ROSE, BLANCHE,

  AND

  VIOLET.


  BY

  G. H. LEWES, ESQ.

  AUTHOR OF "RANTHORPE,"
  "BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY," ETC. ETC.



  Il n'y a point de vertu proprement dite, sans victoire sur
  nous-mêmes, et tout ce qui ne nous coûte rien, ne vaut rien.

  DE MAISTRE.



  IN THREE VOLUMES.

  VOL. III.



  LONDON:
  SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.
  ----
  1848.




  London:
  Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,
  Old Bailey.




CONTENTS.

----

BOOK VI.

CHAPTER

  I.--The Idler's Day
  II.--Another Literary Soirée
  III.--The Tiger Tastes Blood
  IV.--The Young Father
  V.--Renunciation
  VI.--Man purified by Experience
  VII.--Poor Vyner
  VIII.--Rehearsal of the Opera
  IX.--Cecil Succumbs
  X.--A Gentleman's Life
  XI.--Deeper, and Deeper Still
  XII.--Hester's Love



BOOK VII.

CHAPTER

  I.--George Maxwell
  II.--Rose again sees Julius
  III.--Woman's Love
  IV.--A Beam of Sunshine in the House
  V.--Violet to Marmaduke
  VI.--Brighter Scenes
  VII.--Another Love Scene
  VIII.--Violet writes again
  IX.--Frank in reduced Circumstances
  X.--Effects of Dining Well
  XI.--The Honeymoon



BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER

  I.--Amiable People
  II.--Love not killed by Unkindness
  III.--Captain Heath Returns
  IV.--Humbled Pride
  V.--"Black Wins"
  VI.--Cecil's Weakness
  VII.--All Hope Destroyed
  VIII.--The Forgery
  IX.--Ruin
  X.--The Sinner that Repenteth
  XI.--The Wife awaiting her Husband
  XII.--The Gambler's End
  XIII.--Explanation
  XIV.--The Alternative
  XV.--Those Left to Weep
  XVI.--The Voice of Passion


Epilogue




ROSE, BLANCHE, AND VIOLET.



BOOK VI.


CHAPTER I.

THE IDLER'S DAY.

"Nature hath given us legs to go to our objects, not wings to fly to
them."--EASTWARD HOE.


The spring of 1841 was very mild, and this enabled Cecil and Blanche
to endure the wretched, comfortless state of Mrs. Tring's
boarding-house, better than if the weather had been more rigorous.
The cheapness, which was now becoming more and more important to
them, was therefore a sufficient compensation for the want of
comfort.  They had renewed their engagement, hoping that either the
comic opera, or the historical picture, would so improve their
circumstances as to admit of their removal in the summer.

They had long awakened from their holiday dream to find that, however
pleasant the change in their position, it was only pleasant as a
change; the novelty once worn off, the scene appeared in all its
ugliness; or rather, let me say, appeared so to Cecil.  He was of a
luxurious habit, and felt privation keenly.  Blanche felt it less,
and her love for him made home happy.  She had never been so happy.
Cecil was all she could desire.

As may be imagined, Cecil once relaxing in the energy with which he
had begun to work, never recovered his former happiness.  The charms
of society were charms he could not withstand; the more so because he
was fitted for it, shone in it.  Having dined occasionally at the
club was sufficient to give him an incurable disgust to the meagre
fare Mrs. Tring spread before him, and he consequently began to
absent himself more and more.

Added to this, his painting proceeded slowly.  "Inspiration," wait
for it as he would, seemed unwilling to descend upon him.  Then there
were so many days lost: sometimes the weather was foggy, and that
prevented him; sometimes it was fine, and tempted him to exercise;
sometimes he had visits to pay; sometimes men "looked in" upon him at
his rooms.  One way or another, the week slipped from him without
leaving behind it any record of labour.

Besides--and this perhaps was one great cause of his idleness, giving
strength to the other influences--he grew less satisfied with his
picture the nearer it approached its termination.  Cecil was a man
whose designs were always finer than his productions, his sketches
gave a promise which his execution never realized.  In this little
trait we may see the whole man.  It might serve as a description of
his character.  With a certain freshness, delicacy, and even grandeur
in his conceptions, he wanted strength, energy, and mastery, to endow
them with vitality.  Who can wonder that he raved about "genius," and
scorned the "mechanical labour" of mere technical execution?

When he contemplated his productions, he grew impatient at their
inadequacy to represent his conceptions, and he threw the blame on
everything but on his own indolence and caprice.  That broad line
which separates intention from execution--which makes the thought a
thing--which distinguishes the artist from other men, by creating in
art what other men only create in visions--that broad line Cecil
wilfully overlooked.  He saw that he had failed, and did not choose
to see wherein lay his failure.  He despised the "drudgery" which was
indispensable to success.  Disgusted with his failure, he lost all
courage, and scarcely ever handled a pencil.

"When will your picture be finished, Mr. Chamberlayne?" asked Mrs.
Merryweather, one morning at breakfast.

"Indeed, I cannot say," he replied; "works of that magnitude require
long consideration.  I could have produced it long ago, had I been
disposed; but I'm in no hurry."

"Do you know Mr. Bostock's paintings?"

Cecil replied that he did not.

"Oh, he's a beautiful painter, that he is!  Does peaches and mackerel
so that you wouldn't know them from real.  His pictures give one an
appetite--that they do.  I remember once--it was very curious--Mrs.
Henley, a relation of mine who lives at Southampton--her husband was
in the customs--good situation, as I have heard--and a strange
creature he was, with the queerest nose you ever saw, and eyes just
like a lobster's, one was always alarmed lest they should tumble into
his waistcoat pocket!  Well, he married my relation, Mrs. Henley, one
of the best creatures!  She often comes up to town, and I should so
like you to be acquainted with her, you'll be quite pleased with her!
So, as I was saying, she came up to town once, to manage a little
business, and enjoy herself at the same time.  Well, one day she
called upon us.  Merryweather--my poor Merryweather was then alive:
who wouldn't have thought him good for another thirty years at least!
He proposed to take us both to the Exhibition; so we went.  It was a
very hot day, I remember; intensely hot.  Poor Merryweather was in a
bath all the time.  And as he stood in the octagon room, his hat in
his hand, wiping the perspiration from his face--which was a sight of
itself to see!--complaining of heat, I suddenly spied one of Mr.
Bostock's pretty pictures--oh, it was a love!  you can't fancy what a
bunch of grapes straddled across a few peaches surrounded with egg
plums!  'Lor,' says poor Merryweather, 'do look at that; isn't it
_refreshing_.'  And we all declared it was; and _so it was_."

Cecil, as usual, made a precipitate retreat at the conclusion of this
biographical anecdote, and Blanche soon followed him.

"By George!" he said, puffing a huge column of smoke from his mouth,
"that woman is insupportable.  I really must quit this hole; at least
if that toad squats in it."

"She amuses me," said Blanche.

"Lucky for you."

Blanche took up her work, and sat beside her husband, who, stretched
upon the sofa, a cigar in his mouth, was at what he chose to consider
his morning meditations.  He certainly did think; but thought of the
club, of society, of opera singers, and of his past life, far more
than he thought of his work.  From time to time he spoke to Blanche,
and the subjects upon which he spoke were sufficiently trivial to
have told any one more clear-sighted than she was, how little art
occupied his reveries.

His cigar finished, he put on a pair of white kid gloves, and
occupied himself for half an hour cleaning them with india-rubber,
whistling, humming, and chatting all the while with enviable
_insouciance_.

That important business concluded, he rose, kissed his wife, yawned,
stretched his limbs, looked out of the window, and then took up his
_bottes vernies_, which he began to rub up, and brighten with a piece
of wool dipped in oil, whistling, humming, and chatting as before.

"What time is it, I wonder?" he said, drawing out his watch, "nearly
twelve! whew! how the morning flies.  I must be off.  Where's my
coat, Pet?"

She gave him his coat, and in another half hour he had completed his
toilet, and was ready to start.

"God bless you, my Pet!" he said, embracing her.

"Shall you be home to dinner to-day, dearest?"

"No, I am to dine with Lufton; and this evening we go to Miss
Mason's."

"Enjoy yourself!  God bless you, dearest!"

Another kiss, and our man of genius departed for his studio.  Arrived
there, he began to consider whether it were not too late to do
anything that day.  It was near one o'clock; at two, Frank was to
call upon him.  They were going to a morning conceit.

"It is decidedly useless beginning anything to-day.  I'll just try
over some of those songs till Frank calls."

He sat down to the piano.  Having sung for a quarter of an hour, he
opened a French novel, and was deep in that when his _fidus Achates_
appeared.

"Frank," said Cecil, as they strolled out together; "I am going to
ask you a question which generally disturbs friendship, but which
won't alter ours, because you'll answer it candidly."

"Cis, I know what that exordium means.  Whenever a man begins in that
solemn circumlocutory manner he can have but one object--money."

Cecil laughed, as he replied,--

"You have hit it, by George!"

"Of course, I have.  Do you think I have borrowed so much money
without learning every symptom?"

"Well, then, Frank, without disguise, I want to borrow a few pounds;
old Vyner has not relented, and his wife has not been lately with any
little contribution: but she can't be long, it has been due some
weeks."

"What has been due, old fellow?"

"Why, what she intends to give us."

Thus securely did Cecil rely upon that source of aid.

"Meanwhile," he added, "I am deucedly hard up, and if you have a few
pounds----"

"Make it shillings, Cis, and it will be quite as impossible.  Egad!
it is rather a queer sensation for one who has been so long a
borrower, to be looked upon in the light of a _possible_ lender!"

"Say no more, Frank; you would do it if you could, I am sure."

"Damn my whiskers! if _you_ are sure of it, _I'm_ not.  I doubt
whether I _could_ lend.  I don't know the trick of it; I should feel
as strange and disreputable as if I were to pay a bill.  Perhaps my
friendship for you might overcome that----  I don't know--perhaps it
might.  But it is all speculation, so let us trouble ourselves no
more with it.  As a matter of practice, judge how feasible it is when
I reveal to you the present state of my capital: four shillings and
some halfpence in current coin, and eighteen pence _invested_."

"Invested, Frank! in what, pray?"

"In a bill-stamp: I take care to be provided with that."

Cecil shouted with laughter, exclaiming,--"That's so like you."

It was, indeed, a trait which painted the man.  The value of the
bill-stamp consisted, of course, in the chance of meeting with some
obliging young gentleman who would consent, "merely as a matter of
form," to put his name to the bill, which Frank would forget to take
up.  But this value was now the more precarious, as that mere matter
of form had been so very frequently gone through, that he found it
excessively difficult to get it repeated.  As he used to say,--

"We degenerate--damn my whiskers! we degenerate fearfully: the
principles of true _politeness_ are becoming effaced."




CHAPTER II.

ANOTHER LITERARY SOIRÉE.

The soirée at Hester Mason's, to which they went that evening, was
very much the same as the one formerly described; there were fewer
guests, and among them more women: a sure sign that she was getting
on in the world, and that the reputation of her parties was beginning
to cover any suspicious circumstances in her own position.

But the women were still of a questionable class: questionable, I
mean, not as regards propriety, but _ton_.  There were no ladies who
gave parties, who were recognised as belonging to "society;" and,
above all, there were no girls there: the virgins were old, ugly, or
wise.

In a word, the women were almost exclusively literary women;
described by Cecil as poor faded creatures, who toiled in the British
Museum, over antiquated rubbish which they extracted and incorporated
with worse rubbish of their own--women who wrote about the
regeneration of their sex--who drivelled in religious tales--compiled
inaccurate histories--wrote moral stories for the young, or
unreadable verses for the old--translated from French and German
(with the assistance of a dictionary, a dashing contempt for English
idiom),--learned women, strong-minded women, religious women,
historical women, and poetical women; there were types of each class,
and by no means attractive types.

One remark Cecil made, which every one will confirm.  "How curious it
is," said he, "to notice the intimate connexion between genius and
hair.  You see it very often in men, but universally in women, that
the distinguishing mark of literary or artistic pretension is not in
the costume, but in the mode of arranging the hair.  Women dress
their hair in a variety of ways: each has a reference to what is
becoming; but when women set up for genius or learning, all known
fashions are despised, and some outrageous singularity alone contents
them.  Just look round this room.  There is Hester herself: she is
young and handsome; but instead of taking advantage of her black
curls, she trains them up like a modern Frenchman.  If you only saw
her head, you would call it a boy's.  Then, again, next to her sits
Mrs. James Murch--she reads Greek, and writes verses; you see it by
the hair parted on one side, instead of in the centre, and by the
single curl plastered on her brow, emulous of a butcher boy.  There
is Miss Stoking--she writes history and talks about the
'Chronicles'--I see that in the row of flat curls on her forehead,
and in the adjustment of her back hair.  Miss Fuller must be a
philosophical woman, by the way in which all the hair is dragged off
her forehead.  That bony thing next to her must be a poetess, by the
audacity of her crop.  In fact, depend upon it, as there is a science
of phrenology, there is a science of hair."

These women did not, as may be guessed, give any additional charm to
Hester's parties, unless, indeed, in the shape of some fun.
Nevertheless, their presence was inexpressibly delightful to her, for
it was a sanction; and with all her sneers at the "conventions" of
society, Hester was most anxious to preserve them.

Cecil, who liked Hester very much, and was interested even in her
opinions which he did not share, was pitiless in his satire upon her
female friends; which I will not repeat here, lest the reader should
imagine that _I_ share the general dislike to clever women--a
conclusion against which I protest, and stoutly.  True, I am not so
blind an admirer of cleverness as to think it atones for the absence
of womanly grace, gentleness, lovingness, and liveliness; but, on the
other hand, some of the most charming women--and _womanly_ women
too--I have ever known, have been distinguished in literature and
art.  Will that avowal save me?

Hester forgave Cecil for his opinion, the more so as she shared it;
and although she combated his views on social matters as warmly as
ever, was falling over head and ears in love with him.

"You will come round to my way of thinking one day," she said; "so
elevated a mind as yours cannot long remain a slave to traditionary
sophisms; the Spirit of the Age will claim you."

"Pray," said Cecil, smiling, "can you explain to me what this spirit
of the age actually is?  I hear a great deal about it, and comprehend
nothing that I hear.  Is our age so very different from all those
that have gone before it?"

"Assuredly: it is the age of progress."

"Progress? but _that_ is the characteristic of all ages; society
never stands still."

"True, but sometimes it retrogrades, and now it advances.  My dear
Mr. Chamberlayne, you will not deny that the peculiarity of our age
is not only progress, but consciousness of progress."

"That is to say, I suppose, while our forefathers contented
themselves with advancing, we prate about our advance.  Now, of that
kind of consciousness I am as decided an enemy as Carlyle himself;
and his eloquent denunciations of it as the disease of our time find
full acceptance from me."

"Ah! my dear sir, Carlyle, with all his genius, does not understand
the historic development of humanity."

"Perhaps not; nor do I: though I have tried.  But it still seems to
me an evil, not a benefit, that our modern reformers are so very
conscious--"

"Stop!  You will not deny that every man should have a Purpose?"

Cecil, who knew this was one of the magnificent aphorisms of the
"earnest" school, paused for a reply.  Seeing him hesitate, Mr.
Jukes, a sickly red-haired republican, with a feeble falsetto voice,
stammered forth--

"Is it p-p-p-possible, Mr. Ch-ch-chamberlayne, you can hesitate to
p-p-pronounce that e-e-every man should have a p-p-p-purpose?"

There was something so marvellously ludicrous in the feebleness of
the individual, contrasted with the apparent vigour of his doctrine,
that Cecil could with difficulty restrain his laughter, and hastened
to say--

"By no means--by no means.  I presume every one _has_ a purpose; but,
then, the question is--what purpose?"

"If you admit," said Hester, "that a man must have a Purpose, it is
surely unreasonable to wish him not to be distinctly conscious of it:
then, only, can he best fulfil it; otherwise, he is a mere machine in
the hands of fortune.  I say, therefore, that the consciousness of
our age is the consciousness of progress; each man of any real
eminence has a Mission, and he knows it; that Mission is to get the
broad principles of Humanity in its entire Developments fully
recognised.  That Mission," she continued, with rising warmth, "is to
sweep from the face of the earth the worn-out sophisms which enslave
it; to give Mind its high Prerogatives; to cut from the heart of
society the cancer of Conventionalism which corrupts it; to place Man
in majestic antagonism to Convention; to erect the Banner of
Progress, and give the democratic Mind of Europe its unfettered
sphere of action."

"A grand scheme," replied Cecil, smiling; "but how is all this to be
accomplished?"

"By indomitable re-re-resolution; b-b-b-by f-f-f-ixity of
p-p-purpose," suggested Jukes.

"By a recognition of the rights of women," sternly remarked the
philosophical Mrs. Fuller.

"The Greeks," began Mrs. James Murch, "whose literature----"

Here she was interrupted by Miss Stoking, who thought that if readers
were not so fond of "trash," and would only look into the
"Chronicles," something considerable might result.

The epic poet--the celebrated author of "Mount Horeb, and other
Poems"--thought the age was not religious enough: there was not
enough divine aspiration in the souls of modern men to bring about
any grand revolution.

Mr. Blundell (the kind of "Boz," as his friends told him) thought
that there was a deficiency of wit, and referred to a "government
tempered with epigrams" as his ideal.

Hester would admit of nothing but the "broad Principles of Humanity:"
upon these she stood.

"My dear Miss Mason," said Mrs. Murch, "surely the Greeks, whose
literature----"

"And women?" interposed Mrs. Fuller.  "Are women not destined to play
a great part in the reformation of society?"

"Oh, yes!" replied Hester; "the greatest part--I am quite of your
opinion.  Society must be reorganized, and in its new structure women
must fill their proper place; they must be consulted--their rights
must be recognised.  You have no idea," she added, turning to Cecil,
"what an enormous difference there would be if society were
reconstructed with a view to the equal partition of power between man
and woman."

"I beg your pardon," he said, laughing; "I have a very formidable
idea of it.  In fact, I think there is already too great a
preponderance of female influence."

A chorus of indignant astonishment followed this from all the ladies,
except from Mrs. Murch, who, pertinaciously sticking to her yet
unexpressed idea, began--

"Now, my belief is that the Greeks, whose literature----"

"You protest," said Cecil, not noticing Mrs. Murch, "against my
dictum?  But hear me.  The gradual softening of manners, by
constraining men to relinquish their advantage in physical force, has
destroyed the balance of power, and _unbeaten woman_ has the upper
hand."

Hester laughed; the philosophical Mrs. Fuller frowned; and Mrs. Murch
fastened upon poor Blundell, to expatiate to him in confidence on the
literature of the Greeks; but even here she was not allowed to
proceed far before he interrupted her with the question--

"Had the Greeks a 'Boz?'"

She turned from him with a look of withering contempt.

All this while Frank Forrester was engaged at a corner card-table,
winning an ambitious young farce-writer's money at _écarté_; having
emptied his pockets of seven pounds and a few shillings, Frank rose
from the table and joined the talkers.  But Cecil's jest had changed
the conversation, and as it was getting late he prepared to depart.

"What! going so early?" reproachfully asked Hester.

Had Cecil been a vainer man, or one caring less for his wife, that
look and tone would have been plainly significant to him; but he
noticed nothing, and merely said--

"They are waiting up for me at home."

"And your wife will scold you," said she, pettishly.

"No; but worse than that--I shall reproach myself."

She gave him her hand coldly, and wished him good-night.




CHAPTER III.

THE TIGER TASTES BLOOD.

"Cis, my boy," said Frank, as they stepped into the street, "you have
made a conquest there; poor Chetsom!"

"Pshaw!" said Cecil, "don't be absurd, Frank; she knows I'm married."

Frank stopped--turned him round to look him full in the face--and
then whistled.

