-dog, by the way?"

"I don't know about sheep-dog," said Lord Ticehurst, flushing very
red; "but Lady Carabas said the lady she proposed to do me the honour
to bring to my house was--was Miss Grace Lambert."

Gilbert Lloyd looked up without the smallest trace of perturbation,
and said, "Miss Grace Lambert? O, the--the celebrated singer! O,
indeed!"

"Yes," said Lord Ticehurst; "there's a chance of her getting a holiday
on Thursday night--town will be very empty, you know, and I think I
shall be able to square it with Munns--and then she might come down to
the races, and she and Lady Carabas could come over here afterwards.
She's a most charming person, Gilbert."

"Is she?" said Gilbert Lloyd very slowly. "I have not--what you seem
to have--the pleasure of her acquaintance. Have you known her long?"

"O, ever so long; ever since she first came out at a concert at
Carabas House one night. Don't you recollect my pointing out to you a
very stunning girl in a brougham, just as we were turning into Tatt's
one day?"

"My dear fellow, you've pointed me out so many stunning girls when
we've been turning into Tatt's, or elsewhere, that I really cannot
distinguish that bright particular star. But I've seen Miss Lambert at
the Opera."

"And she's a stunner, ain't she?"

"She seemed to be perfectly good-looking and ladylike on the stage.
But these people are so different in private life."

"My dear Gilbert, I've seen her in private life, as you call it, a
dozen times, and she's awfully nice."

"O, and she's awfully nice, eh?"

"What a queer fish you are! Of course she's awfully nice, and this
place of Charley Chesterton's will do for these ladies to come to?"

"Yes, I should think so. Mrs. Chesterton is a woman accustomed to have
the right thing about her; and it's good enough for her, so I presume
it will 'do' for Miss Lambert and Lady Carabas."

"I hate you when you've got this sneering fit on you, Gilbert," said
his lordship sulkily; and Gilbert Lloyd saw that he had gone far
enough. His patron was wonderfully good-tempered, but, like all
good-tempered men, when once put out, he "cut up rough" for a very
long time.

"Don't be angry, Etchingham;" and Lloyd rose and crossed the room, and
put his hand on the young man's shoulder. "I was only chaffing; and I
was a little annoyed, perhaps, because you seemed doubtful whether
this house that I have got, and only got after a great deal of
trouble, would suit you. You might have depended on me. Well, and so
you have made this young lady's acquaintance, and you find her
charming?"

"Quite charmin'," said Lord Ticehurst, his good-humour being restored.
"I've been with Lady Carabas several times to see her at a pretty
little place she's got out Bayswater way, where she lives with an old
tabby--by the way, I'll bet odds that old tabby don't let her come
here without her."

"Well, there's room for the old tabby," said Gilbert. "But, see,
Etchingham; do I really understand that you--that you care for this
girl?"

"D--n it, Gilbert, you press a fellow home! Well, then, I'm not given
to this sort of thing, as you know very well; but this time it's an
awful case of spoons."

"Ah!" said Gilbert, smiling quietly, "your expression is slangy but
vigorous. And what are your views with regard to her?"

"Jove!" said Lord Ticehurst, "only one way there, my dear fellow!
Wouldn't stand any nonsense; any of 'em, I mean,--Lady Carabas and all
that lot. Besides, she's a lady, you know--educated, and all that sort
of thing; and as to looks and breedin', she could hold her own with
any of 'em--eh?"

"Of course she could. Besides, chaff apart, when the Earl of Ticehurst
chooses to marry, his countess--however, there's time enough to talk
about that. Now run along, for I must write off at once about this
Windsor house; and I've a heap of things to do to-day."