"Cis, your innocence--if it be not hypocrisy--is worthy of a
primitive age.  Married!  She knows you're married!  Ha! ha! ha!  By
George! you remind me of that vaudeville we saw last year at the
_Variétés_ in Paris, where Lafont embraces Ozy, who repulses him
with--_Mais, Mosieu, j'aime mon mari_; to which Lafont, stupefied at
such innocence, as I am at yours, replies--_Tiens! tu aimes ton mari?
c'est bizarre, sans doute; mais enfin ce n'est pas defendu!_"

"Joke as you please; I repeat, Hester knows I am married, and may
easily see that I have no disposition to be unfaithful."

"Cis, you ought to have a statue!  Damn my whiskers!"  They walked on
for some moments without speaking.  "By the way, Cis, you asked me to
lend you some money.  I hadn't it then, I have now.  I won a few
yellow boys of a conceited ass who had the amiable weakness of
fancying he could play _écarté_--and with me too--with me!  It is but
a paltry seven that I won, but that properly placed must bring in
more.  I think you have never played _rouge et noir_, have you?"

"Never; nor do I intend."

"Nonsense! look here: Men always win at first: it's an invariable
rule.  Fortune always seduces youngsters with smiles.  Now, I'll lend
you five pounds, if you will try your luck, and give me a third of
your winnings."

Cecil refused, was pressed, and refused again: but he never could
withstand Frank for any length of time, and ended by accompanying him
to a gambling-house.  They knocked at the door; and after a
scrupulous examination on the part of the porter, who did not at
first recognise Frank--no one being admitted except when introduced
by a frequenter of the house--they ascended to the drawing-room,
where they found a rather numerous assembly.

There were three tables.  That in the centre was the most attended:
it was the _rouge et noir_ table.  That on the left was devoted to
roulette; that on the right to hazard.  There was a low hubbub and
confusion of voices, above which rose these sounds:

"Make your game, gentlemen."

"The game is made."

"Seven's the main."

"Red wins."

Cecil approached the centre table, and was instantly made way for by
two lookers-on.  At the side centre sat the dealer, before him two
packs of cards placed together; beside him two croupiers.  Opposite
sat two croupiers, and a man who collected and shuffled the cards.
Piles of gold, bank notes, and silver counters were glittering on the
table, enough to awaken the spirit of gain in the most prudent breast.

It was a painful sight.  The features of the players were distorted
by anxiety; those of the dealer and croupiers had become hardened
into masks, more hideous in their sodden calmness than agitation
could have made them.

Painful, also, the contrasts afforded by the players.  Some were
reckless, others calculating; some were feverish in their impatience;
others lost in quiet despair small sums which to them were fortunes;
while several passed hours together pricking a card with a pin, and
trying to wrest the secret of the capricious goddess, by counting the
turns of her wheel; then, after as much calculation and patience as
would, if directed to any honest employment, have produced a tangible
result, hazarding their solitary half-crown, and losing it in
astonishment and dismay.

Seedy, withered men were also there, whose whole existence depended
upon their trivial gains; who daily risked their few shillings,
content to retire with a few shillings gain, which they took home to
their wretched families--and if they lost, content to abide the loss,
without further risk that day.  There was one man there who bore the
unmistakeable marks of a gentleman, in spite of the worn, anxious
face and seedy dress; he was never known to miss an evening, and
never to play more than four coups on each evening.  His stake was
invariably half a crown, and it was rare indeed that he did not win
three coups out of the four--timing his stake with such knowledge of
the chances.  With the seven and sixpence or ten shillings he thus
gained, he supported a wife and five children.

Is there not something singularly distressing in such an existence?
To struggle daily with the capricious turns of fortune for a
miserable three half-crowns, and to gain that only by consummate
self-mastery!  Yet there are men who choose such a life, rather than
one of honourable labour; men who have mastery enough over their
passions to be cool at the gaming-table, yet not sufficient mastery
to keep _from_ it!  This would be inexplicable did we not know the
powerful attraction of all exciting uncertainty: did we not recognise
the inherent desire for emotional excitement which is implanted in
every heart.  In honourable labour such men have not learnt to seek
their excitement--they find it at the gaming-table; and hence the
fascination of gaming.  It is to be noted, in confirmation of what
has just been said, that inveterate gamesters are thoroughly aware of
the enormous disadvantage at which they play--thoroughly convinced
the bank must win--yet they play!

The scene was new to Cecil, and affected him painfully, as it always
does those who are not carried away by the passion of gaming; but he
was there to play _once_, and he surmounted his disgust; inwardly
vowing that whatever might be the fortune of that night, he would
never repeat the experiment.

The room was singularly quiet, considering how many persons were
assembled.  The sounds of bottles being uncorked, the clatter of
glasses, and the chink of money were distinctly audible; conversation
being carried on for the most part in whispers.

Cecil played.  Frank, trusting entirely to the good fortune which so
proverbially favours beginners, abstained from giving him any advice.
He played at random and lost.  His five pounds were soon gone.  Frank
slipped the other two into his hand; they followed the others.  As
the last crown disappeared, Cecil saw a young man heap together a
pile of notes and sovereigns; huddling them into his pocket, he
called for some champagne, and having drunk it, departed.  He came
down stairs at the same moment with Frank and Cecil, in high spirits.

"That's what we ought to have done," said Frank.

"Why did you force me to play?" said Cecil, bitterly; like all weak
men, throwing the blame of his own folly upon others.

"Who the devil would have supposed you could lose the first time?"

"Well--it is a bit of experience.  Perhaps I have bought it cheap
after all."

He walked home, however, as angry as if he were by no means so
satisfied with the bargain; and Blanche, who was sitting up for him
as usual, was surprised to find him so out of humour.  He was
sometimes tired when he came home, but always ready to talk freely
with her, and recount the adventures of the day.  That night he was
taciturn, and gave evasive short replies to all her questions; till
at last she saw that he was unwilling to talk, and left him in peace.

He was restless that night.  It was long before he went to sleep; and
when he did fall into a fitful doze, he was troubled by strange
dreams of the gaming-table.  Sometimes he was playing with a pile of
notes before him; sometimes he had lost every shilling, and awoke in
his despair--to find himself in bed.




CHAPTER IV.

THE YOUNG FATHER.

  Life is too short for mean anxieties;
  Soul! thou must work, though blindfold.
              KINGSLEY.--_The Saints' Tragedy._


The next morning Cecil had almost regained his cheerfulness.  The
thought of last night's loss would occasionally dash his spirits, for
seven pounds, in his situation, was not a trifling sum.

"When is your mother going to send us any money?" he said; "does she
imagine we can get on without it?"

"I expect her every day; but perhaps, dear, she has not been able to
save any."

"Pshaw! if she chose----!"

"When will your opera be ready, dearest?"

"I'm sure I don't know--but soon, I hope.  Something must be done,
Blanche, for our condition is really pitiable.  Thank God, we have no
children!"

Blanche trembled, and coloured violently as he said this; but
summoning courage, she laid her hand upon his shoulder and asked,--

"Why thank God for that, Cecil?"

"Why? because it is a great blessing."

"And should we not think children a blessing?

"No!"

She hesitated; and then went on,--

"Do you mean to say, Cecil, you would not be very proud and very
happy to dandle a child of your own--with your own dear eyes and
lovely smile?"

"No; I don't like brats."

"But your children would not be brats.  Oh! you would love them, I
know you would; you would be as proud of them as I should.  Only
think, how darling it would be to have a little cherub here with
us----"

"Yes, yes--there's the sentimentality of women!  They only think of
the cherub--not of the red, squalling, slobbering, troublesome baby.
They only think of the pleasure of dandling, kissing, hugging,
dressing, and attending on it;--it is a plaything to them, and they
never think of the expense."

"No, dearest Cecil, they do not; nor would _you_.  The love for our
offspring which God has planted in our hearts, is too pure, too
healthy and unselfish, not to override every other feeling.  The
poorest parents are always glad to have more children, because more
children means more love."

A sudden suspicion crossed him; he seized hold of her, and looking
closely in her face, said,--

"Blanche, it strikes me you have some motive for pleading in this way
in favour of children.  I never heard you so eloquent before.  Let me
know the worst.  Are you----?"

She hid her blushing face in his bosom, and pressed him to her
convulsively.

"The devil!" was his brutal exclamation.

A vision of a large family and destitution stood before him, and his
heart sank at the prospect.

"Are you not glad?" she asked him gently, not raising her face from
its resting-place.

"Glad!" he exclaimed with vehemence, "glad at the prospect of
bringing children to share our poverty?  Glad, when I know not how we
are to exist ourselves, to learn that fresh burdens are come upon us?
This is a nice place to rear a child in!  It will have every comfort;
we shall be so comfortable: such a nursery!  And when I come home
harassed from my day's work, wanting repose and quiet, a squalling
baby will be so pleasant!  Glad; yes, yes, there's a great deal to be
glad about!"

She crept from him, and sank upon a chair.

"How the child is to be provided for, God only knows.  We can't stop
here.  They would not keep us with the nuisance of a child in the
house.  We must seek some miserable lodging of our own, and there
live squalidly.  And to think of your being rejoiced at such an
event: that is so like women!"

Her little heart was breaking, and half stifled sobs burst from her
as he continued.  It was indeed a fearful trial for the young mother!
She had hoped to see him as proud and happy as herself; she had hoped
that the child would be a fresh link between them--a link which, by
making their poor home more cheerful to him, would have kept him
oftener with her.  And this was his answer!

She covered her face in her hands, and wept scalding tears of
heart-breaking misery.

Her sobs pierced his heart; he could not withstand them.  He loved
her too dearly to see her sorrowing unmoved; and forgetting in that
sight all his selfish fears and calculations, he caught her in his
arms and exclaimed, "Blanche--my own beautiful Blanche! don't cry--I
am a brute--I did not mean it--indeed I did not.  Look up.  There;
see, I _am_ glad; I will be glad.  You are right.  My fears were
foolish.  We shall be all the happier!  Don't sob so, my blessed
one--you kill me!"

"Oh, Cecil, Cecil!" she sobbed, as she threw her arms round him
convulsively.

"My own pet, don't cry now.  I was taken by surprise.  I only thought
of our poverty.  You are right.  Poorer people are happy in their
children, why should we not be?  Dry your eyes, beauty.  There; you
see I am quite come round.  I hope it will be a girl: a dear little
petkin, just like its darling mother.  Fancy a toddling Blanche!
won't it be a beauty?  It must be christened Blanche--eh?  Or suppose
it's a boy, what name shall we give it?  Tell me, beauty."

She only kissed him feverishly; she could not speak: her trembling
agitation was not yet subdued, and the tears continued to fall fast.

"What a Turk he will be; won't he?  Just like his mother--you are a
Turk, you know, pet!"

Blanche smiled faintly.

"There, you begin to smile--that's right.  I see I am forgiven.  Dry
your eyes, they are quite swollen.  You don't look at all handsome
when you cry--no, not at all.  There, now you laugh you are yourself
again--laugh away those tears, or I will take your portrait as you
are, and your children shall see their mother as the Niobe of the
nineteenth century.  Will you be painted as Niobe?"

She laughed again, but it was slightly hysterical.  However, by
caresses and cajoleries, he brought her round at last, and her eyes
were dried.  They were soon talking over the prospects of their
children, as if nothing had occurred; an occasional sigh--the mere
physical effect of previous grief--alone recalling the moment of
agony she had escaped.  Cecil was afraid to leave her, lest she
should relapse, so he proposed to take her into town to see the
exhibition of old paintings at the British Institution.

Blanche was perfectly happy.  She had been but too readily persuaded
that he was, on reflection, really delighted at the prospect of a
family; she wished so to believe it!  And he was more charming and
cajoling than ever.

Had she loved him less, the foregoing scene would have completely
disenchanted her; but love sealed her eyes, and she saw no
selfishness, no unmanly weakness in his horror at the idea of a
child.  She saw nothing, in fact, but what he chose her to see: his
affection, and his warm caressing manners.

Although Cecil never again allowed Blanche to suspect that he was
otherwise than delighted, and although he even tried to convince
himself that, after all, there was nothing disagreeable in having a
family; that it was one of the inevitable conditions of marriage, and
therefore should be accepted with cheerful resignation; yet did the
idea frequently depress him.

This much is to be urged in favour of the unwillingness of fathers to
incur the burden of children: that while the maternal instinct from
the very first--nay, even in girlhood--makes the woman look forward
with anticipative joy to the time of becoming a mother, the paternal
instinct is seldom developed until the child is actually there to
call it forth.  Fathers love their children as much, or nearly so, as
mothers; but fathers do not, as mothers do, love _prospective_
children.  The man contemplates the expense, trouble, and
responsibility of children, which the woman, with beautiful
improvidence, never thinks about; but when the children are born, the
man joins the woman in forgetting, in their joy, the drawbacks to
their joy.

Cecil was just the man to make a doating spoiling father to the very
child whose announcement made him so serious.

The seriousness with which he accepted his lot would have been
incalculably beneficial to him, had he possessed a grain or two more
of moral resolution.  It impressed him once more with the conviction
of the necessity for work.  It stimulated him again to daily labour.
Warned by the state of his finances, he relinquished the idle
dreaming of genius awaiting inspiration, and began to set his
shoulder to the wheel.

So strenuously did he work, that in less than three weeks he finished
his comic opera, words and music, and had now to begin the arduous
task of getting it performed.




CHAPTER V.

RENUNCIATION.

  J'aurais dans ta mémoire une place sacrée;
  Mais vivre près de toi, vivre l'âme ulcérée,
  O ciel! moi qui n'aurais jamais aimé que toi,
  Tous les jours, peux-tu bien y songer sans effroi,
  Je te ferais pleurer, j'aurais mille pensées
  Que je ne dirais pas, sur les choses passées
  J'aurais l'air d'épier, de douter, de souffrir.
                      VICTOR HUGO.--_Marion de Lorme._


The termination of Cecil's opera was coincident with that fearful
scene recorded at the close of our second volume, wherein Marmaduke
avowed his passion to Violet, and unwittingly achieved his vengeance
upon Mrs. Vyner.

On quitting the room, Violet had promised him to renew their
interrupted interview, but she had made that promise unthinkingly,
and when in solitude she reflected on all that had passed, felt
herself unequal to it.  Greatly had Marmaduke's confession relieved
her, but greatly also had it pained her.

She could now indulge her love for him without remorseful bitterness
and contempt, though not with any hope.  He was reinstated in her
good opinion.  He was not false and fickle.  He had not loved Mrs.
Vyner.  His attentions--those attentions which had given her such
pain--were explained; and in her joy at the explanation, she
overlooked what had been criminal in them, to see only that they did
not affect his love for her.  Well was it conceived by the
mythologists to make Love blind!

But this joy was dashed with the recollection that he never could be
hers.  All that had transpired would prevent their union.  Neither
her father nor her step-mother could be expected to give their
consent; and with their consent, if it were given, she still felt
that her own must be withheld.  How could she ever accept the man who
had been both seriously and treacherously the lover of her father's
wife--the man whom that wife loved?

The horrible sarcasm in which Mrs. Vyner bade her "accept her
leavings," still rankled in the proud soul of Violet, and created an
irremediable loathing.  It was under these mixed emotions that she
sat down and wrote the following letter:--

"Your frankness deserves a frank reply.  I feel myself unable to meet
you again, after what has passed,--you must understand why; but I
cannot refuse an answer to your declaration.

"If it be any consolation--if it alleviate the pain my resolution may
inflict upon you--know that your love is returned.  Yes, Marmaduke, I
love you.  I tell you so without reserve, without maidenly timidity.
I love you.  But the very fearlessness with which I make this avowal
arises from the fixedness of my purpose.  It is because I can never
see you again, because our union has become _impossible_, that I am
tempted to unveil my soul before you.  No, Marmaduke, I was not
playing with you; I was not encouraging attentions because they
flattered my vanity--I encouraged them because I loved.

"You asked me for forgiveness; and the deep sad tones of your
repentant voice are ringing in my ears.  I do forgive you, Marmaduke;
forgive you all the pain your conduct gave me--I can excuse your
error.  I can feel that it was a crime made almost venial by the
circumstances and your education.  The moment when, with vengeance in
your hands, you drew back from its accomplishment, and acknowledged
to yourself that it was unworthy of a man, that it was a crime, not
an act of justice--that moment purified your soul--that moment
redeemed you in your own eyes and in mine.

"But, Marmaduke, I cannot _forget_ as easily as I can forgive.
Nothing can banish from my mind the hideous remembrance of what _has
been_, and what _is_.  The thought that you had once loved _her_
would poison all my happiness; and the thought that she still loves
you ... Oh! is that not fearful?  You see how undisguisedly I write
to you!  It tears me to pieces, but it must be done, once for all.  I
shall not write again.  I shall not see you again.  Far away from
you, I shall struggle with my sorrow, and conquer it, I hope, in
time.  Far away from you, I shall not cease to think of you; and
memory will solace me with your image, I shall hear your voice, see
your deep eyes loving me, press your hand, and so cheat my misery.
But away from you I must go.  Must I not?  Do you not see the
necessity?  Do you not feel that our union is utterly hopeless?  How
could we escape the circumstances of our unhappy lot?  My father
would never consent--_she_ would never consent; and if I renounced
all, if I fled with you from home and country, how could I escape
from my own conscience? how could I forget?

"I renounce the hope of happiness.  I have only now to bear with
fortitude my wretched fate.  Forget me, Marmaduke.  No, that is an
idle phrase--I do not mean it.  Do not forget me; think of me, think
of me often, and love me still, if you can; at least pity me, and
imitate me.  Accept fate; bow your head to its irresistible decree;
but do not despair.  Life has other purposes than love; other
purposes even than happiness; let those occupy you.  In this life we
are separated, but we shall meet above.  It is but a brief moment's
pain, and we shall then pass away into a brighter, purer sphere, and
have a whole Eternity to love in; there our sorrows will be stilled;
that let us await!

"I have stained this paper with my tears--I will not affect to hide
them.  I must weep, for my heart is breaking, Marmaduke; but I shall
not flinch.  I know what it is I am about to do; know how much pain
it will give me; but I can do it, and I will.  Weep I must, for I am
a woman; but I can endure.

"If my tears make this almost illegible, do not suppose that they
will weaken me.  I am unalterable.  Tears strengthen me; they relieve
the tightness of my straining heart; I do not check them.  I shall
shed many, very many, ere I quit this world; but life itself is very
short, and I look beyond the grave.

"God bless you, my own beloved, and give you courage to bear the
inevitable!  Love me, and pray for me.  God bless you!  Oh, how it
pains me to say--farewell!

"VIOLET."


This letter was put into the post as the miserable girl departed from
home, on a visit to her uncle in Worcestershire, with whom she
contemplated passing the remainder of her days; certain that he would
be but too happy to have her, and feeling that home was now
uninhabitable.




CHAPTER VI.

MAN PURIFIED BY EXPERIENCE.

  My desolation does begin to make
  A better life.
        SHAKSPEARE.--_Antony and Cleopatra._


Who shall describe the delight and grief of Marmaduke on reading that
letter?  She loved him; but she refused him.  He saw as plainly as
she did the reason of her refusal, and bitterly cursed himself for
having drawn such a net around him.  But was there no issue?  Could
nothing be devised which would in some way remove this obstacle?
Nothing, nothing.

He called and was refused admittance.  He wrote to Rose, who replied
that her sister had left London, but had enjoined inviolable secrecy
as to the place of her destination.

Marmaduke had nothing to do but await in sullen despair the hazard
which might again bring him into communication with Violet, having
failed in all attempts to get a clue to her present residence.  But
she loved him; that was a sweet thought to alleviate his sorrow: she
loved him; and with that conviction he could afford to await events.

He ceased almost to hold communication with the world; shut up in his
study he led a solitary, meditative, studious life, strangely at
variance with his former occupations.  A noble resolution had taken
possession of his soul; the conviction that he was loved by so great
a woman made him desirous of becoming more worthy of her love.
Knowing Violet's high thoughts and sympathy with greatness, he
resolved to make a name.  Parliament, the great field of Englishmen's
ambition, was the arena chosen for the contest.  His previous
education had but ill-fitted him to make a display there; yet to
strong will, energy, and ability what can be denied?

He set himself to the task with the impetuous ardour which
characterized all his acts.  He studied history, political economy,
and what may be called political ethics.  He read and re-read the
orators, ancient and modern, not with a view of copying their
peculiarities, but to draw therefrom certain general conclusions
respecting the art by which masses of men are swayed.  Burke, the
great thinker, great orator, and incomparable writer, was his
constant companion.

In this solitude his mind became strengthened, nourished, and
enlarged, and at the same time his moral nature became more developed
and purified.  Nothing could ever eradicate certain defects of his
organization--defects which were the shadows thrown by his best
qualities.  Nothing could ever have made him calm, moderate,
unprejudiced, or self-sacrificing.  Passionate, reckless, and
excitable Nature had made him; and no education, no trials could
alter his disposition.  But these very qualities, with their
accompanying defects, fitted him for an orator, whose splendid
enthusiasm, overbearing impetuosity, audacious courage, and
irresistible bursts of passion were capable of swaying mankind.  He
was born to command and to lead; education and a high purpose were
now fitting him for the office.

While he was thus acquiring the means wherewith an honourable name is
made, he was also gaining those clear moral ideas by which alone a
great name can long be honourably maintained.  The more he became
aware of the imperishable importance of high morality, the more
painfully did he recoil at the remembrance of his unpardonable
conduct with Mrs. Vyner.  The clearer his moral perceptions grew, the
more iniquitous, the more contemptible appeared his passion for
vengeance.

"What must Violet think of me?" was his frequent self-questioning;
and he shuddered at the idea.  Henry Taylor has profoundly said, that
conscience is, in most men, the anticipation of the opinion of
others.  It is so in all men.  It is the horror we feel at
contemplating the probable judgment which those we respect and love
will form on our acts.  So it was with Marmaduke.  He had learned to
view his conduct in its true light; he doubted not that Violet must
look at it with the same loathing; and bitter reproaches assailed
him.  Often and often did he dwell upon that part of her letter
wherein she excused him; but it seemed so slight, he could not
believe her wholly sincere.  She was sincere when she wrote it, but
would not subsequent reflection show her, as it had shown him, the
whole affair under another aspect?  It would--it must.

He forgot one thing: that he looked upon his error with the anxious
and probing severity of one who repents, and that she looked upon it
with the blindness of one who loves!

For the sake of clearness, I have told you in this chapter the
history of several months, and may now leave Marmaduke at his studies
to return to the other persons whose fortunes were more varied.




CHAPTER VII.

POOR VYNER.

  Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turned,
  Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
                                          BYRON.


When Meredith Vyner came into the drawing-room and found his wife
senseless on the floor, he imagined she had been seized with a fit,
for he was unaware of Marmaduke having been in the house.  Mrs. Vyner
availed herself of the supposition, and so escaped irritating
inquiries; she just mentioned that she had been very much distressed
and excited that morning, and that doubtless her fit had been greatly
owing to it.

"And what distressed you, my love?"

"Oh, I cannot tell you."

"Yes; do dear, do tell me."

"Will you promise not to mention a word of it to Violet?"

"I will."

"Well, then, it was on her account.  You know how I wished for a
match between her and young Ashley?  You know his audacious love for
me?  I tried to make him relinquish his foolish hopes--I tried to
lead him to think of her.  He scorned the idea--vowed he loved me and
only me--and was so violent that I was obliged to order him to quit
the house, and never to re-enter it.  He left me in a great passion.
It is a rupture for ever."

Instead of feeling in the least distressed at this rupture, Meredith
Vyner could not conceal his joy.  What cared he for Violet's
sorrow--was not his rival got rid of?

He redoubled his attentions to his wife--now wholly his, he
thought!--and felt that the great misery he had dreaded was now
forever banished.  When Violet came to him, therefore, to ask his
permission to go down to her uncle, he gave it willingly, and without
inquiry.

Marmaduke dismissed, how happy now would the house be!  Mary would
again become the sprightly, cajoling, attentive wife; she would again
come into his study to hear him read aloud; would again interest
herself in Horace.  By the way, he had sadly neglected Horace of
late; not a single emendation had been made; not a note written.
That could not continue.  He had no time to lose.  He was no longer
young.  If age should creep on before he had finished that great
work, what a loss to literature!

Alas! neither home nor Horace profited by this dismissal of a rival.
The attentive wife grew pettish, irritable, and more avowedly
indifferent than ever.  Her health was seriously affected.  She was
subject to hysterics, which came on apparently without cause.  Her
gaiety had entirely disappeared, and she was often found in tears.
She would rally from time to time, and endeavour, in incessant
dissipation, to escape from the torment of her thoughts; but this
never lasted long; she soon relapsed again into a capricious,
fretful, malicious, melancholy state of mind.

She had, indeed, received a deep wound.  That conscience which, in
its anticipation of the opinion of others, so troubled the studious
Marmaduke, was an awful retribution on Mrs. Vyner.  The thought that
he had duped her and had excited her love--for she had loved
him--merely as a means of revenge, was of itself sufficient to rouse
her to exasperation; but when to that was added the thought of Violet
knowing it--of the detested Violet who had always seen through and
scorned her, and who now held the secret of her guilty passion--it
became a rankling poison in her soul.  Nor was the fury of jealousy
absent.  This villain who had played with her, did he not love the
haughty girl who despised her?

The poor old pedant was at a loss to comprehend the cause of his
wife's conduct.  She could not love Marmaduke, or why should she
dismiss him; yet, if she did not love him, why was she so miserable?

In vain he tried by kindness to revive within her that semblance of
affection with which she had hitherto cheated him.  She ceased all
hypocrisy, though hypocrisy would have been kindness.  She received
his demonstrations of affection with exasperating indifference, and
when he, on one or two occasions, endeavoured to exert his
authority--for he was master in his own house, he supposed--she only
laughed at him.

The poor old man retired to his books, but not to read; in mute
distress he ruminated on the change which had taken place, and sat
there helpless and hopeless.  He tried to forget these painful
thoughts in occupying himself with his great work; but he sat there,
the book open before him, the pen idle in his hand, and the snuff-box
his only consolation.

His domestic peace was gone, and he began to perceive it.




CHAPTER VIII.

REHEARSAL OF THE OPERA.

"Good news, pet," said Cecil, dancing into the room one afternoon.
"Moscheles, whom I meet sometimes, you know, at Hester Mason's, has
looked over my opera, and likes it very much; he has even proposed
that we should have a sort of private rehearsal of it at his house
next week, and has undertaken to secure the singers, and Bunn is to
be there to hear it."

"That is good news, indeed."

"Yes, we shall be rich now.  It has given me fresh courage: I feel I
can finish _Nero_."

"Mama has been here to-day with Rose, and has brought us thirty
pounds.  She is very ill--very ill indeed, and the physicians don't
know what is the matter.  Rose and Violet are already busy with the
baby linen, and Rose insists upon being godmother."

"With all my heart!  I'm so happy, petkin!" and he danced about the
room like a schoolboy on receiving intelligence of a half-holiday.

"We must move away from this hole at once, pet.  We will take
comfortable apartments somewhere."

"Let us rather wait awhile: the opera is not accepted yet, you know."

"But it will be, and it must succeed--I feel it must."

The gleam of hope which now shone on his prospects made Cecil almost
another man.  He worked steadily at "Nero," and finished it before
the hearing of his opera took place.  It was sent to the Academy.
When it took its place in the Exhibition it would infallibly excite a
sensation: crowds would gaze enraptured on it: critics would proclaim
its merits in all the journals, and some nobleman of taste would
become the proud purchaser.  Their prospects were brilliant.  Happy
dreams of young ambition in its first struggles with circumstance!
How many a sad spirit have ye not soothed and strengthened!

The hearing of his opera took place.  Moscheles himself presided at
the piano, playing the accompaniments and overture with his exquisite
skill.  Henry Phillips, Wilson, Stretton, and a certain prima donna,
who shall be nameless, were the singers, Cecil undertaking some of
the minor parts.  The choruses were omitted; only the solos and
concerted pieces were executed, but they gave general satisfaction.

Private rehearsals, like private readings, are, however, always
successful, and a little excellence produces a great effect on
friendly auditors.  The singer thought so great by his friends, whose
success at parties is so brilliant, finds to his cost that concert
rooms and audiences are not so easily pleased.  Bunn had experience
enough of such matters to be aware of all this, and though he saw a
chance of success with the opera, he was rather guarded in his
language.  On the whole, however, he was disposed to give the work a
trial.

That satisfied Cecil.  He thought, the first step gained, the victory
was his.  Experience came with its bitter lesson to undeceive him.
In the dramatic world, success is only purchased by a series of
hard-won battles.  In no province of human endeavour has a man to
endure more thankless labour; in no province is luck more potent.  To
write a play or an opera is the smallest of the artist's
difficulties.  Once written, he has to get the manager's acceptance:
few things more arduous than that, if the artist be not already
celebrated.  Cecil had by a fortunate accident achieved this feat.  A
manager had listened to and approved of his work.  In his innocence,
Cecil imagined the day was his own.  He knew nothing of actors and
singers.  The prima donna absolutely declined to perform her part; so
did the second tenor.  And their reasons?  Their reasons were simply
these:--

The heroine of the opera was a Miss Hopkins, daughter of a vulgar
cheesemonger.  H. Phillips was willing to play the cheesemonger, but
the prima donna would not play the daughter.  She had been used to
play spangled princesses, with feathers in her hair; or picturesque
peasants, with short petticoats and striped stockings; and the idea
of her appearing as a cheesemonger's daughter, minus spangles,
feathers, short petticoats, and striped stockings!  In vain it was
represented to her that the opera was a comic opera; she did not wish
to excite laughter, but sentiment; and she was dogged in her
resolution.

The second tenor was a sentimental warbler.  He not only objected to
Wilson playing the best part, he also objected to his own part us
"out of his line."

Owing to the beautiful arrangements of our dramatic system, the
"stars" have not only absolute right to dictate to authors and
composers, but also, in effect to dictate to managers.  They would
all cut down a play or an opera to single parts if they could; and
while ludicrously sensitive to their own reputation, are
remorselessly indifferent to the author's, as well as to the
manager's purse.

What would Shakspeare, Jonson, Moliere, or Calderon say, could they
rise from their graves to witness our beautiful dramatic system?  How
is it some Churchill does not take the whip in hand to lash this
miserable arrogance of the stage?  While vanity, pretension, and
injustice, in other shapes, are laughed at and exposed, why do they
escape when they appear in the preposterous demands of actors,
singers, and dancers?

In his indignation, Cecil wrote a satire.  Unfortunately he was not a
Churchill: his satire was violent, but weak, and weak because of its
violence.  Besides, he was fighting his own cause; _indignatio fecit
versum_, and the public only saw an angry author smarting from
imaginary or exaggerated injuries.

Cecil's discouragement may be imagined.  He who at no time was able
to contend manfully against obstacles, was the last person to rise
with the occasion and vanquish opposition by determined will.

To complete his discouragement the Exhibition had opened, and no
wondering crowds collected round his "Nero."  Very few of the critics
noticed it, and they noticed it coldly or contemptuously.  One who
recognised a certain grandeur in the idea, was pitiless in his
criticism of the execution; which he pronounced "crude," "chalky,"
"opaque," "slovenly," and "incorrect."

Cecil sneered at the "envy" and "ignorance" of the critics, as
authors usually sneer at those who do not admire them; though why a
man who does not paint, should be "envious" of a man who paints
badly, I have not yet discovered.  Vauvenargues has an admirable
remark: "Un versificateur ne connait point de juge compétent de ses
écrits: si on ne fait pas de vers on ne s'y connait pas; si on en
fait on est son rival."  How constantly do painters illustrate this
remark!

Cecil parodied Coriolanus, and to his critics said "I banish you."
He wrapped himself up in his own greatness, and waited the impartial
judgment of enlightened judges.  By impartial, he meant favourable:
that is the meaning of the word in every artist's lexicon.  No one,
it would seem, was enlightened enough, for no one talked about
"Nero;" above all, no one thought of purchasing it.  The "envy" of
critics seemed to have been shared by connoisseurs and noblemen.

There is something really tragic in certain conditions to which men
of superior faculties are daily subject, in their efforts to cut a
pathway for themselves through the crowded avenues of fame.  Fancy
the poor poet unable to find a publisher, and unable to print his
work himself.  He cannot now, as heretofore, stand up in the
market-place, and so get a hearing.  The press is the only possible
mode of proclaiming to the world, that which the poet feels will
rouse that world to rapture, and will make him a sort of demigod.
Fancy the young barrister sitting in his chambers day after day, in
fruitless expectation of a brief.  He cannot offer his services: he
must wait till they be demanded.  He can _do_ nothing; but must sit
there day after day, day after day, seeing little chance of being
required, yet forced to remain there on the chance.  Fancy also the
painter who sees persons crowding the Exhibition, passing over his
work, to look out for the works of favourite artists, giving handsome
sums for various pictures, yet making no offer for his.  Day after
day this is renewed, till the last hope ends with the closing of the
Exhibition, and he is then forced to congratulate himself, if the
dealers will give him a small sum for what he considers _a
chef-d'œuvre_.

The parent who has seen and reflected upon this, and yet educates his
son as an artist, because it is a "fine thing" to be an artist; the
parent who suffers his self-love to blind him to his child's want of
a decided genius, and chooses to call an ordinary aptitude "genius,"
is with selfish vanity destroying that child's future hopes of
success in life.  Music, painting, and sculpture, are arts founded on
instincts so strong, and so unmistakeable in their early
manifestation that unless the child very early exhibits extraordinary
faculty for the arts, the parent should take Nature's warning; and
not endeavour by cultivation to raise that flower which only grows
wild in the secret spots Nature herself selects.




CHAPTER IX.

CECIL SUCCUMBS.

  Now why must I disturb a dream of bliss,
  And bring cold sorrow 'twixt the wedded kiss?
  How mar the fate of beauty, and disclose
  The weeping days that with the morning rose.
                              LEIGH HUNT.--_Rimini._


Ever since that night when Cecil had first entered a gambling-house,
and lost the few pounds Frank had lent him, the image of the joyous
winner huddling the notes and gold into his pocket pursued him like a
phantom.  He had resolved to play no more; he could not afford to
lose; and his first venture had been so unfortunate, that he could
not hope hazard would be in his favour.  Men have extraordinary
practical belief or disbelief in their own "luck."  Ask a man if he
seriously, theoretically believes in anything of the kind, and he
will answer, No.  Yet that very man puts his name down in a raffle,
or cuts cards against an adversary, or stakes large sums on any game
of chance, "because he always wins"--because "he is so lucky."

Cecil believed himself to be "unlucky."  He was therefore averse to
gambling.  He had played, and--"it was so like his luck"--although
the first time, yet he lost.

In spite of this conviction, the image of that fortunate winner with
his file of notes and sovereigns, _would_ force itself upon him.
While he was painting--while he was reading--at his meals--during his
walks--while dozing in bed--that figure stood before him crumpling
the notes, calling joyously for the champagne, and sauntering down
stairs in thorough self-content.  In his imagination he followed that
young man through a series of fortunate nights, during which he had
amassed a large sum, with which he purchased a charming little house
in the country, and foreswore the gaming-table for ever.  It was a
most coherent story, coherent as imagination loves to be.

The real story may be told in few words: three weeks after that
prosperous night, the winner, utterly ruined, poisoned himself!

Had Cecil known the real story it might have made him pause; but he
only knew what he had seen, and fancy supplied the rest.

Like a tempting fiend did this image of the winner pursue
him--seductive, irritating; he tried to banish it by thinking of his
constant ill-luck, but it would return, and his present
discouragement made the temptation stronger.  By art he could not
live.  The age was too material; the country too commercial.  Why
should he struggle and starve when the gaming-table offered its
facile resources?

"Frank," said he, "I wish you would take me again to Jermyn-street."

"What! you want to try another _coup_?"

"Yes; I have a presentiment I shall win.  At any rate, it is worth
risking a few pounds."

"I am going there this evening.  Dine with me at the club.  I will
explain to you an infallible martingale by which we _must_ win.
Damme, I'll break all the banks in London."

"How? how?"

"You know enough, Cis, of the game to understand my explanation.  The
martingale is this: always to back the winning colour, and double
your losses till you win.  Look'ye here--Suppose I place a pound on
the red, and black wins; black is then the winning colour and I back
it; but having lost, I must double my stake: so I put two pounds on
the black.  Well, red wins, damme its eyes!  I have lost three
pounds.  What do I? place _four_ pounds on the red, which is then the
winning colour.  If red wins again, I have recovered my three pounds
staked, and one pound over.  I back red again, and again, so long as
red continues to win.  Directly black wins, I double my stake, and
regain my loss."

"I see, I see!"

"It's as clear as day.  The only possibility of losing is, that red
and black should alternately win all the night through; but as that
never has been known, we must not think of such a chance."

"But then you only win your original stake each time?"

"Of course; but you are _sure_ to win it.  The only objection to our
putting our scheme in practice is the absolute necessity for a large
sum of money to begin with."

"How so, Frank?"

"Why, my dear fellow, you've no idea how doubling your stake mounts
up.  To stake a sovereign, and lose ten _coups_, you must have at
least six hundred pounds in hand; for the stakes run one, two, four,
eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty-eight,
two hundred and fifty-six, five hundred and twelve, and so on."

"Whew!"

"That's it."

"And we stake five hundred pounds to win a sovereign?"

"Just so.  Unless you play the martingale strictly, you cannot be
certain of winning: but you _must_ win if you play it."

"Ah! well, then I must give up the idea, for I cannot raise the
money.  Never mind, I'll let chance play for me; martingale or no
martingale."

That night they went to the house in Jermyn-street, where Cecil had
first played.

Frank won five and forty pounds.

Cecil lost every penny.

"Frank, lend me five pounds: I am desperate."

"Here they are, old boy.  Play cautiously."

Cecil seized them with a greedy clutch.

"Make your game, gentlemen," said the dull-eyed dealer.

Cecil threw the five sovereigns on the red.

The cards were dealt with leisurely precision.

"_Après_," said the dealer.

The croupiers, in accordance with the laws of the same, deducted half
the stakes on the table.

"Is that your caution, Cis?" whispered Frank.

"It is my desperation," he said between his teeth.

"Make your game, gentlemen!"

"The game is made."

"Red wins."

The perspiration burst from Cecil's pores, the tightening suffocation
in his breast was relieved.  He allowed the money to remain in its
place again to take its fortune.

"Make your game, gentlemen," said the dealer in his unvarying voice.

"The game is made."

"Red wins."

There were now ten pounds upon the red belonging to Cecil.

"Take up five," suggested Frank.

"No: hit or miss: I risk all."

The gambler's recklessness possessed him; he was in such a state of
excitement that he knew not what he did.

"Red wins," again said the dealer.

Twenty pounds were now heaped upon the red.

"Shall you keep the stake there, sir?" asked a smiling gentleman with
bushy whiskers, who had taken great interest in the game.

"Yes," said Cecil, resolutely.

"Then I shall back against you," said the smiling gentleman, twirling
a whisker round his finger, and throwing half a crown upon the black,
with the air of a man undertaking an important enterprise.

"Red wins," again said the dealer.

"There's a run upon the red," sighed the bushy-whiskered gentleman,
as his half-crown was raked away, and forty pounds stood there as
Cecil's winnings.  "I shall back you this time, sir; you are
fortune's favourite, sir.  Take a pinch of snuff, sir."

And with recovered hilarity he offered the box to Cecil, who bowed
coldly, and took a pinch.

"Make your game, gentlemen," said the dealer.

"Try the red again, Cis," said Frank, "but take up five pounds to
guard against accident."  He staked twenty pounds himself upon the
red.

Cecil followed his advice: he had now five and thirty pounds staked.

"The game is made."

"Wait a minute," said the bushy-whiskered gentleman; "I have not yet
staked."