Lord Ticehurst left his Mentor, after shaking hands warmly with him,
and took his departure in a very happy frame of mind. It was a great
comfort to him to have made Lloyd aware of the state of his feelings
towards Miss Lambert, immature as those feelings were, for Mentor had
such a hold over the young man that he never felt comfortable while he
was keeping anything back from him. But when he was gone, Gilbert
Lloyd did not begin to write the letter to Windsor, or settle to any
of the "heap of work" which he had mentioned as in store for him. He
got up and opened a drawer full of cigars, selected one carefully, lit
it, and threw himself into a low easy-chair, with his legs crossed,
and his hands clasped behind his head. At first he puffed angrily at
his cigar, but after a little time he gradually began to smoke more
quietly, and then he unclasped his hands and rested his elbows on his
knees, and his chin on his hands.

"That's it!" he said aloud, "that's the line of country! Fancy my
never having given a thought to where this fellow was going so often,
never wondering at the sudden fancy he had taken to his aunt's
society; and then discovering from his own lips that he has been
paying visits to my wife! More than that--that he is confoundedly in
love with her, and wants to marry her! Wants to marry my wife! There's
something deuced funny in that. I wonder whether any other fellow ever
had a man come to him and tell him he wanted to marry his wife. I
should think not! Not that I should care in the least if anyone
married Gertrude--anyone, that is to say, except this youth
downstairs. I have not done with him yet, and a wife would interfere
horribly with me and my plans. Yes, that's the right notion. There is
no reason why Etchingham should not be encouraged in this new fancy.
It will keep him from dangling after any other woman, and it can come
to nothing. I know her ladyship of Carabas rather too well to credit
her with any desire for Miss Lambert the opera-singer as a relative;
as a plaything, an amusement, she's well enough: but Lady Carabas
cries '_Halte là!_' and a hint from me to her would make her speak the
word. Besides, _I_ am not dead yet, and I might have something to say
about my wife's second marriage--that is, of course, supposing that
second marriage did not suit my views. But there will be no question
of that for some time. Now that I know the state of affairs, I can
keep myself _au courant_ to all that goes on through Lady Carabas; I
shall make her ladyship induce her charming nephew to moderate his
transports so far as any question of proposing is concerned; but he
may be 'awful spoons,' as he charmingly phrases it, as long as he
pleases. As for this Windsor notion, that must be knocked on the head
at once. I don't intend to give up the Cup-day at Ascot myself, and I
certainly could not well be there, if Gertrude were to be of the
party. I'll settle that with Lady Carabas."

Here behold Gilbert Lloyd's philosophy and views of life. Affection
for the woman whom he had wedded, and from whom he had separated, he
had not one scrap; nor even care as to what she did, what course of
life she pursued, whence she obtained the means of livelihood. Any
interest in that he had abnegated when he accepted the terms which she
dictated for their separation,--terms which meant oblivion of the past
and _insouciance_ for the future, terms which he had indorsed when
they were proposed, and which he was ready to hold to still. But when
his knowledge of his wife's previous life--of the thrall from which
she had actually, but not legally, escaped--gave him the mastery over
her actions, or the actions of those in relation with her, he was
prepared Halteto twist the screw to its tightest, if by so twisting it he
could aid in the development of his own plans.