He threw down a half-crown upon the red.  These three were the only
players who backed the red; upwards of two hundred pounds were on the
black; and the coup was watched with breathless anxiety.

With unimpassioned, inexpressive face did the dealer throw down the
cards, as if all the chances of the game which so excited the players
were powerless upon him.

"Red wins," he again said, in his hollow indifferent voice.

Cecil raked the seventy pounds towards him in a sort of delirium: the
sight of the gold was to him like a vision of fairy land.

The smiling snuff-taker snatched up his five shillings, and again
requested him to take a pinch.

"Pretty game, sir; very pretty, when fortune takes you in hand."

"We had better cut now," said Frank.

"Not yet."

"Yes, Cis; come while you've got the money.  Don't tempt your luck
too far."

"I must--I will play another coup.  I'll try the red once more."

"Don't: be advised, Cis, don't."

"I must."

"Well, then, wait till the next.  Let this deal go by, and try the
next."

Cecil did so.

"Black wins," said the dealer.

Frank looked at Cecil as much as to say, "you see I was right."

Cecil smiled.

His smiling friend was glum, for he had lost two crowns on the red.
He threw down another couple of crowns again upon the red.

"Back the winning colour," said Frank, staking twenty pounds upon the
black.

Cecil made a pile of fifty sovereigns, and placed it also on the
black.

He won again.

"Now, Frank, I'm ready to go."

"That's right."

"Waiter, some champagne!"

"And a cigar, waiter!"

Cecil having called for the champagne, placed the gold in his purse,
and seemed to have realized his dream: glimpses even of the country
house sparkled on the froth of the wine!

His brain was in a whirl, and the chink of money, the rattle of the
dice, the unvarying phrases of the dealer, the brief remarks of the
players, all sounded like fairy music in his ears.  He was impatient
to begone, for he felt that he was succumbing to the fascinations of
the place, rightly named a 'Hell.'

As he went to the side table for his hat, he espied his smiling
neighbour standing looking into the glass, with one hand under his
chin, fiercely pushing his whiskers forward so as almost to cover his
face, while with the other hand he made terrific menaces at the
reflection of that face in the glass.

"Ugh! you old fool!" he vituperated his own image, at the same time
shaking his fist at it.  "Did I not _tell_ you so?  Did I not say you
would lose?  You ass! you ass!  _Five_ and _forty_ shillings have you
thrown away _this blessed night_!  Five and forty _shillings_?  Will
you _never_ learn wisdom--will you never _leave off play_?  Ass!
fool!  Ass!"

Cecil with difficulty restrained his laughter, and advanced saying:--

"I'm sorry you have not been fortunate, sir."

"_You_ are sorry, are you," fiercely replied the little man, sharply
turning round upon him, delighted at having some one else on whom to
vent his wrath.  "And pray sir, who are _you_?  Who are you, sir,
that _presumes_ to be _sorry_ for _me_!  Am I an _ass_, sir? am I a
_boy_? am I a _noodle_? to be pestered by the pity of a _puppy_ like
_you_.  Do you wish to _quarrel with me_, sir? do you wish to
quarrel?  If so, say the _word_.  I am not quarrelsome, myself; not
I; but I _am not to be bullied_, sir; you shall find that I am not to
be bullied.  _You may try it on_, sir--you will find it _no go_!  And
since you are _determined to fight me_, sir, fight you _shall_.  You
force me to it, but I am not _one_ to back out of it."

Cecil looked at him for a moment in surprise, and then quietly
turning on his heel, put an arm within Frank's, and went down stairs.

The little fiery gentleman ran his fingers several times through his
whiskers, and then turned again to vituperate his own repentant face
in the glass.  Having relieved his choler thus, he called for some
wine, and went home to bed, pathetic and moralizing.

Cecil and Frank supped joyously that night, and threw about their
money with the lavish recklessness of those to whom money so gained
loses its proper value.

Cecil came home exhausted with excitement, and on his way ruminated
how he should deceive Blanche as to the source of his new gains:--

"I will tell her I have sold my Nero for three hundred pounds to a
dealer, and this hundred and twenty-five is the sum paid down.  That
will open the door for fresh winnings!"

How happy did this falsehood make his little wife!  At last, then,
her Cecil admitted that something was to be done by art.  Their
future was secured.

Yet happiness grounded on such falsehoods must be fragile; and far
wiser would it have been for Cecil to have told her the painful
truth.  She would have been shocked, terrified; she would have
entreated him to gamble no more; there would have been "a scene," but
who knows what good might not have resulted from it?

Cecil, like all weak men, sought refuge in a falsehood from the
reproaches which he knew must follow an avowal.




CHAPTER X.

A GENTLEMAN'S LIFE.

  "Your days are tedious, your hours burdensome:
  And wer't not for full suppers, midnight revels,
  Dancing, wine, riotous meetings, which do drown
  And bury quite in you all virtuous thoughts,
  And on your eyelids hang so heavily
  They have no power to look as high as heaven,
  You'd sit and muse on nothing but despair."
                                              DECKAR.


The next night and the next, Cecil played, and with varying fortunes,
sometimes losing to the very last few pounds, at others rising to
large gains.  The end of the week found him a winner of some four
hundred pounds.

He considered himself rich now, and looking on the gaming-table as a
bank from which he could at any time draw largely, his first step was
to move from Mrs. Tring's.

He took apartments in South Audley Street; furnished them with taste,
and considerable luxury; engaged two servants, and began to live in a
style more corresponding with his previous habits.

A run of luck in his favour having largely increased his resources,
he started a cab; and boasted of one of the tiniest tigers in London;
a strong square-built boy of fourteen, who did not look more than ten.

"Is this prudent, dearest?" said Blanche, when he proposed the cab.
"Will our means ever permit it?"

"Yes, pet, it is genuine prudence.  I am the rage just now; the
dealers are all anxious I should paint them a picture.  Moon has
offered me a thousand guineas for one to engrave from.  I have
refused.  I must have more.  But to command more it is essential that
I should appear rich; the richer I appear, the richer I shall be.  A
cab is, therefore, policy."

"You know best: but don't forget the little one that is to share our
prosperity."

"Forget him, indeed! look here; I have bought him a coral; look at
the gold bells!  I saw it yesterday--it was a bargain, and I thought
the opportunity should not be lost.  Isn't it beautiful?"

"Beautiful!  How thoughtful of you, dear one!"

"At the same time I saw a love of a watch.  That, said I to myself,
is just the thing for petkins--and behold!"

He held a gold breguet before her eyes.

"You dear, kind creature," she said, kissing him; "but I will not
have you spend money on me in this way."

She did not remark the diamond studs in his shirt, nor the
turquoise-headed cane which dangled from his wrist; she only thought
of what he had spent upon a present for her.

Cecil was soon plunged into debt; but a man who has his cab, and is
lavish in expense, easily finds enormous credit.  He lived as if he
had a certain income of two or three thousand a year.  Brilliant
dinners at the club, small but ruinous dinners at home, suppers,
jewellery, cigars, gloves, and elegant trifles for his wife demanded
no inconsiderable sums.  Rouge et noir and credit supplied his wants.
In spite of heavy losses, his luck at play was extraordinary, and was
aided by his prudence in always retiring after gaining a certain sum.

The ordinary routine of his life, as it used to be at Mrs. Tring's,
was now exchanged for one very unlike it in appearance, but to those
who look beneath the surface very like it _au fond_.

He rose late; and sat in his dressing-gown and slippers, smoking
cigars at two guineas the pound, turning over the leaves of a novel
or new poem, chatting with Blanche, and listening to her plans for
the education of their children.  Impossible to be more charming than
Cecil at such moments!  He listened with unfeigned pleasure to her
little schemes, threw in a graceful _bon mot_ here and there, drew
her on his knee, and played with her golden hair, planned amusements
for her, and taxed his ingenuity to discover what she would like to
have bought.

About twelve, he dressed.  No rubbing up of gloves--no oiling of
boots now.  His dress was a matter of study, and he stepped into his
cab a perfect dandy.

Blanche, without inquiring, imagined he always went to his
painting-rooms, but the club or Hester Mason's were his invariable
resorts.

He had taken of late to calling frequently on Hester during the day.
Not that he was in love with her, but she amused and flattered him.
He saw pretty plainly that she regarded him with anything but
indifferent feelings, and no man withstands that sort of flattery.
He saw, moreover, that Sir Chetsom Chetsom was jealous, and what man
is insensible to that compliment?  He went, therefore, and was always
amused.

Poor Hester had fallen seriously in love with him, and although his
attentions to her were by no means explicit, yet she could not help
fancying he had some love for her.  Unfortunately he often brought
his wife's name forward, and always spoke of her with an
unostentatious respect and affection which cut Hester to the quick.

She who recognised no marriage tie; who thought that love, and love
alone, was the only principle of union, was jealous and angry at this
obstacle of a wife, and her tirades against marriage were not wholly
unselfish.  That Cecil loved her, she could not disbelieve--why,
then, should he not tell her so?

She did not appreciate the distinction between flattered vanity and
love; she did not understand that a man could find delight in her
society, and be pleased at her evident partiality, while at the same
time cherishing the image of his wife as something inalienable from
his heart.

Cecil had no thought of being inconstant, yet he sought Hester's
society with pleasure.

After spending an hour or so _tête-à-tête_ with her, he would drive
down to the club, or into the Park; dine at the club, and spend his
night at the Strangers', to which he had recently been admitted, and
where he played fifty pound stakes with a recklessness which
astonished most of the players, but which, on the whole, was attended
with success.  One night he carried off eight hundred pounds.

So large a sum in his possession betrayed to Blanche the source of
his sudden prosperity.  She had before been uneasy: doubts had
crossed her mind; the abundance of money, coupled with his obvious
idleness, looked very unlike an artist's gains, and now this eight
hundred pounds threw a flash of light on the mystery.

"Cecil, dearest Cecil," she said timidly, "relieve me from my
suspense--did you gain this money at play?"

He looked angrily at her, and, puffing forth a column of smoke,
said,--

"How else should I gain it?"

She was silent.  He continued to smoke fiercely for a minute or so,
and then said, sneeringly,--

"Did you fancy money was to be gained by art?  Did you imagine I was
going to follow the example of all the other fools, and wear out my
life in a miserable contest for a beggar's pittance?  Painting would
never support me; it is all very well for the mechanical fellows who
make it a _trade_; I could never do _that_; and I have no inclination
to starve--there is you to think of--and our child."

Blanche could not reply; every phrase was a stab in her heart; she
saw ruin and dishonour scowling upon them, and felt their descent was
not to be averted.

"I was born a gentleman, thank God!" he continued, throwing away the
end of his cigar, and rising from the sofa as he spoke; "I was bred a
gentleman, and, damme, I will live like a gentleman!"

With this very gentlemanly, honourable sentiment, he walked out of
the room.

Relieved from the restraint of his presence, Blanche threw herself
upon the sofa, and gave way to a paroxysm of grief.  What a blow to
her happiness was that fearful discovery!  Her husband--her adored
Cecil--a gambler!  Men living in the world, and accustomed to mingle
with those who play, cannot overcome their repugnance to a professed
gambler; but what is their repugnance compared with the loathing felt
by women, whose horror is unmitigated by familiarity? and what is the
abstract horror of a woman, compared with the shuddering terror of a
wife, who sees written before her in characters of fire the
ineffaceable dishonour, the inevitable ruin of her husband and her
children?

A gambler! her husband was a gambler!  The luxuries with which she
was surrounded were not the fruits of honest labour, but of
dishonourable gaming; the trinkets which he had given her, and which
she had held as precious tokens of his affection, were not purchased
by his genius and energy, but were purchased from the misery of
others; the gold he squandered with a lavish hand, was the gold whose
loss carried perhaps despair and suicide into many a wretched family.
The thought was torture.  It turned all her trinkets into manacles.
It made the costly furniture around her dark, grim, and reproachful.

Bitter, bitter were the scalding tears which gushed from her, as she
brooded on this immeasureable horror!  Terrible were the fears which
assailed her as she thought of the end--the inevitable end of such a
career!

All hope of happiness was now swept from out her life.  Their love,
which had been so trusting; their sympathy, which had been so
perfect; her esteem, which had been so unsullied, where were they?
Gone--irrecoverably gone!

In their poverty, how happy they had been! how contented with their
lot!  In the prospect of the future, made radiant with love--in the
thoughts of their children, as sharers and promoters of that
love--what blissful dreams had tinged with magic hues the far horizon
of a life which blended with the distant life to come!  And now, in
one single moment, all those dreams were shattered, and the horizon
darkened with thunder-clouds over a stormy sea.

You may have seen a graceful vine, heavy with clusters of the purple
grape, trailed up against a garden wall; the rusty nail that fastens
it, half falling from out the crumbling wall; and you have felt that
the first gust of autumnal wind must tear it completely out, and hurl
the poor drooping vine upon the ground.

That is an image of their life.  By no stronger bond were they now
separated from ruin: one turn of Fortune's capricious wheel, and they
were lost.

Weep, weep, poor wretched girl! weep and prepare yourself for greater
woe!  The babe which now moves beneath your heart, in the dim newness
of its being, whose birth was to have been the advent of such joy;
what will it be born to?  Weep, and prepare yourself for greater woe!




CHAPTER XI.

DEEPER, AND DEEPER STILL.

Elle s'efforça de lui éviter la souffrance en lui cachant la sienne;
elle s'habitua à souffrir seule, à n'avoir ni appui, ni consolation,
ni conseil.

GEORGE SAND.--_André._


The discovery of her husband's pursuits was made too late.  Cecil had
become a confirmed gambler; and although he saw--saw with anger and
remorse--that his wife was heartbroken at the discovery, and could
not be deluded by the fluent sophisms with which he tried to persuade
her that he had no other career left--could not believe his present
pursuits were only temporary, to be given up as soon as he had won
sufficient money to be independent; yet his remorse only tormented,
it did not cure him.  It made him uneasy at home; made him seek
excitement elsewhere, in which to intoxicate his conscience.  And he
continued to win!

Perhaps, had Violet been his wife, instead of the meek, resigned
Blanche, the greater force of her will, and directness of her mind
might have cowed him.  Violet might have shamed him into honour.  Her
courage and her inflexible will, by braving his anger, by enduring
scenes of domestic misery, but by unflinchingly keeping to the point,
might, with one so weak, so impressionable, and so affectionate, have
rescued him from perdition.  But Blanche was ill suited to such a
task.  Her spirit, never strong, had been early broken.  She had
learned to endure evils, not to combat them.  She bowed her head to
the stroke, and exerted all her strength in gaining fortitude to
endure.

Violet would have acted energetically, where Blanche only wept in
silence.

Her tears distressed and irritated him; they made him impatient at
her "folly," by bringing painfully home to him the sense of his own.
Yet, inasmuch as he loved her, he could not see her constant
melancholy without anguish; and in moments of contrition he had
several times solemnly assured her that he would never again touch a
card.  The assurance made her deliriously happy for a day or two; but
it never lasted long: he broke his vow, made it again, and again
broke it.  In fact, the fascination of the gaming-table was
irresistible; and Frank Forrester was always at his elbow, like a
tempter.  So often had he deceived her, that she only smiled a
melancholy smile, when he now promised never to play again.  She had
resigned herself to her fate as hopeless!

"Damn it, Cis," said Frank one day, "when are you going to play
scientifically?  You might try the martingale now: you've got the
capital."

"My dear Frank, I lost six hundred pounds last night--and that, too,
in trying your famous martingale."

"The devil you did!"

"Yes, and heartily I cursed you for having told me of it."

"Justice, Cis, damme, justice!  If you lost money by my martingale,
it must be because you didn't play it, for I'll stake my honour--or
anything equally valueless upon it, that my plan is infallible."

"Perhaps so; if one could play it.  But the fact is, one had need be
a machine to play it."

"Of course--of course.  That's why you should have let me play: I'm
cast-iron.  You could not resist the temptation of risking now and
then, and in that risk you lost."

"Don't tell me, Frank.  No man can sit playing all night, and winning
paltry stakes, when every time he wins he reproaches himself for not
having staked higher."

"So you lost?"

"I'm cleaned out.  I don't believe there is eight pounds in my purse."

"Humph!  I came to borrow."

"I'll accept a bill, if you will get it discounted, and we'll share."

"Bravo!"

"Have you a stamp about you?"

"Have I? ... My dear Cis, what a question!  Why bill-stamps are my
stock-in-trade; when the day--distant yet, I hope--shall arrive that
is to find me without a stamp, and without a friend to go through the
matter of form, then will Francis Forrester gracefully bid adieu to
this dung-heap of civilization, and waft his charming person into
other regions.  Here you are, old fellow!  just scrawl your name
across that: your coachmaker will discount it."

Having settled this little matter of business, Cecil drove to
Hester's.




CHAPTER XII.

HESTER'S LOVE.

  To meet her spirit in a nimble kiss,
  Distilling panting ardour to her breast.
                  JOHN MARSTON.--_The Malcontent._

  S'il ose m'alléguer une odieuse loi
  Quand je fais tout pour lui, s'il ne fait rien pour moi;
  Dès le moment, sans songer si je l'aime,
  Sans consulter enfin si je me perds moi même
  J'abandonne l'ingrat.
                                    RACINE.--_Bajazet._


Cecil found Hester writing, in a charming négligé.  She threw down
her pen with a movement of impatient joy as he entered.

She took his outstretched hand in hers, and pressing it tenderly,
looked with serious alarm into his face as she said, "You are not
well.  Something is on your mind.  Am I right?"

"You are."

"Sit down on the sofa--there."  She sat by his side still holding his
hand, which he could not withdraw.  "Now, tell me what it is."

He shook his head.

"Won't you make me your confidante?  Am I not worthy to share your
sorrows?"

"Don't ask me ... you are right .... I am unhappy.  But I cannot tell
you wherefore."

"How is your novel getting on?  Why won't you tell me?"  She pressed
his hand as she said it.

He was perplexed, and knew not what to say.  Her dark eyes were
darting forth fire--her face was so close to his, that he felt its
warmth--her loose morning dress, thrown slightly open by the attitude
in which she sat bent forward, made a dangerous display of her finely
moulded bust; he was surrounded with such an atmosphere of
voluptuousness, that his intoxicated senses confused his reason.  In
that moment he forgot everything but the moment's intense sensation.
His eyes answered hers; his hand returned her pressure; he drank her
breath, and felt the blood flushing his face.

Both were silent; both feared to break that silence.  With
irresistible impulse they mutually bent forward till their lips
touched, and then clung together in a burning kiss.

She burst into tears, and pressed him feverishly to her, as if in an
embrace to express the unutterable fervour of her love.  And in this
delirium they remained some time, not a word passing, only a few deep
sighs, and a fierce pressure of the hand, telling of the fire which
consumed them.

Hester was supremely happy.  Her doubts were set at rest.  He loved
her!

Cecil was violently excited, and in his excitement forgot whom he was
embracing--forgot his wife--forgot the world.  The vague suggestions
of his conscience were stifled at once by the agitation of his
senses.  Hester by a word recalled him to himself.

"You love me, then?" she said, tenderly.

He started, and could not answer her.

"Cecil, dearest Cecil, my own, my best beloved!"

He was sobered in an instant.

But what could he do?  To continue this scene was impossible; yet to
undeceive her, to tell her that he loved her not!  what man could do
that?

"Why are you so silent?"

"I suffer horribly."

"From what?"

He beat his brow distractedly.

"Hester, .... you will curse me.....  It is not my fault.....  You
...."

"Do you not love me?" she almost shrieked.

"I do, I do!" he hurriedly exclaimed; "yes, Hester, I love you ....
but .... how shall I tell it you? .... We must forget this .... we
must meet no more...."

"Not meet, when you love me?  Impossible!  The whole world shall not
separate us."

"It is the world which will separate us."

"What .... your wife!" she said scornfully, almost savagely.

"Alas!"

"I recognise no barrier in a wife.  I scorn the whole system of
marriage.....  It is iniquitous!  Two hearts that love to be
separated by a sophism of convention!  If you love _her_, keep to
her.  If you love _me_, you are mine."  Hester rose from the sofa as
she spoke: her whole frame trembled with passion.

Cecil remained seated; his eyes fixed on the ground, in a helpless
state of irresolution.

"Cecil, one word--and but one.  Are you afraid of the idle gossip of
the world, and are your instincts cowed at it?"

"Hester!  I feel, Hester, we must part for ever."

"Then you love me not?"

He did not answer.

A loud knocking at the street door startled them.  She ran to the
window, and looked out.

"It is Sir Chetsom.  Cecil, this instant must decide my fate.  Do you
reject my love?"

"Believe me, this is a situation----"

"_He_ is coming up stairs.  One word--yes, or no?"

He twirled his hat, and sought for an expression which should soften
the blow, but could find none.  She looked at him with intense
eagerness, and reading in his hesitation her worst fears, gave a low
heart-breaking sob, and rushed into the other room.  In a few seconds
the door opened, and the servant announced,--

"Sir Chetsom Chetsom."

Cecil brushed past him with a hurried bow, and made a precipitate
retreat.

"What the devil is all this?" muttered the astonished baronet.
"Hester not here!"

Hester's maid appeared, and informed him that her mistress would be
down immediately, if he would only be good enough to wait.

"Where is your mistress, then?"

"In her dressing-room, Sir Chetsom."

Without saying another word, Sir Chetsom, to the horror of the maid,
recovered the speed of his youth to ascend the stairs, and to rush
into the dressing-room.  On all ordinary occasions he preserved _les
convenances_ with great punctilio; but he was at this moment in an
exasperation of jealousy, and only thought of clearing up his doubts.
Cecil's exit, and Hester's absence, were alone startling
circumstances; but when to these be added the jealousy which for a
long time Sir Chetsom had felt towards Cecil, his exasperation may be
conceived.

He found Hester extended on a couch, bathed in tears.  She rose
angrily at his approach, and with a gesture of great dignity pointed
to the door.  As he seemed noways disposed to obey her, she said,--

"I would be alone .... alone, Sir Chetsom."

"My dear Hester, what is all this?  In tears! what has distressed
you?"

Her only answer was to pass into her bedroom, and lock herself in.

Sir Chetsom felt foolish.  He tapped at the door; but she gave no
answer.

He threatened to break it open; but she remained silent.

He then began to wheedle and entreat, to threaten, to promise, to
storm, and to implore, alternately.  All in vain: not a word could he
extort from her.

He went down into the drawing-room, there to await her pleasure;
sulky and suspicious, angry yet anxious.

Hester, meanwhile, gave full scope to the paroxysm of her grief.  In
Cecil's manner, she had read her condemnation.  She understood his
momentary aberration.  She saw that although he had not been able to
withstand the excitement of that moment, yet it was not his heart,
but his senses she had captivated.  She saw that he loved his wife!

Fierce were the convulsions into which this conviction threw her, and
many were the tears she shed; but after an hour's misery she grew
calmer, and began to think of her condition.

Sir Chetsom was below, awaiting her.  He was jealous; he was angry.
He was ready to quarrel with her, and she felt that a good quarrel
was just the thing she wanted.

Prepared, therefore, for a "scene," she descended into the
drawing-room.

"Oh! at last," said Sir Chetsom, coldly.

"Yes, Sir Chetsom, at last.  I presume I may choose my own time for
seeing my visitors; those who do me the honour of calling upon me
will be pleased to accept that condition, or else be pleased to stay
away."

"Indeed, madam!" replied he, greatly astonished at her tone, and
foreseeing that she was ready to burst forth at a word.

"So it is, Sir Chetsom.  In which class am I to place you?"

"Hester, I don't understand this language."

"Then I will say good-morning.  I dislike talking to those who do not
comprehend me."

She rose and moved towards the door.

"Hester!  Hester!"

She turned round again.

"Stay a moment.--Sit down again.  There, now let us talk over matters
quietly."

"Begin.  What have you to say?"

"I found you in tears just now."

"You did; what then?"

She said this so angrily, that he was forced to pause a moment, and
change his tone to say,--

"I wish--as a friend--my love prompts me to ask the cause of those
tears?"

"Wretchedness!"

"You wretched?"

"Intensely!"

"My poor Hester!  What has occurred?--Is Mr. Chamberlayne--has he
anything to do with it?"

She made no reply.

"Answer me, dear girl.  Do.  I have a right to know."

She continued silent.

"I insist upon knowing."

"Insist then," she replied, quietly.

"I do insist!" he said, raising his voice.

"But your insistance is useless."

"Eh?  Hester, do not go too far--Remember--"

"What?  _What_ am I to remember?"

"That you--that I may enforce----"

An ironical laugh was her answer.

"Hester, you forget--I am here as your protector--you owe everything
to me.--Be careful, I am willing to overlook a great deal----"

"Are you willing to quit the room?" she said, her eyes flashing as
she spoke.  "There is the door.  May you never enter it again!  Go!
I command you!  _You_ insist--_you_ enforce?  And do you imagine that
I am to give up my youth and beauty to age and folly--that I am to
sacrifice myself, and to such as you, and then to be told that _you_
insist!  Undeceive yourself, Sir Chetsom.  I am my own mistress.  I
follow my own caprices.  My caprice once was to live with you.  Now
my caprice is to show you the door.  Go!  I owe you nothing.  I have
not sold myself.  I have not bound myself.  Go!--Why do you stand
there gaping at me--do you not comprehend my words? or do you fancy
that it is something so strange I should wish never to see you again?
You imagine, perhaps, that I am not calm now, that I am unaware of
what I do in relinquishing the protection of Sir Chetsom Chetsom?
Undeceive yourself.  If I am angry, I know perfectly what I do.  I
know the _extent_ of my folly--shall I tell you what it is?  It is
that I ever listened to you!  It is that I ever sullied my name by
accepting your protection!  _Now_, do you understand me?"

She sank in a chair, exhausted.  Poor Sir Chetsom was troubled and
confused.  The scorn of her manner which lent such momentum to her
words, quite crushed the feeling of anger which continually rose
within him.  She had often threatened to quit him; but never in such
terms, and never seemed so earnest.

"My dear Hester," he said, submissively, taking a seat near her, "you
have misunderstood me."

"I do not wish to understand you then."

"But are you serious?--do you wish to leave me?"

"Very serious."

"But what have I done?  I am sure my life is spent in trying to make
you happy.  Every wish of yours, as soon as it is expressed, I
endeavour to gratify."

"Then my wish is never to see you again; gratify that!"

"My dear Hester, be reasonable!  You are angry now--I don't know
wherefore--I won't inquire, if it displeases you--but you will get
over this to-morrow, you will have forgotten it.  To-morrow I will
come and see you."

"I will not see you; so spare yourself the trouble."

"Not see me!  Is everything over then between us?  Is this your calm
decision?"

"It is.  I have told you so before.  What makes you doubt it?  Do you
suppose your society is so fascinating that I cannot relinquish it?
Try me!"

"I will," said Sir Chetsom, buttoning his coat, and rising in
concentrated anger.

"Do so."

"You will repent this.  You force me to it, recollect!  You force me!"

"Good-morning!"

"I am not joking, I am serious now."

"Good-morning."

"If I once quit this house it will be never to return."

"Sir Chetsom I have the pleasure of wishing you _good-morning_!"

There was no replying to the cutting coolness of her manner.  He took
up his hat, buttoned his coat up to the chin, fidgeted his gloves,
and at last making an effort, said:--

"Very well, very well!" and left the room.

Hester felt considerably relieved.  She had taken a savage pleasure
in this contest, and utterly reckless of consequences, found in that
very recklessness a satisfaction, which helped to console her
mortified vanity and wounded affection.  Towards Cecil, she felt hate
and scorn; towards Sir Chetsom, contemptuous anger, she knew not why.
She had played her whole existence in that quarrel; and knew that she
was a beggar without a moment's anxiety.

The next Day, Sir Chetsom sent her a note, in which he deplored what
had passed between them, but was willing to attribute it to some
extraordinary irritation; and he moreover offered to settle six
hundred a year upon her for her life, if she would only consent to
remain his friend as heretofore.

The irritation in Hester's mind had not abated, and she returned this
laconic answer:--

"CADOGAN PLACE, 13_th June_ 1841.

"Not for six thousand.

"H. M."


Sir Chetsom was alarmed.  The idea of her quitting him was more than
he could endure.  Completely fascinated by her, the more he knew of
her, the more hopelessly he became her slave.  He could not imagine
living without her.

He called; was refused admittance; called again; was refused again;
wrote, and received back his letter unopened.

He was in despair.  So great was his preoccupation, that he actually
went out with his whiskers unoiled and undyed!  Hester's servant at
length took pity on his sorrow, and consented to let him enter the
house, against her orders.

He stole up to her boudoir, and throwing himself at her feet, said,--

"Hester, I cannot exist without you."

"But I can without you," she said, smiling.

"You smile; then I am forgiven."

"Yes; but I keep to my resolution."

"Hester, hear me out; if, after what I have to say, you still keep
your resolution, I shall have nothing to do but to leave you in
peace.  Here, then, I offer you my hand--be Lady Chetsom, and make me
happy."

At that moment a strange image rose in Hester's mind.  She had that
afternoon met Cecil driving in the Park.  He raised his hat in cold
politeness, but made no attempt to speak to her.  The recollection of
this scene now presented itself, as the sort of background to Sir
Chetsom on his knees offering a title, offering wealth, offering
consideration to the friendless, forsaken, ambitious girl.

"Will you accept me?" again whispered Sir Chetsom.

"I shall plague your life out," she said.

"Then that is a settled matter!"

Sir Chetsom was the happiest of men.

But his happiness only lasted a fortnight, and was then suddenly cut
short by that inflexible lady--Atropos.  Driving home one evening,
his horse shied at something in the road, and ran away with him down
Constitution Hill, then stumbled and threw Sir Chetsom against the
railings.  A concussion of the brain was the consequence.

By this accident, Hester not only lost the honour of becoming Lady
Chetsom, but she was absolutely left penniless, as Sir Chetsom died
intestate.

To this had her ambition brought her!  With no resources, with no
_friends_, without even a good name, she had to begin the world anew.
Literature was the desperate resource which alone awaited her; and
she resolved to live by her pen.




BOOK VII.



CHAPTER I.

GEORGE MAXWELL.

_Pietro._--"This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affectations
that ever conversed with nature.  A man, or rather a monster: more
discontent than Lucifer, when he was thrust out of the Presence.  His
appetite is as insatiable as the grave: as far from any content as
from heaven."

JOHN MARSTON.--_The Malcontent._


Mrs. Meredith Vyner was radiant again; if not happy, she was at least
sprightly, occupied, and flattered.  She had not forgotten Marmaduke,
she had not forgiven him; but although his image sometimes lowered
upon her, she banished it with a smile of triumph, for she was loved!

The silent, shy, and saturnine George Maxwell had taken Marmaduke's
place, as _cavalier servente_; and across his dark, forbidding face
there shone a gleam of sunshine, as he now watched the sylph-like
enchantress, who for so long had made him more and more
misanthropical by her gay indifference to him, and who at last had
perceived his love.

Marmaduke, his hated favoured rival, was dismissed; and not only was
a rival dismissed, but he, George, was admitted in his place.

The history of these two may be told in a few words.  Maxwell, silent
and watchful so long as Marmaduke was a visitor at the house,
suddenly became more talkative and demonstrative when he found
Marmaduke's visits cease.  Hopes rose within him.  He spoke with
another accent, and with other looks to Mrs. Vyner.  She was not long
in understanding him.  Once opening her eyes to his love, she saw as
in a flash of light, the whole history of his passion, she understood
the conduct of the silent, jealous lover, and deeply flattered at
such constancy and unencouraged affection, began to turn a favourable
eye upon him.  Smarting herself from wounded affection, she could the
more readily and truly sympathize with him.  In a few weeks--for
passion grows with strange rapidity, and days are epochs in its
history--she gave him to understand that he was not _indifferent_ to
her.  Of Marmaduke she spoke freely to him, telling him the same
story she had told her husband; and he believed her: what will not
lovers believe!

No word of love as yet had passed their lips, and yet they understood
each other.  Indeed, so plain was the avowal of her looks, that a man
less shy and suspicious than Maxwell would long ago have declared his
passion, certain of a return.  But he was withheld by the very
fierceness of his passion, and by his horror at ridicule.  Maxwell
was one of those men who never enter the water till they can
swim--who never undertake anything till they are certain of
succeeding, held back by the fear of failure.  One trait in his
character will set this disposition clearly forth: he had a fine
tenor voice, and sang with some mastery, but he never could be
prevailed upon to sing before any one, except his family, because he
was waiting till he could execute as well as Rubini or Mario.
Meanwhile, he was intensely jealous of those who, not having reached
that standard, _did_ sing; and his scornful criticisms on their
curious presumption, was nothing but miserable spite at their not
having so sensitive a vanity as his own.

Maxwell was in truth a bad, mean-spirited, envious, passionate man,
in whom vanity, ludicrously susceptible and exacting, fostered the
worst of passions, jealousy and revenge.  He was misanthropical: not
because his own high-thoughted soul turned from the pettiness of
mankind with intolerant disgust,--not because he had pryed too
curiously into the corruptions of human nature, without at the same
time having been fortunate enough to know familiarly all that is
great, and loving, and noble in the human heart--but simply because
his life was a perpetual demand upon the abnegation, affection, and
admiration of others, and because that demand could not, in the
nature of things, be satisfied.  It has been said that a man who
affects misanthropy is a coxcomb, for real misanthropy is madness.
Not always madness: seldom so; it is generally inordinate and
unsatisfied vanity.  A man hates his fellow-creatures because they,
unwittingly, are always irritating him by refusing to submit to the
exactions of his vanity: he construes their neglect into insult,
their indifference into envy.  He envies them for succeeding where he
dare not venture; he hates them for not acknowledging his own
standard of himself.  Maxwell was one of these.

Conceive such a man suddenly caught in the meshes of a brilliant
coquette like Mrs. Meredith Vyner!  Conceive him after two years of
angry expectation, during which she has never bestowed a smile on him
which was not unmeaning, now awakening to the conviction that his
merits are recognised, that his love is returned, that he has
inspired a guilty passion!

The guilt added intensity to his joy: it was so immense a triumph!

What a pair!  Love has been well said to delight in antitheses,
otherwise we might stare at the contrast afforded by this little,
hump-backed, golden-haired, coquettish, heartless woman, and this
saturnine, gloomy, stupid, bad-hearted man.

Poor Meredith Vyner could not comprehend it.  The evidence of his
eyes told him plainly how the case stood; but his inexperienced mind
refused to accept the evidence of his senses.  What _could_ she see
in so grim and uninteresting an animal?  Marmaduke was quite another
man; affection for him was intelligible at least; but Maxwell!  And
what could Maxwell see in her?  Why, she was the very contradiction
of all he must feel in his own breast!

In that contradiction was the charm: Maxwell did himself
instinctively, but involuntarily, that justice; he would assuredly
have hated a duplicate of himself, even more intensely than he hated
others.

Meredith Vyner endeavoured once or twice to come to an "explanation"
with his wife; for he _was_ master in his own house, and _would_ be,
or he was greatly deceived.  But she answered him with a few galling
sarcasms (adding general allusions to the miseries of young wives
subject to the absurd jealousies of foolish, old men), and ending
in--hysterics!  There was no combating hysterics, and Vyner was
always defeated.




CHAPTER II.

ROSE AGAIN SEES JULIUS.

Mrs. Vyner again went into society as usual, the only difference
being that she was generally accompanied by Maxwell instead of her
husband.  Rose often stayed at home, but sometimes went with her.
Time had not made her forget Julius St. John, but it had brought back
the elasticity of her spirits; and except an occasional sigh of
regret, or a short reverie, she was much the same as she had been
before.

One Saturday on which they went to Dr. Whiston's soirée, Rose
accompanied them, and was delighted to see Cecil there in high
spirits, and beautifully dressed.  Blanche's condition of course
prevented her being there.

"But she is quite well, is she not?"

"Charming, and looks lovelier than ever."

"I have not been to see her this week.  Mama has not been able to let
me have the carriage.  How gets on your new picture?"

"Famously.  How beautiful you are looking to-night, Rose!"

"Of course I am; do I ever fail?  But tell me, what is the subject of
your picture?"

He put his finger on his lips.

"That's a secret.  I let none know anything about it, as I intend
surprising you all."

"Papa is so proud of you now, that I think if you were to go to him,
all would be made up."

"That's kind, certainly; now I no longer need him, he is willing to
acknowledge his son-in-law.  No, Rosy, no; I have made advances
enough; _he_ must make them now."

"But think how delightful it would be for us all!"

"I know that; besides, I know it must come.  He will make the first
advance; and he _shall_ make it."

The secret of Cecil's holding back was not pride, but calculation.
He fancied that if Vyner made the first advances to him, he could
_make terms_; and his recent losses at the gaming-table had made him
sensible of the precariousness of his present resources.

As they moved through the crowd, and were passing into the second
room, they came face to face with Mrs. St. John and Julius.

There was no avoiding a recognition.  Rose blushed deeply, and felt
extremely embarrassed; but recovering herself, she held out her hand
to Mrs. St. John, who took it coldly.

Cecil and Julius shook hands cordially.

"Have you long been returned?" asked Rose in a low voice.

"Six weeks," was the laconic reply.  "I hope Mr. Vyner is quite well,
and Mrs. Vyner?'

"Mama is here--in the other room," she said, with an effort.

She made a movement as if to pass on; her eye met Julius's as she
bowed, but his face, though deadly pale, gave no sign of agitation.

In another instant, they were in the next room; and Rose, with well
acted indifference, occupied herself with the specimens exhibited on
the table, addressing common-place remarks to Cecil, much to his
astonishment.

"Is it all over, then, Rose?" he said.

"All.  Oh, do look at this machine for teaching the blind to
write--how very curious."

"Are you serious, Rose?"

"Serious!  Didn't you see the cut direct?"

"You take it calmly!"

"Would you have a scene?  Shall I faint?  Shall I pretend to be
stabbed to the heart?  Shall I act a part?"

"Pretend!  Are you not acting now?"

"Not I.  If you think their reception has pained me, pray undeceive
yourself; it is no more than I expected.  Months ago I made up my
mind.  I know what to think of _him_.  I am glad he has behaved so;
very glad, very glad.  It now puts everything beyond a doubt.  Very
glad."

She muttered "very glad" to herself as she sat down in a chair just
left by a dowager, and tried to cheat herself into the belief that
she really was glad.  In truth, she was at that moment more indignant
than unhappy.  The coldness of her reception, both by mother and son,
had exasperated her.  Had he looked pleased to see her, had he even
looked very pained, she would have at once given him to understand
that his retreat had been precipitate, and that she was ready to
accept him with delight.  But his coldness piqued her; she refrained
from addressing a word to him; and was now indulging in somewhat
bitter reflections on his conduct.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Vyner had been eloquent in her admiration of Cecil
and his genius, to Lady F----, with whom she was talking.  Maxwell,
from time to time, threw in a sarcasm, and was evidently uneasy at
hearing any one praised so highly.

"Well, but you know, my dear sir," said Lady F----, "he must be
monstrous clever, or he would never make so much money."

Maxwell shrugged his shoulders, and said, with considerable
significance in the tone,--

"That depends upon how he makes it."

Mrs. Vyner looked at him surprised.  A little while afterwards, when
they were standing retired apart from the company, she asked him what
he meant by his reply to Lady F----, respecting Cecil's money-making.

"I mean this: he doesn't make money by his _genius_," Maxwell
replied, with sneering emphasis.

"By what, then?"

Maxwell refused at first to answer.

"What can you be hinting at?  By what means does he make his money?"

"By ... there, I may as well tell you; you must soon hear it ... by
gambling."

A shudder of disgust ran over her frame.