Had Gilbert Lloyd no remnant of love for Gertrude, no lingering
reminiscence of the time when, a trusting school-girl, she placed her
future in his hands, gave up her whole life to him, and fled away from
the only semblance of home which she had known at his suggestion? Had
he no thought of the time immediately succeeding that, when for those
few happy weeks, ere the pleasant dream was dispelled, she lay
nestling in his bosom, building O such castles in the air, such
impossible pictures, prompted by girlish romantic fancies of the
future? Had Gilbert Lloyd any such reminiscences as these? Truth to
tell, not in the smallest degree. He had passed the wet sponge over
the slate containing any records of his early life, and all trace of
Gertrude had been effectually erased. When he heard of her now, when
it became necessary for him to give a certain number of moments to
thinking of her in connection with business matters, he treated the
affair simply from a business point of view. To him she was as dead
"as nail in door," as immaterial as the first woman he might brush
against in the street; she might be turned to serve certain ends which
he had in view; but he regarded her simply as one of the puppets in
the little life-drama of which he acted as showman. The pleasant
gathering which Lord Ticehurst had looked forward to on the Cup-day at
Ascot did not come off. Gilbert Lloyd had five minutes' interview with
Lady Carabas on the subject; and two days afterwards Mr. Boulderson
Munns announced the impossibility of his sparing Miss Grace Lambert's
services for that evening. Not that Miss Lambert would have accepted
Lord Ticehurst's hospitality if her services could have been spared,
but it was best to put the refusal on a strictly professional footing.
Mr. Lloyd did not in the least care about absenting himself from that
pleasant gathering on the Heath, and it was of course impossible for
him to be brought face to face with Lord Ticehurst's intended guest.
So the recipients of his lordship's hospitality in the cottage at
Windsor were Lady Carabas and Miss Macivor, a sprightly elderly
spinster, who was as well known in society as the clock at St. James's
Palace, and who was always ready to play what she imagined to be
propriety in any fast party. The ladies enjoyed themselves immensely,
they said; but their host's gratification was not so keen. He was
bored and ruffled, and he did not care to disguise it.

And now a change came over Gilbert Lloyd, which was to him
unaccountable, and against which he struggled with all the power of
his strong will, but struggled in vain. This change came about, as
frequently happens with such matters by which our whole future is
influenced, in an unforeseen manner, and by the merest accident. The
Ascot settling-day had not passed off very comfortably. Several heavy
bookmakers were absent; among them one who had lost a large sum of
money to the Ticehurst party. This man was known to have won hugely on
the Derby a fortnight before, and to have had a capital account at his
banker's a few days previously. It seemed therefore clear to Gilbert
Lloyd, with whom the management of the matter rested, that the money
was still in the possession of the absconding bookmaker, who would, in
all probability, take an opportunity of leaving the country with the
sum thus accumulated. Gilbert Lloyd put himself in communication with
the police authorities, furnished a correct description of the
defaulter, and caused a strict watch to be kept at the various
principal ports. One morning he received a telegram from Liverpool,
announcing that the offender had been seen there. It had been
ascertained that he was about to leave by the Cunard boat for Boston
the next morning; but that, as he had committed no criminal offence,
it was impossible for the police to detain him. This news made Gilbert
Lloyd furious; that he should have his prey under his hand, and yet be
unable to close that hand upon him, was maddening. He thought some
good might be effected by his hurrying to Liverpool by the afternoon
express, finding the defaulter, and frightening him out of at least a
portion of the money due. The more he turned this plan in his mind,
the more feasible it seemed to him, and the more he was determined to
carry it into effect. There were, however, certain affairs to be
transacted that day upon which it was most necessary he should, before
starting, communicate personally with Lord Ticehurst; and Gilbert,
from recent experience, knew that he should have considerable
difficulty in tracing that young nobleman's whereabouts. He made
inquiries at all the various haunts, but without any success; at
length, at the club someone said that Ticehurst had offered to drive
him down to the Crystal Palace, for which place he had started a
couple of hours--ago. The Crystal Palace! What on earth could take him
there? Gilbert Lloyd, who saw fewer "sights" than almost any man in
London, had been there once, but brought away a dazed recollection of
fountains and Egyptian idols, and statues and tropical trees, none of
which he thought would have any interest for his pupil. But his
wonderment was at an end when, taking up the newspaper and looking for
the advertisement, he saw announced that a grand concert, by the
principal singers of the Scandinavian Opera, would take place at the
Crystal Palace that afternoon, and that the chief attraction of the
concert was to be Miss Grace Lambert.

A swift hansom bore him to Victoria, and a tedious train landed him at
the Crystal Palace, just in time to hear the opening notes of Herr
Boreas' solo on the ophicleide. A charming performance that of Herr
Boreas, but one to which Mr. Lloyd gave no attention. He hurried
through the crowd, looking eagerly right and left; and at last his
eyes fell upon a group, where they remained.