"Are you sure--quite sure of this?"

"Quite: I had it from a man who plays nightly at the same table with
him."

"How horrible! isn't it?"

"No," he replied, with a sardonic smile: "it's _genius_."

She looked at him astonished: at that moment, she hated him.  Well
would it have been for her if she had taken the warning of that
moment, and flung from her the viper that was crawling to her heart.
But she forgot it.  Maxwell's smile passed away, and was replaced by
one of tenderness for her.

Rose and her mother were both thoughtful as they rode home that night.

The next day, Rose communicated to her father what Cecil had said at
Dr. Whiston's, and begged him to write to Cecil, and announce his
forgiveness.  Vyner, who would have been well pleased to do so, spoke
with his wife about it.

"He is a credit to us now," added Vyner.

"Oh! yes, a _great_ credit."

"Don't you think so?"

"How should I not?  Vyner is an old name--a good name--it can gain no
fresh _éclat_ from honours, but it may from infamy."

"From infamy, Mary?"

"Cecil Chamberlayne, your creditable son-in-law, is a gambler."

"Good heavens!"

"His cab and tiger, his dinners, his trinkets--all come from that
infamous source: it is his means of livelihood."

"My poor, poor Blanche!" exclaimed the wretched father, as the tears
came into his eyes.  "But she shall not stay with him .... I will
take her away ... She shall come to us .... she shall."

In vain his wife interposed; he ordered the carriage, and drove at
once to Cecil's house.




CHAPTER III.

WOMAN'S LOVE.

Blanche was trimming a baby cap, when her father entered the room.
With a cry of delight she sprang up, and rushed into his arms.  He
hugged her fondly, and the tears rolled down his cheeks as he pressed
his child sadly to his bosom.

It was some time before either of them spoke.

"My poor child!" he said at last.

"Your happy child, papa; I am so happy!  I knew you would forgive me
soon.  Oh! why is not Cecil here to join with me in gratitude?"

"Blanche," he said with an effort, "I am come to take you away with
me: will you come?"

She looked her answer.

"That is right, ... that is right .... Pack up your things, then, at
once."

"Pack up what things?" she asked in astonishment.

"Whatever you want to take with you .... Come .... don't stay in this
house a moment longer than you can help."

Her astonishment increased.

"Do you mean me to leave my home?"

"Yes."

"And .... my husband?"

"Yes."

"Leave my husband?--leave my Cecil?  Why, papa, what can have put
that into your head?  Do you suppose, I am not happy here? ... He is
the best of husbands!"

Meredith Vyner had recourse to his snuff-box, as in all emergencies.
He inserted thumb and index finger into it, and trifled mechanically
with the grains, while seeking for some argument.

"Do, dear papa, relieve me from this suspense .... What is it you
mean?"

"Are you serious, Blanche?--_is_ he a good husband?'

"I adore him; he is the kindest creature on earth."

Vyner took a huge pinch.  That did not clear his ideas, and he sat
silently brushing off the grains which had congregated in the
wrinkles of his waistcoat, very much puzzled what to say.

"Papa, there is something on your mind.  If it is anything against
Cecil .... anything a wife ought not to hear, spare me, and do not
utter it.  If it is anything else, spare me the suspense, and tell me
at once what it is."

"Blanche, my dearest child, I came here to save you from ruin, and I
will save you.  You must quit your husband."

"Why?"

"Is not my word sufficient?  I say you must.  Your welfare depends
upon it."

"Why?--I say again--why?"

"Are you--no, you cannot be aware of _how_ your husband gains a
livelihood."

She coloured violently and trembled.  He noticed it, and read the
avowal in her agitation.

"You _do_ know it then?"

She burst into tears.

"Well, my dear child, since you know it, that saves me an unpleasant
explanation.  But you must leave him; you cannot stay here longer:
you cannot share his infamy; you shall not be dragged into his ruin.
It has been a miserable match; I have always grieved over it; always
knew it would end wretchedly.  But to come to this!--to this!  No,
Blanche, you cannot remain here.  Come and live at home; there at
least you will not live in infamy."

She wept bitterly, but offered no remark.

"Come, Blanche," he said, taking her hand, "you will leave this
place, will you not?  You will live with us.  I cannot promise to
make you happy, but at least I can save you from the wretched
existence of a gambler's wife.  Come--come."

"I cannot!" she sobbed.

"Rouse yourself: conquer this emotion.  Think of your future--think
of your child!"

She shuddered.

"Think of the child you are to bring into the world.  Must it also
share in the ruin which its father will inevitably draw upon you?  My
dear Blanche, you must have courage; for your own sake--for your
child's sake--you must quit this house.  Come home to me.  I am
unhappy myself; I want to have some one about me I can love: Rose is
the only one: Violet is away: your mother--but don't let me speak of
her.  You see, Blanche, dear, I want you; you will fill a place at
home; you will be so petted; and the little one will have every
comfort--and his aunt Rose--but don't sob so, my child: do restrain
yourself.  You will come, eh?"

"I cannot!"

Vyner took another pinch of snuff, and was disconcerted; there was
such wretchedness, but such resolution in her tone, that he felt his
arguments had been powerless.

Her sobs were pitiful to hear, and his own eyes were filled with
tears, in spite of his rising anger at what he considered her
obstinacy.

"Why can you not?"

"Because he is my husband--one whom I have chosen for better for
worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, to
cherish, and to obey, till death do us part--one from whom death
alone shall part me, for I love him, he loves me, and by his side I
can smilingly await poverty, even ruin."

"Even infamy!" exclaimed Vyner.

"Even infamy!" she replied, in a low sad tone.

"This is madness."

"It is love--it is duty.  I know the wretched fate which must befall
us.  I foresee it: but if it had already fallen, I should say the
same.  I cannot leave him!  I may be miserable; we may be brought to
beggary; my child may want every necessary--oh!  I have not shut my
eyes to _that_ terrible prospect!  I have seen it; it has wrung my
heart, but I cannot--would not, if I could--leave him who is all my
happiness.  Cecil is more than my husband: he is all that I hold
dearest in life: he is the father of that child whose future you so
gloomily foresee; shall that child--shall _my_ child not smile upon
its father?  You do not know what you ask."

"I ask you to be happy."

"I am so.  Without Cecil I could not be so.  Let misfortune come to
me in any shape, so that it rob me not of him, and I can bear it;
only not that--only not that!"

"Bless you for those words, my own beloved!" said a voice which made
them both start and look up.

Cecil stood before them.  He had overheard the greater part of their
conversation, and had opened the door without their noticing it,
absorbed as they were in their own emotions.

Vyner took three rapid pinches, and felt greatly confused.  Blanche
threw herself into her husband's arms, and sobbed aloud.

"Bless you, my own Blanche, for the unshaken depth of your love.  It
shall not be thrown away.  I will no longer be unworthy of it.  I
have been a villain--yes, sir, I confess I have been a weak and
selfish villain; seduced by my necessities, and by vile temptations,
I have nearly brought this dear girl to ruin.  But this morning has
saved me.  I have seen the peril--I will--hear me, sir, solemnly
swear, by all that is sacred--by all my hopes of happiness--by this
dear head now resting on my heart--I swear never again, on any
pretext, to touch a card--to enter a house of play!  Will you believe
me?  You hear my oath--a gentleman's word ought to be sufficient, but
you have my oath--will you believe it?"

Blanche pressed him convulsively to her, and laughed hysterically in
her joy.

Vyner rose, and taking Cecil's hand, said,--

"Chamberlayne, you are a man of honour; I respect you.  What you have
now done effaces the past.  We are reconciled.  I will assure you two
hundred pounds a year during my life, which, with your own income,
will suffice, I hope, to keep you in decent comfort, and will enable
you to employ your talents honourably, and, I hope, profitably.  My
house is open to you.  We are reconciled, are we not?"

Cecil pressed his hand warmly.

"I have been angry with you," Vyner continued, "but my anger is
gone--what says our favourite?"

  Non Dindymene, non adytis quatit
  Mentem sacerdotum incola Pythius
  Non Liber æque, non acuta
  Si geminant Corybantes æra
  Tristes ut iræ--

Eh? is it not so?  The past then is forgotten?"

"Oh, sir," said Cecil, wiping away a tear, "I do not deserve such
kindness....  I have been a wretch....  But my future conduct shall
thank you--I cannot now!"

"All I ask is--make Blanche happy."

Cecil looked down upon her upturned face, and met her loving glance
with a look of unutterable tenderness; then drawing her head to him,
he pressed his lips upon her eyes; she threw her arms around him, and
exclaimed,--

"How can I help being happy with him?"

Much affected by this scene, Vyner again pressed Cecil's hand with
great warmth, kissed his child, wiped his eyes, and withdrew; for his
heart was full.




CHAPTER IV.

A BEAM OF SUNSHINE IN THE HOUSE.

Cecil was very earnest in his repentance, and sincerely meant to keep
the oath he pledged.  He at once sold his cab and horse; discharged
his tiger; reduced his expenses in every practicable way; paid the
great bulk of his debts; ceased to visit the club; ordered the
servant to deny him to Frank Forrester, whenever that worthy called;
and was assiduous at his painting.

Having thus shut himself out from temptation, and begun again the
career of an honourable man, he ought once more to have been happy.
He was so for a few days.  Blanche's recovered gaiety, and her
grateful fondness, made him bless the change.  But the excitement
soon wore off; and in getting into the broad monotonous rut of daily
life, he began to miss the variety and excitement of his former
pursuits.

He could not work with pleasure: he had lost all the "delight" which
"physics pain."  Work to him was drudgery, and it was no more.  His
spirits became low.  From Blanche he hid the change as well as he
could; but he could not hide it from himself.  He would stand for
half an hour before his easel, absorbed in reveries, and not once
putting pencil to the canvass.  He would sit for hours in an easy
chair, smoking, or affecting to read; but his mind incessantly
occupied playing imaginary games at _rouge et noir_, in which he was
invariably a winner.

There is this excuse for the gambler: the temptation besets him in a
more powerful shape than almost any other temptation to which man is
exposed.  Imagination, stimulated by cupidity, is treacherously
active.  The games being games of chance, imagination plays them not
only with alarming distinctness, but with most delusive success.
Heaps of gold glitter before the infatuated dreamer; and although he
rouses himself with a sigh to find that he has only been dreaming,
yet the dream has had the vividness of reality to him.  Many and many
an unhappy wight has started up from such dreams, goaded with a sense
of their reality, and persuaded that, if he only play the game as he
has just played it in imagination, he must infallibly win; has pawned
his last remnant, or robbed his employers, to rush to the
gaming-table, and venture everything on the strength of that
conviction.  Ruined, perhaps dishonoured, people have exclaimed, The
wretch! or The scoundrel! and have been stern in their indignant
condemnation of his pitiable folly.  But little do they know to what
fearful temptations he has succumbed; little do they know the
_fascination_ of the gaming-table to one who has played much, and
whose hours have been crowded with imaginary games, in which he has
been eminently successful.

I do not defend the gambler: God forbid!  I am merely endeavouring to
present a psychological explanation of the very common phenomenon,
which people generally regard as produced only by some innate
wickedness.  The gambler knows the folly of his act: no one so well!
He knows that the bank must win, and in his cooler moments will
demonstrate the matter clearly to you.  But then comes this seductive
imagination, like a syren, picturing to him gorgeous realities: he is
dazzled, fascinated, and succumbs.

To resist imagination, to trample down temptation, a man needs
strength of will; but this is precisely the quality men are most
deficient in; and here, as almost everywhere, we find that vice is
not, as Plato says, ignorance, but weakness!

Cecil held out manfully against temptation, and everyone believed him
cured.  No one knew what was constantly passing in his mind, or they
would not have been so secure.

Meanwhile Blanche had passed safely through her blissful trial, and a
little girl was nestled at her side.  The joy and rapture of the
happy parents, the delight of Rose, the pride of Vyner, and the
supreme indifference of Mrs. Vyner, may well be conceived.  Little
Rose Blanche, that was her name, was more welcomed, and more caressed
than if she had come into the world to preserve great estates from
passing into other hands; and how she escaped being killed by the
excess of attention and variety of advice, is only another
illustration of the mysterious escapes of infancy: a period when it
would seem some good genii must be always on the alert to prevent the
ever imminent catastrophe.  There is said to be a special god who
looks after drunkards, and preserves them in their helpless state;
but what are the perils of a drunkard to the perils of an infant
surrounded with nurses, relations, and female friends?

Rose Blanche throve, however, and grew into a dimply, rosy babe
enough, incomparably more beautiful than any other babe ever seen, as
mother, father, nurse, and aunt incessantly testified.  It did squall
a little, to be sure, and Cecil who had irritable nerves could not be
brought to consider that musical.  But men! what do they know of
babies?

My dear madam, answer me frankly, did you ever know a man who was
worth listening to on that subject?  Did you ever meet with one whose
head was not crammed with absurd notions thereupon?  Is not your
husband, in particular, characterized by the most preposterous
incapacity--is he not fidgety, crotchety, absurd?  I knew it.

Let me not, therefore, admit one word of Cecil's respecting Rose
Blanche, who promised to have more beauty, intelligence, and heart,
than any other infant then sprawling in long clothes, or then looking
with profound impenetrable calmness upon the wondrous universe to
which it had been so recently introduced.

A beam of sunshine had been let into the existence of Blanche and
Cecil, a beam which stretching far out into the future gilded the
distant horizon, so that they, and all, pronounced great happiness in
store for them.  The exquisite expression of maternal love made
Blanche incomparably beautiful; and Cecil, as he watched her gazing
downwards on the infant at her breast, in that deep stillness of
seraphic love, whose calm intensity Raphael, alone has succeeded in
pourtraying,--would bend forward and press his lips upon her forehead
chastened, purified, and exalted.  In those moments he was another
man; ennui fled, discouragement was conquered, and the cards were not
before his mind's eye.




CHAPTER V.

VIOLET TO MARMADUKE.

  Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend--
  Seeking a higher object.  Love was given,
  Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end:
  For this the passion to excess was driven,
  That self might be annulled:--her bondage prove
  The fetters of a dream, opposed to love.
                              WORDSWORTH.--_Laodamia._


DEAREST MARMADUKE,

I must write to you.  I have been on the point of doing so often,
very often, and now I learn from Rose that you have written to ask
her if she could send you news of my health from time to time.  Thank
you, Marmaduke, thank you for the delicacy which has dictated your
respect for my resolution--thank you for not having attempted to
discover my retreat.  You see I disclose it to you now--I am with my
kind old uncle--I let you know it, confiding in your not abusing the
knowledge, and attempting to see me.  We cannot meet.  I could not
endure it.  But we can write.  Your letters will be a solace to me;
to write to you will be an exquisite pleasure.  Yes, Marmaduke, I
long to pour out my soul to you; I long to tell you all I think, all
I do; and you will tell me what you think, and what you do, will you
not?  There is no issue from our fate; we must bear it, but we shall
bear it with less murmuring if we can speak to each other without
reserve.

"My health, you will be glad to learn, is good.  Exercise keeps up my
strength, in spite of what I have suffered.  I am almost all day on
horseback with my uncle, and that keeps me strong.  Shot is of course
my inseparable companion; the dear beast sympathizes with me, I am
sure; and sometimes when I sit still, my soul carried away in some
sad reverie, I see his intelligent eyes fixed inquiringly on my face,
and then I say, 'where is Marmaduke?' and he pricks his ears, wags
his tail, and runs to the door to listen if indeed you are coming;
disappointed, he returns to his place to look sadly at me, as if he
knew that your presence alone would bring the smile again upon my
face.

"I am much calmer than I was.  Renewed health has doubtless a great
deal to do with it, for misery is but malady; the healthy are not
long unhappy.  I now resign myself to the inevitable, and no longer
beat my distracted wings against my cage.  Happy I am not, and cannot
hope to be; but I am calm, and in my calmness it seems to me that the
privilege of writing to you, and of knowing that you think of me, is
a privilege which the happiest might envy.

"I read much.  Tell me what books you are reading that I may read
them too, and so be with you in spirit, even in your studies.  Mind
you obey me in this particular, and tell me all the books you read.
Do not be afraid of frightening me by the dryness of the subject.  I
have been a miscellaneous and unwomanly reader.  Papa's and uncle's
libraries have always been at my disposal, and although I have
studied no one subject, and am consequently very, very ignorant, yet
in my unrestrained liberty I have read all sorts of books, from
treatises of philosophy to novels.  You know papa made us all learn a
little Latin, that he might explain Horace to us; so that I have got
a tincture of learning, just enough to make men's books intelligible,
and not enough to make me a blue.

"Therefore, let me read what you read; I shall, perhaps, understand a
serious book all the better from knowing that you have understood it;
for I want my mind to be as little below your level as culture can
make it.

"Describe to me your daily habits and avocations.  Rose tells me that
you are seen nowhere; that you have ceased to visit all your old
friends.  What replaces them?

"I do not ask you if you think of me.  I know you do.  My own heart
tells me so.  I know your character; with all its manly strength, it
has womanly tenderness in it, like the honey Samson found in the
lion's mouth; and that tenderness is my guarantee that I am not
forgotten; that, although separated by an insuperable barrier, we are
not less united in heart.  You will not cease to love me because I
cannot be yours; you will not love me less because I am forced to
deny you.  No, Marmaduke, love such as yours is not selfish: it is
something higher than self, and I will not pay you the ill compliment
of doubting it.  Could I do so, I should be selfish enough to appeal
to your feelings, to entreat you to love me ever, and not to think of
another.  I should be jealous could I doubt you--but I cannot doubt.

"God bless you, Marmaduke, may you be happy!  Write to me soon; and
write only of yourself.

"VIOLET."




CHAPTER VI.

BRIGHTER SCENES.

  You o'erjoyed spirits, wipe your long-wet eyes!
                  JOHN MARSTON.--_The Malcontent._


There was a charming ball at Mrs. Langley Turner's.  The rooms were
full without being crowded, and the company was brilliant: rank,
beauty, and talent, gave their éclat to the scene.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner and Rose were there; George Maxwell of course,
and to Rose's extreme delight, Julius St. John.  She was at first
annoyed at recognising him, but her second thoughts showed her that
the present was an excellent opportunity for exhibiting her
indifference.  She was, accordingly, in high spirits, or seemed to be
so; accepted the homage paid her with saucy coquetry; danced, talked,
and laughed as if her heart were as light as innocence could make it.
A careless bow had been her only salute of Julius, and she passed by
him several times without affecting not to observe him.

She noticed that he had grown thinner and paler.  His face had grown
more thoughtful, but his demeanour was perfectly calm.

Late in the evening, Rose was examining the flowers, and thinking of
the handsome young guardsman who had just left her side, when she
felt some one approach her.  It was Julius.  She resumed her
inspection of the flowers.

"If you are not engaged for the next quadrille, Miss Vyner," he said
in a low but firm tone, "may I hope for the honour?"

"I am engaged," she replied quietly, and then moved half-way round
the flower-stand, as if to discover fresh beauties.

Julius did not mistake the refusal; but he was not to be so easily
discouraged.

"Are you also engaged for the quadrille after that?"

"I am."

There was less firmness in her tone; he thought it trembled.

"And .... I hope I am not intrusive .... and the next?"

Rose fancied that a refusal would look like fear, so she mastered her
voice, and replied, with the stereotyped smile,--

"I shall have much pleasure."

He bowed, and withdrew.

Rose's gaiety was somewhat damped; she tried to be lively, but there
was a depression on her spirits she could not shake off.  It seemed
as if her eyes could fix themselves nowhere but in the direction in
which Julius stood.

She tried to look away, but she soon found herself again watching him.

Meanwhile, Maxwell was remonstrating with Mrs. Vyner upon the little
desire she exhibited to be near him, to speak to him.

"We must think of appearances," she replied; "here every action is
noticed and commented-on."

"But other men sit by you; you talk to them."

"Yes; as a blind.  If I am seen much with you, people will begin to
gossip."

"What if they do?" he brutally replied.

"What if they do!  Are you indifferent to it?"

"You do not seem to be, at any rate," he said, sarcastically.  "You
have grown very respectful of appearances of late.  You never thought
of them with Mr. Ashley."

"Because I did not care for him."

"You _looked_ as if you did; you acted as if you did; and every one
supposed you did."

"But they were wrong.  I was not careful then, because there was no
danger of my committing myself.  With you, it is very different."

"So it appears."

"Now you are angry."

"I am."

"What about?"

"Your indifference."

"Foolish fellow!" she said playfully.

"Oh, yes, it is very easy to say that; but I feel I have cause to be
angry.  You pretend to love me, yet you can leave me here in the
room, and chatter away to any fool who pleases to accost you.  One
would think I was indifferent to you."

"_One_ would think! who would? would you?  What does it matter to you
if the world thinks me indifferent to you?"

"It matters a great deal."

"How so?"

"Of course it does; it always matters to a man to have a charming
woman care for him.  People envy him his good fortune.  They think
more highly of him."

"And you wish to be envied?"

"I do not wish it to be supposed that I am so unattractive that no
woman can care for me."

"It would please you, then, if people gossipped about us?"

"I don't say that exactly; though I don't see what harm their gossip
could do us."

She fixed her grey eyes upon him with a strange expression.  In an
instant she read his character--its intense selfishness was revealed;
and she began to doubt whether he, too, might not be playing with
her, as Marmaduke had played; or worse, whether his love might not be
the mere prompting of a wretched vanity, which sought her conquest as
a trophy, not as a desire.

"Mr. Maxwell, we differ so entirely in our views, that it would be
useless to prolong this discussion.  I have only this more to say: so
far from giving the world any right to gossip about me, in reference
to you, it is my determination to relinquish the pleasure of your
acquaintance from this time forward.  When you have learned what is
due to me, I may resume it; not till then."

She rose, as she said this, and walked across the room to Mrs.
Langley Turner, by whose side she sat down; while Maxwell gazed on
her with mingled feelings of astonishment and rage, his brow
darkening, his lips compressed, and every nerve within him trembling.

Mrs. Vyner was wrong in her suspicions.  It was not vanity, it was
jealousy which prompted his words.  He suffered tortures from seeing
her smile, and chat with other men, and scarcely notice him.  He was
sincere in his wish for her to distinguish him above all the rest;
not simply to gratify his vanity, but to assure him that she really
loved him enough to brave everything for him.  Besides, he could not
understand how her love allowed her to keep away from his side.
Prudence never chilled _him_.  Appearances never restrained him.  He
could have sat by her all the evening--every evening--it was what he
most desired; and he did not understand how she could forego the same
pleasure.

Maxwell was narrow-minded, even stupid; but his passions were
intense; and at this moment he felt as if he could murder her.  He
quitted the ball in a state of deep concentrated anger, brooding on
what he considered his wrongs.

Julius came to claim Rose for the quadrille.  They were silent at
first, and embarrassed.

"How did you like Italy?" she said, by way of breaking the silence.

"Not at all."

"Indeed! then you are singular.  I thought every one must like it.
Perhaps you prefer contradiction?'

"No; I was in no frame of mind to enjoy anything."

She trembled slightly; the _chaine des dames_, by obliging her to
quit his side, prevented her speaking.  When they again stood quietly
beside each other, he continued,--

"We went to see everything, and the only result was, that we so tired
ourselves during the day, that we slept soundly at night."

"But the pictures, the statues, the architecture, the people?"

"I saw them all; but they all wearied me."

"You were rehearsing Childe Harold, I suppose?" she said, with a
feeble attempt at liveliness, which her voice belied.

"If I had been acting a part--even of misanthropy--I should have
enjoyed myself unhappily ... It is your _l'été_."

She advanced, and the conversation was again interrupted.  Nothing
more was said during the rest of the quadrille; both were absorbed in
their own thoughts.

He led her to a seat, and took another beside her.  After a pause of
some moments, she said,--

"So you were unhappy in Italy?"

He looked earnestly into her eyes as he answered,--

"Does that surprise you?  Were you not already aware of it?  Had I
not cause?"

She blushed deeply, as she said,--

"No; you had .... no cause .... if you had stayed in England .... you
might have got over it."

His lower jaw fell as she concluded this phrase.  She felt herself on
the eve of a declaration, and by a strong effort turned it off in
that way.

At this moment a partner came to carry her off for a waltz, and
Julius was left to his own reflections.  He reproached himself for
having so far betrayed his feelings; but in truth they had been wrung
from him, as from her, by the irresistible fascination of the moment.

On closer inspection, it seemed to him, as if there had been in her
manner a tenderness and embarrassment which implied a wish for
reconciliation, if not a regret for the past.

Prompted by this idea, he went up to Mrs. Vyner, and began a long
conversation with her, at the termination of which he asked if he
might be allowed to pay his respects to her some morning.

"Always delighted to receive you, Mr. St. John, that you must know;
indeed, I should pick a quarrel with you for not having called
before, but that I suppose you have some excellent excuse."

"Then, to-morrow?"

"To-morrow we shall be at home."

The morrow came, and Julius, resolved at any rate not to lose Rose as
a _friend_ (beautiful sophistry of lovers!), was punctual in his
visit.  He was there before every one else.  Vyner and his wife were
alone in the drawing-room.

"Let Miss Vyner know that Mr. St. John is here," said Mrs. Vyner to
the servant.

In a few minutes Rose came down: a volume was in her hand, and it
caught the eye of her lover as soon as she appeared.  She was very
agitated, but shook him by the hand as if nothing particular was
about to transpire.  She tried to join in the conversation, but could
never finish a sentence.

Mrs. Vyner left the room shortly afterwards, and then Rose suddenly
remembered that papa had bought a new and rare edition of Horace,
which she was sure Mr. St. John would like to see.

Julius expressed enthusiastic eagerness.

Vyner thought he could lay his hand on it in a minute, and trotted
away to his study for that purpose.

No sooner had he left the room than Rose, blushing and trembling,
said,--

"Here is a book .... I meant to give it you .... before you left the
Hall .... that night."

She could say no more.  He snatched the volume from her hand: it was
Leopardi.  A thrill of rapture ran through his whole being; and, in a
voice choked with emotion, he said,--

"Rose .... dearest Rose .... is this .... is this the answer to my
.... to my letter?"

"It is."

He clasped her in his arms, and, with hysterical passion, groaned, as
he held her to his heart.

"Here is my treasure .... Eh?" said Vyner, opening the door, and
discovering the lovers in that unambiguous embrace.

"Tell him all," whispered Rose in Julius's ear, as she fled in
confusion from the room.

Julius did tell all; and that very hour Vyner gave his delighted
consent.




CHAPTER VII.

ANOTHER LOVE SCENE.

_Claude_.--"Miserable trickster! you know that your weapon is
harmless!--You have the courage of the mountebank, sir, not the
bravo."

BULWER.--_Lady of Lyons._


That very day a strangely different scene took place in that house.

Mrs. Vyner was in that famous boudoir before described; Maxwell was
gloomily pacing it to and fro.  He was there for the purpose of
having an "explanation"; but he found her more than a match for him,
and was now trying to beat from his stupid brain a convincing
argument.

"You don't love me," he at last exclaimed.

"Have you come here to tell me that?  If so, I would have you
observe, that you have chosen a singularly inappropriate occasion."

"I say you don't love me," he repeated, and his eyes sparkled with
malignant fire.

"Perhaps not.  You do not take the way to make me love you."

This was said with such an air of quiet indifference, that he paused
to look at her, as if he could read on her brow a confirmation of
what she said.

"I do not love you then!" he said bitterly.  "I have not loved you
for two years .... not saying; a word about it .... loving you in
secret .... seeing others more favoured, seeing others looking into
your face as I dare not look .... suffering tortures of jealousy ....
I do not take the way to gain your love! what way should I then take?"

"Be amiable .... women are not captivated by scowls .... George, you
are unjust to me.  Sit down, and listen to me calmly.  Remember my
position."

"You take care I shall not forget it."

"Would you then forget it?"

"Yes; for it keeps you from me.  It is in your mouth at all times.
'My position' is your excuse for everything."

"And is it not a valid excuse?"

"No; it is not: it is a mere excuse.  Remember your position, indeed!
why do you love another man than your husband, if your _position_
forbids it?"

She looked at him in surprise, but even her tiger eyes quailed
beneath the savage glance of her brutal lover.  She felt that he was
her _master_!  He was not to be led as Marmaduke had been led,
because in him there was none of the generous principle, or chivalric
sensibility, which made Marmaduke, in spite of his impetuosity,
pliable and manageable.  He had almost as much vehemence, and
infinitely more brutality.  She saw all this; yet she loved him.
Strange paradox of human nature, she loved the fierce, narrow-minded,
ungenerous Maxwell, with a far deeper passion than she had felt for
the generous, open-hearted, high-spirited Marmaduke!  It may be that
she felt more sympathy with a being of a lower order; or it may be
that Maxwell alone had conquered her: certain it is, that she felt
for him another kind of passion, and was more his slave than he hers.
By a not uncommon transposition of places, he, who as an
unacknowledged lover had been the most abject slave, became, when
acknowledged, the most unflinching tyrant.  This is generally the
case with brute natures.

It is not to be supposed that she submitted quietly.  She was too
fond of power to relinquish it without a struggle; but although
ridicule was a weapon she wielded with unsparing skill, and a weapon
he dreaded more than any other; yet even that was but a small sword
which was beaten down by the heavy sabre of his fierce sarcasm.

"You do not answer me," he said, irritated at her silence.

"Until you can speak to me as a gentleman," she replied, "I shall
remain silent."

"That is an easy way of ending an argument."

"There is an easier."

"Is there, indeed?"

"And more efficient--do not force me to it."

"Pray what is it?"

"To leave the room."

She rose and walked to the door.  He seized her wrist.

"Let me go, sir; you hurt me.....  This violence is _manly_--but it
is like you.....  Let me go.....  Will you force me to ring the bell,
and have you ordered out of the house?"

"Ring the bell! you dare not ring it!  I defy you.....  What could
you say? what do I do here? .... Ring it, by all means!"

She was stung by his manner, and looking on him with intense scorn,
said,--

"I will."

As she moved towards the bell, he drew a pistol from his pocket.  She
started, terrified at the sight.

"You brave me, do you?" he said, hoarse with passion; "you brave me;
well! ring!"

Her hand was on the bell: she hesitated.

"What means that?  Do you intend to murder me?"

"_I do!_"

She did not start, she did not scream; a smile of unutterable scorn
passed over her face.

"Ring it, I tell you."

"You wish me to order you to be turned out?"

"I wish to end this struggle--and I declare to God that I will end
it, either in my favour, or with your life.  I am reckless; choose
you!  You think I am a fool; you are mistaken: I am no fool; nor
shall you make me one.  You say you love me; I hope for your sake you
speak truly; if you do not, you shall not live to torture me."

"Your hand trembles."

"It is with passion, then.  It is because the crisis has arrived.  It
is because this is the moment that must decide everything."

Her hand was still upon the bell.  Her calmness puzzled and
exasperated him, and when she said with a slight irony in her tone,--

"And you really talk of shooting me, to prove your love?"

He levelled the pistol at her, and shouted,--

"Ring the bell, and try me!"

"I will.  But first allow me to observe, that if there is one thing
more despicable than the threat you make, it is to commit the
exquisitely ridiculous mistake of _acting_ such a part as you now
act.  Passion might excuse the _deed_; nothing can efface the
childish stupidity of the _pretence_.  Mr. Maxwell, when next you get
up a scene like this, at least take care that your pistol is
_loaded_; yours has no cap!"

Having uttered this in the coldest, calmest tone imaginable, she rang
the bell.

A cry burst from him as he looked down, and saw in truth, that there
was no cap on the nipple.  He thrust the pistol into his pocket, and
threw himself into a chair in wild confusion.

The servant entered.

"Order a cab for Mr. Maxwell," Mrs. Vyner said.

The servant retired, and they were again alone.  Not a word passed.
Overwhelmed with rage and shame, Maxwell sat brooding on his stormy
thoughts.  Mrs. Vyner watched him with scorn: he had lost the hold
over her which his violence had gained: she now thought that he was
not so terrible as Marmaduke had been, and from having feared, she
now despised him.

"The cab is at the door," said the servant.

Maxwell did not move.  His dark thoughts occupied him.  It had been
no vulgar threat, for the pistol was really loaded, although the cap
had been forgotten; but he understood the contempt with which she
must regard him, and he was ruminating projects of vengeance.

She had taken up a book and was affecting to read, as if undisturbed
by his presence; he was made aware of it by the rustle of the leaves
as she turned them over; and conscious of the disadvantage of his
position, he at length arose, and looking at her malignantly, said,--

"You fancy me an actor; I am one; my first appearance has been in a
farce; laugh, laugh! my next will be in a tragedy!"

And with a low bow he retired.




CHAPTER VIII.

VIOLET WRITES AGAIN.

Les lettres d'amour ne portent l'émotion que dans le cœur qui
inspire et qui partage le feu qui les a dictées.  Par elles-mêmes
elles se ressemblent toutes: mais chaque être épris d'amour trouve
dans celle qui lui est adressée une puissance irrésistible, une
nouveauté incomparable.

GEORGE SAND.--_La Comtesse de Rudolstadt._


Your letter, dearest Marmaduke, was a great joy to me, but the joy
was dashed with pain as I came to the close, and read there the hope
you express of our speedy union.  No, that cannot be.  Oh, do you not
feel that it cannot be? do you not feel that it does not depend upon
my love, but upon the irrevocable past?  I thought I had made you
understand all my feelings on this unhappy subject, and that I might
write to you freely without awakening in either of us a hope which
cannot be gratified.  Your letter has greatly pained me; pained me
because you seem to think that, inasmuch as we both love, we must be
united--that love will bear down all obstacles and triumph at last.
But no; that cannot be.  If there were the remotest chance of it, do
you think I should not catch at such a hope with all the impatient
eagerness of love?  Have I nothing to subdue?  Have I no temptations
to overcome?  Think, Marmaduke, my noble Marmaduke, think of what I
have suffered and must still suffer when I look upon our fate, and
yet can say, am forced to say, we must never meet!  I fled from
London, fled from you, because I feared the insidious counsels of my
heart.  My reason tells me that I acted rightly--do you not feel so
too?

I had looked forward to this correspondence with such longing!  I had
pictured all the rapture it would give us both; and see! the first
letter from you rips up old wounds, and draws from me bitter, bitter
tears.

It must cease, unless you can accept my hard conditions.  It must
cease, Marmaduke, for I dare not let it continue.  I could not trust
myself--I should allow myself to be persuaded--your hopes would
become my hopes--your prayers would melt my resolution.  I know it.
I know my own heart; I know its strength and its weakness, and I feel
that it would be madness in me to expose myself to the temptation of
corresponding with you on _that_ subject.  You would defeat me at
last; and I must not, I will not be defeated!  Therefore, promise me
at once to accept my conditions, promise to love me as one whom an
inevitable fate has separated from you, and for ever.  Let us at the
outset understand the relation which can alone exist between us.  We
love, but we must love without hope.  Let us accept our fate--a fate
which our murmurs or our struggles cannot alter, and in this
resignation our love will be as a guiding star to light us through
life; let our souls blend into one; let our hearts never be
separated, and we shall live together in spirit, though distant from
each other.  This is not the happy lot which might have been ours,
but it is the happiest which remains for us.  Isolated we shall be;
without home, without family; but life will still have one sacred
feeling one immeasurable delight, and above the turmoils and petty
cares of the world there will be a heaven for us.

Will you accept my love upon such terms?  Will you struggle with
yourself as I have struggled, and conquer as I have conquered?

I may seem cold in writing thus!  Oh, do not think it; do not think
that this conquest has been lightly made!  I love you, love you with
the passionate excess of a fervid nature: but the stern necessities
of our condition imprison me in this reserve.  It is because I see no
outlet that I am so firm; and it is only since I have clearly seen my
lot is inevitable that I have learned to be calm and happy.  Write to
me without delay, write to tell me that you do not misunderstand
me--that you do not think me cold: oh, you cannot think _that_!
Write to me to tell me that you see, as I see, how our only chance of
happiness is in resignation--in love without hope.  Write to me to
tell me that my love will be as a star to you in your ambitious
career, and that when the busy day is done, and night with all its
deep repose comes on, your thoughts will then rise from the
occupations of the day to that serener sphere where souls commingle.
For my love _will_ be this to you, dearest; I know it, since I
interpret my own heart for you.

VIOLET.




CHAPTER IX.

FRANK IN REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES.

Little Rose Blanche throve apace; but Cecil's painting proceeded
slowly, and his mind was still more busy with those imaginary games
in which his success was greater and greater every day.

Rose and Julius were in that feverish condition which is common to
lovers, whirled amidst the bustle of marriage preparations.

Fevers are not usually enviable things; but that is a kind of fever
which we all envy.  The Present how crowded, how occupied, how
intense! the Future, how radiant, how dream-peopled!  The pulse
beats, the brain is over-excited, the step is light (and the head
also), the face wears an aspect of everlasting beatitude, the hand is
generous, the whole man is in a dream.

Some people, indeed, "wondered" at the match; some very ill-favoured
men couldn't, for the life of them, imagine what she could see in
that ugly fellow: while others, less charitable (they were females),
would be sorry to hint at anything illiberal, but they really did
think that Rose Vyner, though a lively girl enough, and all that sort
of thing, was scarcely the girl to make a good wife.  But none of
these opinions reached the ears of the parties concerned; and the
circle of the Vyners, and the St. Johns was, with few exceptions,
sincerely rejoiced at the approaching marriage.

One afternoon, while Cecil was laboriously painting, Frank Forrester
knocked at his door.

"Not at home, sir," said the girl, resolutely.

"Bah!" said Frank, introducing his person into the passage.

"Indeed he is not, sir; and he's very particularly engaged."

"You see, my lily of Westminster .... for you are a lily, damn my
whiskers!" said Frank, passing his arm round her waist, and kissing
her smutty and reluctant cheek; "you see I understand perfectly well,
that it is your business to say your master's not at home...."

"Yes, sir; he told me so strictly."

"But it is my business not to believe you ... so announce me, you
peony of Pimlico! announce me .... No; I'll announce myself."

So saying, Frank marched up stairs, and without ceremony walked into
the _atélier_.

Cecil was embarrassed at seeing him.

"What's this? cut so old a chum as Frank Forrester!  Not at home to
Frank!  Damn my whiskers! it is enough to make one give the lie to
those prime histories of ancient friendship; the Damons and Pythiases
didn't say not at home to each other, I presume....  What's the
start, Cis, my boy?  How is it we never see you?  How is it I am
denied whenever I present my agreeable person at your inhospitable
door?"

Cecil briefly explained to him the change which had taken place in
his finances and his habits.

"Quite right too, Cis.  Damn it! there's nothing to be done at _rouge
et noir_.  I have quite given it up!  Unfortunately, not before it
cleaned me out.  You see," he added, looking down upon his costume,
"I am not magnificent .... I don't flourish."

To judge by his appearance, indeed, he did not flourish; and Cecil
could not help being painfully struck with the contrast between his
costume now, and when last he saw him.  Rings, chains, studs, shirt
pin, and cane were gone.  The hat was greasy, and glossy from being
carefully brushed after repeated wettings; the cut-away coat was so
threadbare, and its collar so greasy, that it seemed as if it had
been worn for ten years, and was hourly in danger of falling to
pieces.  The double-breasted waistcoat, the brilliant shawl-pattern
of which was now greatly faded, was buttoned up to the throat.  The
sky-blue trousers, worn at the seams, and bagged at the knees, were
tightly strapped over a pair of decent boots.  Altogether, there was
such unmistakeable poverty, coupled with such an attempt at style,
that his appearance was singularly painful.  It was not humble
poverty; it was faded splendour.  It was the wreck of a man about
town.