Lord Ticehurst, Mr. Munns, and two or three others were component
parts of this little knot; but Gilbert Lloyd saw but one
person--Gertrude. How marvellously she had improved during the time
that had elapsed since they parted! She had been pretty as a girl; she
was lovely as a woman. How lovely she looked in her simple morning
dress and coquettish little bonnet! With what a perfect air of easy
grace she listened to the men bending before her, and how quietly she
received the homage which they were evidently paying! An angry flush
rose on Gilbert's pale cheeks, and his heart beat quickly as he
witnessed this manifest adoration. What right had anyone but he to
approach her, to--It stung him like a cut from a whip, it flared like
a train of gunpowder. He knew what it was in an instant: mad, raging,
ungovernable jealousy--nothing else. He had thrown off all love for
her--all thought of her; and now, the first time they met, the passion
which struck him when he first saw her, years before, looking out of
the window of the Vale House, sprung up with renewed fury within him,
and he raged and chafed as he recognised the obstacles which kept him
from her, but which were no barriers to other men. She seemed utterly
indifferent to them, though, he was glad to see--no! her face lights
up, she smiles and bends forward; and when she looks up again there is
a blush upon her cheek. Who has been speaking to her--the tall
handsome man with the brown beard--Miles Challoner! And Gilbert Lloyd
swore a deep oath of revenge--revenge of which his wife and his
brother should each bear their share.




CHAPTER III.
At the Crystal Palace.


To Herr Boreas was allotted the pleasing duty of opening the concert.
The jolly German gentleman, neatly and seasonably dressed in black,
with a large diamond-brooch in his plaited shirt-front, and with
stuffy-looking black-cloth boots with shiny tips, opened his big
chest, and puffed away at his ophicleide, evoking now the loudest and
now the softest notes; while the crowds kept pouring in to the
railed-off space, and took their seats, laughing and chattering, and
not paying the smallest attention to the performance. It was a great
day at the Palace, a day on which great people thought it proper to be
seen there. The little public-houses in the neighbourhood were filled
with resplendent creatures in gorgeous liveries, whose employers were
making their way through nave and transept, looking at nothing save
the other people there, and looking at them as though they were
singular specimens of humanity specially put out for show. In the
matter of staring, it must be confessed that the other people returned
the compliment. The regular attendants at the Crystal Palace are, for
the most part, resident in the neighbourhood, and the neighbouring
residents are, for the most part, of or belonging to the City. The
brokers of stocks, shares, and sugar; the owners of Manchester
warehouses, the riggers of markets, and the projectors of companies;
the directors of banks, and the "floaters" of "concerns," have, many
of them, charming villas, magnificent mansions, or delicious
snuggeries at Blackheath, Eltham, or Sydenham; and the Palace is the
great place of resort for their wives and daughters, and for
themselves when the cares of business are laid aside. How many
successful matches, in which money has been allied to money, have
commenced in flirtations by the side of the plashing fountains, or in
the shade of the stunted orange-trees! What execution has not been
done by flashing eyes in the central promenade! There, by the Dying
Gladiator, Lord Claude Votate proposed for Miss Meggifer, and secured
the fortune which rescued the Calfington estates from his lordship's
creditors; there, behind the Dancing Faun, Charles Partington,
of Partington Nephews, kissed Minnie Black, daughter of Black
Brothers--was seen to do it by Mrs. Black, consequently could not
escape, and thus cemented an alliance between those hitherto rival
houses, considered in Wood-street as the Horatii and Curiatii of the
Berlin-wool trade. Pleasant place of decorous festivity and innocent
diversion, whence instruction has been completely routed by amusement,
and where the Assyrian gods and the Renaissance friezes are deserted
for the dancing dogs and the Temple of Momus as constructed by Mr.
Nelson Lee!

By the time that Herr Boreas had finished his solo--which was not
until he had blown all the breath out of his body, and was apparently
on the verge of apoplexy--the audience had taken possession of all the
seats; and as the German gentleman bowed himself out of the orchestra,
amidst a great deal of applause from people who, indeed, could not
help having heard, but had not paid the least attention to him, there
was a general reference to the programmes to see what was coming next,
then a rustling, a whispering, and that curious settling stir which
electrically runs through an audience just before the advent of a
favourite artist. Gilbert Lloyd, not insensible to this, involuntarily
looked round from behind the pillar by which he was standing to the
spot where he had seen Gertrude, but she was no longer there. The next
instant thunders of applause rang through the building as she advanced
upon the platform. She bowed gracefully but coldly; then the conductor
waved his baton, and dead silence fell upon the audience, leaning
forward with outstretched necks to catch the first notes of her voice.
Soft and sweet, clear and trilling, comes the bird-like song, warbled
without the smallest apparent effort, while thrilling the listeners to
the heart--thrilling Gilbert Lloyd, who holds his breath, and looks on
in rapture. He had heard her before, but in Italian opera; now she is
singing an English ballad, of no great musical pretension indeed, but
pretty and sympathetic. At the end of the first verse the applause
burst out in peals on peals; and so carried away was Gilbert Lloyd,
that he found himself joining in the general feeling--he who scarcely
knew one note of music from another, and who had come to the place on
a matter of important business. That must stand over now, though--he
felt that. The absconding turfite might go to America, or to the
deuce, for the matter of that; Gilbert Lloyd felt it an impossibility
to leave the place where he then was, and tried to cheat himself by
pretending that it was expedient for his own interest that he should
keep a close watch upon Lord Ticehurst just at that time. That young
nobleman certainly took no pains to conceal his warm admiration for
Miss Lambert, and his intense delight at her performance. He applauded
more loudly than anyone else, and assumed an attitude of rapt
attention, which would have been highly interesting if it had not also
been slightly comic. When the song ceased, the cries for a repetition
were loud and universal. Gertrude, who had retired, again advanced to
the front of the orchestra. By an involuntary impulse, Gilbert Lloyd
stepped from behind the pillar which had hitherto shielded him, and
their eyes met--met for the first time since he left her at the
Brighton hotel, on the day of Harvey Gore's death.

A deep flush overspread Gilbert Lloyd's usually pallid cheeks, but
Gertrude's expression did not change in the slightest degree. Not a
trace of the faintest emotion, even of curiosity, could be seen in her
face. The conductor of the orchestra, just before he left her in front
of the audience, addressed some remark to her; and as she replied,
Gilbert noticed that her lips were curling with a slight sneer--an
expression which he fancied he understood, when the band commenced to
play an air which even he, all unmusical as he was, recognised as
"Home, sweet home." But she never looked at him again during the song,
which she sung even more sweetly than the first, and with a deep
pathos that roused the audience to enthusiasm. Gilbert Lloyd kept his
eyes fixed on her, never moving them for an instant; and as he marked
the calm air with which she received the public applause, and the
graceful ease of all her movements--as he saw how her face, always
clear cut and classically moulded, had ripened in womanly beauty and
intellectual expression--as he noticed the rounded elegance of her
figure, the tasteful simplicity of her dress--and he noticed all
these details down to the fit of her gloves and the colour of her
bonnet-strings--he raged against himself for having been fool enough
to relinquish the hold he once had on her. Could that hold be
reëstablished? If he were again to have an opportunity--But while
these thoughts were passing through his mind, Gertrude had finished
her song and quitted the orchestra, and her glance had not fallen on
him again.

Meantime Gilbert Lloyd saw he had been noticed by the group with whom
Miss Lambert had been sitting previous to her performance, and as
Miles Challoner was no longer with them he thought it better to join
the party. His appearance amongst them was evidently a surprise to
Lord Ticehurst, who expressed the greatest astonishment at his
Mentor's finding any amusement in so slow a proceeding as a concert,
and who grew very red and looked very conscious when Gilbert asked him
what particular charm such an entertainment could possess for him.
Lord Sandilands was, as usual in his behaviour to Mr. Lloyd,
scrupulously polite, but not particularly cordial. He had nothing in
common with Gilbert, detested the turf and all its associations, and
looked on Lord Ticehurst's turf Mentor as very little better than Lord
Ticehurst's stud-groom. Mr. Boulderson Munns still remained with them,
and intended so to remain. It was part of Mr. Munns' business that he
should be seen in close and confidential communication "with two
nobs," as he elegantly phrased it, and he took advantage of the
opportunity. Nothing pleased him so much as to notice when members of
the promenading crowd would elbow each other, look towards him, and
whisper together, or when he saw heads bent forward and opera-glasses
pointed in his direction. It was his concert, he thought: when Herr
Boreas blew his ophicleide, or Miss Lambert sang her song, he felt
inclined to place his thumbs in the arm-holes of his big white
waistcoat, and go forward and acknowledge the applause. He had done so
in former years in the transformation-scenes of pantomimes, when the
people called for Scumble the scene-painter, and why not now? Boreas
and the Lambert were quite as much his people as Scumble! Mr. Munns
restrained himself, however, from motives of policy. It was pretty
plain to him, as he afterwards explained to Mr. Duff, that this young
swell, this Ticehurst, was dead spoons on the Lambert; and as he had
no end of money, and was good for a box every night, and perhaps
something more if the screw were properly put on, it would be best to
make it all sugar for 'em. With this laudable intent he commenced
talking loudly to Lord Ticehurst of Miss Lambert's attractions, and
did not suffer himself to be interrupted for more than a minute by
Lloyd's arrival.

"As I was telling you, my lord," he recommenced, "she's a wonder,
this--this young lady--a wonder, and nothing but it! Not merely for
the hit she's made, though it's a great go, and I don't mean to deny
it; but I don't go by the public, I know too much of them. Why, Lord
Sandilands here, he remembers when--Well, it's no good going into
that; lots of them we've seen in our time, and then, after a season or
two, all dickey! regular frost! But there's something very different
from that with Miss Lambert--so quiet, and so quite the lady; none of
your flaring up, and ballyragging the people about. Why Miss Murch,
our wardrobe-woman, said to me only last night, that she only wished
the other prima donnas were like her--won't wear this, and won't wear
that--How d'ye do, Mr. Lloyd? I was talking to his lordship of Miss
Lambert, who's just been singing, and saying what a stunner she was.
Now, if you've got a filly to name--one that's likely to be something,
and do something, you know--you should call her Grace Lambert--"

"No, I think not; not quite that, Mr. Munns!" interposed Lord
Ticehurst; "that's scarcely the kind of compliment I should care to
pay to Miss Lambert."

"You may depend upon it that it's one which, if Miss Lambert had the
option, she would scarcely care to accept, my lord," said Lord
Sandilands tartly; "however, there she is to answer for herself;" and
he pointed through the glass to the garden, where Gertrude was seen
walking with Mrs. Bloxam. There was an evident intention on the part
of all composing the group to join them, and seeing this Gilbert Lloyd
would have withdrawn; but Lord Ticehurst took him by the arm, and
saying, "I've long wanted to introduce you to Miss Lambert, old
fellow, and now you can't possibly escape," led the way.

If he were ever again to have an opportunity! Had that opportunity
then come? Was his never-failing luck holding by him still, and giving
him this chance of retrieving the blunder he had made in the Brighton
hotel? He thought so. His breath came short and thick as he nerved
himself for the meeting. He saw her as she and Mrs. Bloxam strolled
before them up the gardenwalk, noticed the swimming ease of her gait,
the fall of her black-lace cloak, as it hung from her shoulders, the
graceful pose of her head. She turned, he heard the sound of her
approaching feet, he felt her presence close opposite to him, he heard
Lord Ticehurst's voice repeating the set formula of introduction, but
he saw nothing until he looked up to catch the faintest inclination of
Gertrude's head, and to see her face colder, more set, more rigid than
ever. Neither spoke; and the silence was becoming awkward, when Lord
Ticehurst said, "I imagine you must have heard me speak of my friend
Lloyd, Miss Lambert? Good enough to manage my racing matters for me,
and to manage them deuced well--with the greatest talent and skill,
and all that kind of thing. Not in your line, I know, Miss Lambert;
but still--still--" and his lordship's eloquence failed him, and he
broke down.

Again neither of them spoke, but Gilbert Lloyd looked up from under
his brow, and saw the stony glance which Gertrude cast upon him for an
instant, then turned to Mrs. Bloxam, and suggested that they should
return to the concert-room, where she would speedily be wanted. Lord
Sandilands was at her right hand, Lord Ticehurst on the other side of
Mrs. Bloxam. Mr. Munns preceded them, and caused a great sensation, on
which he had reckoned, when he flung open the door and ostentatiously
ushered them into the building; but Gilbert Lloyd walked slowly
behind, his hands plunged into his pockets, and his face--there
was no one to heed him, no reason for him to don an unnatural
expression--savage, set, and careworn.

So it had come at last, he thought. They had met after so long an
estrangement; and that was to be the end of the meeting. No
recognition--he had not expected that--no public recognition, no hint
that they had ever been anything to each other. He recollected the
words that he had addressed to her on their parting; they came surging
up and ringing in his ears: "It is not very likely that we shall ever
run across each other's path in the future, but if we do, we meet as
entire strangers; and the fact of our having been anything to one
another must never be brought forward to prejudice any scheme in which
either of us may be engaged." Memory brought before him the dingy cold
room of the second-rate hotel, with the dying sunlight streaking its
discoloured walls, in which these words had been spoken; brought
before him the slight figure and the deadly pallid face of the girl as
she listened to them, and acquiesced in their verdict. In that verdict
she acquiesced still, was acting up to its spirit, to its very letter.
It was his proposition to leave her alone and unfettered "in any
scheme in which she might be engaged." The fooling, the enslavement of
this idiot Ticehurst, who was a mere tool in his hands, was the game
which she was now playing, at which he was to look on helplessly,
having himself spoken the words which rendered her independent of his
control.

And she, how did she take it? Calmly enough; but not so calmly as
Gilbert Lloyd supposed. She had never gone in for much feeling, and
whatever she had was now completely at her command, far more
completely even than when she last had parted from her husband.
Moreover, while Gilbert had utterly given himself up to the business
of his turf profession, resolutely refusing to think of his wife, or
to acknowledge to himself that there was ever a possibility of their
again being brought into contact, the chance of such a meeting had
often occurred to Gertrude, and the manner in which she would demean
herself, should the occasion arise, had--been thought over by her and
settled in her mind. And now that it had arisen, so far as her outward
demeanour was concerned, she had behaved herself exactly as she had
always proposed. And her facial control was such, that no one looking
at her could have an inkling of what was passing in her mind, which
was fortunate on this occasion, for she was considerably more
disturbed than she had expected. The first sight of her husband was a
complete shock to her, and it was only by the exercise of the greatest
presence of mind that she prevented herself from betraying her
perturbation. When the first shock was past--and she owed it to the
strict discipline of professional training that she was enabled to get
over it so quickly--her thoughts reverted to the subject, and she was
able to discuss it calmly with herself. What brought Gilbert Lloyd to
that place? She knew him well enough to feel sure that there must have
been some strong inducement, and what could that be? Gilbert was _lié_
with Lord Ticehurst; and that that full-flavoured young nobleman was
considerably in love with her, Gertrude had never attempted to
disguise from herself; but what could that matter to the man from whom
she had been, so long estranged, and who had never shown the smallest
interest in her proceedings during that long estrangement? The
possibility of a desire on Gilbert's part to negotiate for a renewal
of intimacy crossed her mind for an instant, but was at once rejected;
and not even for an instant did she imagine the desire for such a
proceeding was based on anything but motives of policy. And, after
all, what did it matter to her? To her Gilbert Lloyd was dead and
buried, she had nothing to look for at his hands, nothing to fear from
him--her lip curled as she recollected that; she would dismiss him
entirely from her thoughts, she would--what could have brought him to
that concert, of all places in the world? It might be useful to know
something of his mode of life. She would lead Lady Carabas to talk of
him; the marchioness would be only too happy to dilate on such a
subject.

By the time Miss Lambert was to sing again, she had quite made up her
mind on this point, and the sight of Gilbert Lloyd, _planté là_, did
not cause her the slightest emotion. He stood as one rapt, fascinated
by her beauty, drinking-in her voice, with one constant idea beating
in his brain:--Was the past irrevocable? could not the mischief be
undone? The power he had had in the old days remained to him still; he
had but to exercise it, and all would be right again. True that just
then she had rebuffed him; but that was her way, always had been; she
had always piqued herself upon her pride, and after that had had its
fling he should be able to do with her as he liked. Miss Lambert was
in full song as these thoughts passed through Gilbert Lloyd's mind,
when suddenly she changed colour, a transient flush overspread her
face, dying away again almost instantaneously. At the same instant,
Gilbert Lloyd turned swiftly round in the direction in which he had
noticed her glance fall, and saw Miles Challoner, who had recently
entered and dropped into a chair just behind Lord Sandilands' seat. No
doubt of it, no doubt of it; her self-command was so shaken that her
voice faltered for an instant, and he--look at his eyes, fastened on
her face with a look of perfect love and trust, and it was impossible
to doubt the position. Lloyd's heart sunk within him at the sight, and
a bitter oath was rising to his lips, and would have found utterance,
when he felt his arm pressed, and looking round, saw Tommy Toshington,
of the clubs, standing behind him. Mr. Toshington had on a new and
curly wig, a light high muslin cravat, and looked bland and amiable.
He winked affably at Lloyd, and laying his finger lightly against his
nose, said, "You're wrong, my dear boy;--it's all right!" Mr. Gilbert
Lloyd shortly bade his friend not to be an ass, but if he had anything
to say, to out with it. Nothing abashed at the strength of Gilbert's
language, Tommy said,

"My dear fellow, I mean exactly what I say; you're under a mistake,
while all the time it's all right for _you!_"

"What's all right for me--with whom--where?"

"There!" said Tommy Toshington, wagging his new wig and his
curly-brimmed hat in the direction where Lord Ticehurst was sitting;
"his lordship is _entêté_ with a certain warbler, eh? Fourth finger of
the left hand--death do us part, and all that sort of thing, eh? That
wouldn't suit your book, I should think--have to give up your rooms;
she persuade him to cut the turf, go to church, and that kind of
thing. Don't you be afraid, my boy; I know the world better than you,
and that'll never come off!"

"You think not?" asked Gilbert.

"I'm sure not," replied Tommy. "Look here; he'd like it fast enough.
Etchingham would marry her to-morrow if he got the chance; but she's
full of pluck and spirit, and don't care a bit for him. How do I know?
Because she cares for somebody else. How do I know that? My dear
fellow, don't I know everything? What used the old Dook to say, 'Ask
Toshington, he'll know; he knows everything, Tommy does.' And he
didn't make many mistakes, the old Dook."

"Perhaps you know who is the 'somebody' else for whom the lady cares?"
said Gilbert, an evil light dawning in his face, and his lips
involuntarily tightening as he put the question.

"Of _course_ I do!" said Tommy, with a crisp little laugh; "keep my
eyes open, see everything; seen 'em together lots of times--Carabas
House, Lady Lowndes', and lots of places. You know him, I should
think; tall man from Gloucestershire--big beard--Chaldecott--some name
like that!"

This time the oath broke from Lloyd's lips unchecked. He turned
rapidly on his heel, and strode away.

"Dev'lish ill-bred young man that," said old Toshington, looking after
him; "dammy, there's no manners left in the men of the present day!"




END OF VOL. I.




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PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.







End of Project Gutenberg's The Rock Ahead. (Vol. 1 of 2), by Edmund Yates