His face also showed the effects of the change.  Poverty had brought
with it a forced abstinence from that excitement which hitherto had
sustained him; and every one knows the effects which follow any
cessation of accustomed stimulus.  Frank having been used to live
freely, sometimes intemperately, now drank water.  Accustomed to the
excitement of the gaming-table, he now could rarely indulge in it.
Some men, forced to abstain from wine, would have taken to spirits,
or even beer; but Frank damned his whiskers, and declared he was a
gentleman, and had never learned to "guzzle": if he could not get
wine, and good wine, he would not defile his palate with vulgar
drinks.

"What are you doing?" asked Cecil.

"Living the life of a beast, damn my whiskers! dining off a solitary
chop, lounging about to be cut by former associates, making vain
attempts to induce my friends to go through the matter of form of
putting their names to a bill, and moralizing on the fragility of
human friendship, and the limits of human credit."

"Well, but have you no means of getting a livelihood?'

"What means?  You don't expect me to turn painter, and be moral like
yourself, do you?"

"No, indeed; but still, my dear Frank, you must do something."

"Something will turn up, perhaps."

"But if nothing should turn up, what can the end be?"

"Oh! a new broom and a crossing!  That's a _dernière ressource_;--not
a bad one, either.  A man 'sees life' at a crossing;--besides, the
occupation's healthy--all in the open air.  I should make a fortune
at it.  Damme! a gentleman with a broom--that would produce an
effect, I think!"

Cecil shook his head, though he could not refrain from smiling at
Frank's coolness.

"You haven't such a thing as a sovereign about you, eh?" said Frank,
combing the long thin hair over the top of his head, so as to hide
his daily increasing baldness.

"Yes, Frank, I have, and very much at your service."

"You're a trump!" said Frank, jumping up, and shaking him by the
hand.  "I have asked that question of eight of my friends within the
last two days, and--it was very unfortunate--but at that moment not
one of them could lay his hand upon such a thing, damn my whiskers!"

Cecil passed the sovereign to him.

"At any rate, I shall dine to-day," Frank exclaimed.

"Is that anything new, then?"

"So completely novel, that it has not occurred this whole week.  In
fact, I haven't what I call _dined_ for a month; I have only stifled
the baser cravings of hunger, but not satisfied those higher and,
perhaps, more imperious cravings of the man who knows how to dine.
For, as you know, it is one thing to eat, another thing to eat as an
intellectual being should eat.  It breaks my heart to pass the club
windows, and know how many facilities there are within of dining as a
man with an immortal soul should dine,--and to reflect how few among
the diners know how to accomplish that solemnity."

"Well, but do you mean to say that, in your present state of
finances, you intend spending that sovereign on your dinner?"

"That, or the greater part of it," replied Frank, with considerable
seriousness.  "I have a strong desire to _dine_.  I can support
hunger, I can live upon a crust (if forced), but, damn my whiskers!
from time to time I must satisfy the higher cravings of my nature,
and dine."

"Frank, you shall dine to-day, and at my invitation; save that
sovereign for next week.  I warn you, that you will seldom get one
from me after this; for I myself am poor.  So make the most of it;
but to-day we'll dine together."

"We will; the suggestion does credit to your head and heart, Cis."




CHAPTER X.

EFFECTS OF DINING WELL.

After a dinner at the Thatched House, limited in the number of
dishes, but selected with the skill of a Frank Forrester, and
assisted by a bottle of Barsac, two bottles of Æil-de-perdrix, and a
bottle of Romané, the two friends were seated at the table in that
state of indolent beatitude which succeeds a scientifically-chosen
repast.  The pulse is heightened, but digestion is light; the brain
is active, yet somewhat dreamy; the will seems lulled, and anything
like an effort seems impossible.

Sipping their Burgundy, Frank and Cecil sat talking over the various
experiences of their lives, especially with women--a subject on which
men are usually communicative during such hours.  Frank was
inexhaustible in stories, which made Cecil roll with laughter, or
listen with breath-suspended interest.  Meanwhile the lights grew
dimmer, and their brains grew heavier: the Burgundy was steadily
overcoming them.  Frank perceiving it, made a movement to go.  Cecil
tried to persuade him to have another bottle, but he was resolute;
and having paid the bill, they departed.

The fresh air somewhat dissipated the effect of the wine, but Cecil
was now in a state of craving for a fresh sensation; and when Frank
announced his intention of trying his luck with the sovereign he had
borrowed, Cecil noisily declared he would go with him.

"Not that I intend to play, though.  No, no, I've given that up; that
won't do.  But come along, Frank; anything for a lark.  Lalla-liety!
Lalla-liety!" he shouted, in a feeble falsetto, as if announcing to
the universe that he was not the boy to go home till morning did
appear.

When they entered the gaming-house, Cecil, though perfectly aware of
everything he did and said, was still what is called "far gone"; and
the dazzling lights, the well-known cries, the chink of the money,
the click of the rake against the coin, the murmur of conversation,
all conspired to intoxicate him.

While Frank played, he walked about the room, observing the various
countenances of the players.  In one corner sat a young man of about
three and twenty, haggard and pale: he was weeping silently, the
tears rolling unheeded down his cheeks, and falling upon the ground,
while every now and then a stifled sob seemed to tear his breath.  He
had lost all.

There was something so painful in this retired sorrow; that Cecil,
who was contemplating him with a sort of drunken compassion, went up
to him, and said,--

"Do not be downcast, sir, fortune may change.  Have you lost much?"

"Seventeen pounds," sobbed the young man; "but it was my all--I am
ruined! utterly ruined!  Fortune cannot change for me, for I shall
never have another sixpence, to tempt her with.  O my poor mother! my
poor mother!"

A tear stood in Cecil's eye, and he hiccupped.  He was debating with
himself whether he should give the unhappy youth a chance of
recovering his gains.  At last, slipping a half sovereign into his
hand, he said,--

"There--risk that.  But if you win back your money, promise me
solemnly never to play again.  You may not another time find one to
give you a chance."

The bloodshot eyes of the youth flashed fire as he saw the piece of
gold in his hand.  He tried to utter his thanks, but a sort of
gurgling murmur was all that escaped.  He instantly went to the table
and began to play.  Cecil, interested in his fate, stood beside him.

He won, and won, and won.  In a quarter of an hour, in spite of
several losses, he had recovered his seventeen pounds, and five more
with them.  He repaid Cecil the half sovereign, and clasping his
hand, said fervently:--"God bless you! you have saved a
fellow-creature!" and ran rather than walked out of the house.

No sooner had he departed than, strange inconsistency!  Cecil began
to play.

The young man's presence had been a restraint on him, which not even
the intoxicating sight of the gold could overcome.  He had presented
himself as a Mentor to that young man, and could not in his presence
descend from the pedestal; accordingly he was irritably anxious for
his protégé to win, and to depart.  All the time he had been standing
at the table, a sort of fever of cupidity possessed him.  He staked
imaginary sums, and always, or almost always, won.  Yes, even with
the game played before him, he juggled with himself almost as much as
when alone in his _atélier_ he played those successful games.
Whoever has stood at a table where a game of chance is being played,
and has, in imagination only, participated, must remember this:--We
choose a side; if it is victorious, we reflect how great would have
been our gain; if it is unsuccessful, we say to ourselves, "There
would have been a loss;" but we do not, to our minds, realize that
loss with anything like the vividness with which we realize the gain;
and, moreover, we constantly shelter ourselves under the idea that
"most likely we should not, after all, have chosen that side."

This was the process going on in Cecil's mind as he stood by that
table, and saw the game played; and he was impatient for his protégé
to begone: so impatient that he cared not whether the youth won or
lost; and indeed at one period when the losses were frequent, he was
rather disappointed to see a gain follow them, because it deferred
the youth's exit.  Such is human egotism!

No sooner was he freed from this restraint than, heedless of the
whispers of his conscience, he flung down a sovereign, and was soon
absorbed in the game.

Frank presently came round to him, having lost back twenty pounds
which he had won, and now begged another loan.  Cecil took up a dozen
sovereigns from the heap before him, and handed them to him with a
caution to be careful.

Till deep in the night they played, and Cecil left the house a winner
of sixty pounds.  Frank had lost the twelve lent him, and was savage
against fate.  Cecil, half intoxicated as he was, and glorying in his
winnings, still felt a pressing sense of remorse, at having been
seduced.  But he vowed that it should never recur again; and told
Frank if ever he proposed to go into another gaming-house, from that
instant their friendship would be at an end.

"I have been led astray to-night," he said, "but I dare not repeat
it.  I know what the end must be; and nothing shall make me forget my
oath; so remember, Frank, the first word with which you tempt me, is
the word that parts us for ever!"

"I tempt you, indeed!  I didn't propose it to-night, did I?  Besides,
I have abjured the fickle goddess myself.  I touch no more cards.
Damn my whiskers!"

Cecil rose the next morning with a fearful consciousness of having
broken his oath, and of having again plunged into the mire from which
he had been extricated.  He was ashamed of his weakness, but tried to
convince himself that it was a moment of intoxication, and would not
recur.

That night he took Blanche to her father's; the next night he invited
Rose to come to them, which invitation, as Julius was included in it,
was accepted.

Thus were two days placed as barriers between him and temptation.  He
felt the desire so strong within him to return to the gaming-table,
that he was obliged to place himself in a position which would make
that return almost impossible.  But the third night, he had no
engagement.  The passion had grown stronger from the restraint: it
subdued him!  He struggled with it; he tried to gain courage in
reflecting on the miseries which would ensue; but the "still small
voice," though heard, was impotent.  Passion bullied Reason into
silence; unable to answer its arguments it gagged them with a
reckless "don't care!"

Struggles were vain: the gamester would fulfil his destiny.




CHAPTER XI.

THE HONEYMOON.

            When the fretful stir
  Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
  Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,
  How oft in spirit have I turned to thee,
  O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods!
                                      WORDSWORTH.

  Mira queste mine
  E le carte, e le tete, e i marmi, e i templi,
  Pensa qual terra premi; e se destarti
  Non può la luce di cotanti esempli,
  Che stai?  Levati e parti.
                                      LEOPARDI.


Julius and Rose were married, and a brighter day never shone upon our
island than that which saw these two admirable creatures united.

Vyner's heart was heavy as he gave her away; for although he had the
highest opinion of Julius, and thought the match in every way an
excellent one, yet Rose was the only child he had now at home with
him; and his affection, rejected by his wife, had turned itself once
more towards his children.

They set off for a wedding tour, down the Wye into Wales.  Who shall
depict their silent, deep, unspeakable happiness, as they felt
themselves now for ever united?  Words have no power of expressing
such feelings: there is no standard to which to refer an experience
which transcends all former experience.  Either the reader has felt
this bliss; or he will, some day, feel it.  To his own experience I
must refer him.

Everything then has a certain newness; yet everything comes as such a
matter of course!  All emotions glide through the soul with such a
soft sure pace, that they excite no surprise even by their novelty.
The lovers "feel as if they had been married years;" and yet a
curious sense of novelty is always present.  They do not feel what
they expected to feel; yet are they not surprised.  In fact, they are
all feeling; all deep, vivid, unspeakable emotion.  Hand clasped in
hand, lip pressed to lip, eyes fixed on eyes, hours of silent and
unbroken bliss pass swiftly on, as if the wide universe were shrunk
into one spot, as if a whole eternity were not too great to be filled
by that one passion.

Love is the intensest form of life.  No wonder, then, that all human
beings crave it; no wonder that we all feel a perennial interest in
it, and that the look of tenderness we detect in its passage from one
loved being to another, stirs strange memories in our hearts, and
breaks like a smile over our souls; no wonder that in the cunning
pages of the poet, we are fascinated by his pictured reflex of those
feelings which belong to our common humanity!

Rose and Julius, so fitly formed to be united, each soul being, in
Plato's language, the half of the other--the two souls rushing into a
perfect one, and making a harmonious life between them: she so gay,
witty, wild, frank, and gentle; he so grave, high-souled,
earnest-minded, and so noble; she so beautiful, and he so honest--how
could they fail to be happy?

To Tinterne's lovely scenes they at first repaired: a delicious spot,
made for honeymoons, did not honeymoons fortunately make every place
a paradise.  The beauty of the spot was sweetly accordant with their
minds; and they were delighted to alternate the admiration of nature
with their adoration of each other.  The sky seemed more blue,
significant, and tender, after witnessing a kiss snatched amidst the
tangled overgrowth of shrubs (with most unfeminine indifference, too,
be it said, in passing, to the crumpling of bonnets!); and the sunny
slopes looked still more verdant, as these lovers chased each other,
like happy children, down them.

I am not going to betray any more of the secrets of those Eleusinian
mysteries of love: the initiated will understand them; and they alone
are fit to hear them.

How Julius and Rose admired Tinterne Abbey!  Everybody does.
Everybody remembers Wordsworth's magnificent lines; and it is the
glorious privilege of poetry to open our eyes to the divinity of
beauty which lies around us, and to confer on nature herself a
splendour not her own.  But lovers have no need of an hierophant:
beauty to them is visible without the poet's aid; for they themselves
are poets.  And to our lovers the abbey was more exquisite than to
any wayfarer's eye seeking only the picturesque.

"I am often puzzled," said Julius, as they stood within the majestic
ruin, "to explain how it is that the proportion we so much admire in
ancient and in Gothic architecture should be the endless despair of
the moderns.  With all our perfection of geometry and masonry, we are
miserably behind our forefathers in the first principle of art:
proportion.  We build more comfortable houses; but we cannot build a
palace, a temple, or a monument.  The Comfortable we attain: our
efforts after the Beautiful are singularly feeble and abortive.  I
suppose those writers are correct who place the cause of failure in
the absence of that religious idea which animated the ancients.
Certainly it seems as if we measured with the rule and compass,
rather than with the mind: we aggregate materials, instead of
incarnating an idea.  We use the symbols of other times, and build
churches and cathedrals with the columns and façades from sunny
Greece, and the Gothic nave and cross from Germany and France; the
flying buttress and the pointed arch side by side the architraves and
pediments of Greece!"

"You will call me a little ignoramus," replied Rose; "but I can't
help it: I prefer this abbey in its ruins to any perfect work of art.
No doubt, in its original state it must have been very lovely; but
look at it now!  With no roof but heaven, no painted windows, but,
instead, those charming glimpses of the hills around; and the chinks
in the walls--the ruin with its moss and lichens, and the soft
shadows thrown on this grassy pavement by the fragments of beauty
which are still remaining--is not all this more beautiful than a work
of art?"

Julius looked into her eyes and thought she was right; but what
stopped his lips from replying, I leave to the reader's imagination:
to my ears it had a very musical sound.

It was in vain they tried to be æsthetical and talk architecture; the
time and mood were not made for it; and even the exquisite beauty
which surrounded them could only draw from them fragmentary remarks.
But if they did not express much, they felt a great deal.

It was not a spot to stand on without having the thoughts constantly
withdrawn from the present to the past, of which it was a fragment.
The mind would wander.  On that very spot where they stood, had many
a pious monk bowed himself down in prayer: asking, in the contrition
of a weary spirit, for pardon and for courage.  The faith which moved
him has passed away, effaced beneath the giant march of time; the
tessellated pavement no longer echoes the slow and heavy tread of
monks, but has been broken and scattered, and has passed away with
the faith it served; and, like that faith, exists only in broken
fragments, curious amongst the weeds that have usurped its place.
The painted windows

            Richly dight,
  Shedding a dim, religious light--

are no more: yon broken, crumbling shaft, springing up like an
aspiring soul to the sky, no longer holds the glass

        Diamonded with panes of quaint device,
  Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
  As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings.


Looking on these fragments which speak feelingly of the decay and
change of all things, a soft melancholy would invade their minds.

"Everything then changes, is it so?" asked Rose.

"Everything," he replied, "but love; and that sustains the world."

Did I not say that lovers were poets?  Here is Julius talking a
language that would surprise himself, were it not the natural
expression of his feelings.  And Rose--instead of being witty and
sparkling--Rose was throughout their tour so serious and sentimental,
that no one would have recognised her; but she was intensely happy in
her melancholy, and would not have changed it for all the gaieties in
the world.

While I contemplate, not without a touch of envy, this change and its
cause, it occurs to me, that as I am, unluckily, in no danger of
falling into the error myself, I may, to follow my usual bent,
moralize for a moment on this all interesting subject of honeymoons.

Rightly is the first month of marriage called a honeymoon: a period
of unceasing sweetness, cloying at last upon the palled and exhausted
palate, unless it have something higher and better upon which to rest
than its mere sweetness.  Before the year is out, the "happy pair"
have, alas! too often found indifference succeed to this
all-exacting, all-impatient passion; a consummation not easily to be
avoided, but perhaps, to be delayed.

Many ingenious writers have tried their hands at a definition of
love; may I not venture after them?

Love, in its commonest form, I take to be an _enthusiasm with which
the mind intensifies and dignifies its desires_.  Unhappily, in most
cases, it is only a passing enthusiasm, dying away with the
gratification of its desires; and dying, because not founded on
lasting qualities; dying, because the sympathies are not involved,
because the moral requirements are not responded to with the same
facility as the physical.  A love, whose root is in passion, and only
in passion, cannot be supposed to survive the first ardour of that
passion.  It is only when above and beyond that passion, giving it
force and perpetually renewing it as from a central fire, there
exists what I should call a moral passion,--an intense moral
desire,--that the love can be durable.  The sensuous desire is
violent but limited; the moral desire is infinite: the craving which
soul feels for perfect communion with soul, and the infinite variety
with which that desire is maintained, give to love its lustre and its
immortality.

But how are we to distinguish between these two kinds of love?  How
is a man to know whether he loves in the complete and exalted manner
last described, and not in the limited, instinctive, perishable
manner?  There, I confess, lies the mystery.  Time alone can solve
it.  No man can well discriminate in his own case, and precisely for
the reason that love is an enthusiasm, which not only intensifies,
but also _dignifies_ his desires, so that in his eyes, his passion
appears exalted, imperishable, unchangeable.

How many an unhappy wretch has awakened from a dream of passion, to
find that after all it was only his enthusiasm which dignified the
object which dignified his passion, and threw around it the lustre of
immortal youth!

To think of this, to see in your own experience so many examples, is
enough to make you register a vow that you will never--no never again
fall in love.  The vow may be registered; Love, who "laughs at
locksmiths," knows the durability of such barriers as vows; and,
looking down with the saucy pity of that imp Puck, exclaims--

  Lord! what fools these mortals be!




BOOK VIII.



CHAPTER I.

AMIABLE PEOPLE.

It was November.  Rose and Julius had returned to London to continue
their felicity in a new sphere: they were quite a model couple, and
were so happy that several people "of experience" shook their heads
sceptically, and exclaimed:--"Ah, well! early times yet, early times!"

What a world of envy in a little phrase!

Meredith Vyner grew morose.  His domestic comfort was now utterly
destroyed, for his wife was entirely estranged from him; and he was
without hope of her ever returning to the former state of
hypocritical fondness.  Beyond this, Violet would not remain in the
house with her step-mother; so that except in his visits to Rose he
saw no one that he loved.  Blanche was also separated from him: her
husband absolutely interdicted all communication between her and her
father.  This was the result of a violent quarrel on the old subject
of his gambling, and of her father's attempt to get her from him.

Cecil's passion for gambling had returned with more than its former
force and recklessness.  Vyner had discovered it; had suppressed the
allowance; lectured Cecil sharply, and endeavoured to persuade
Blanche to leave him.  A complete rupture was the consequence.

The miserable old man saw his daughter's impending ruin, and saw that
he was impotent to save her from it.  This, added to his domestic
sorrows, made him morose.  He was a changed being.  He became dirtier
and dirtier.  He never quoted Horace.  The dust collected on his
manuscripts like the grains of snuff upon his waistcoat, without any
effort on his part to shake them off.  Life to him was purposeless,
joyless.

Mrs. Vyner was as lively and dissipated as ever.  No care sat upon
her brow; no sorrow darkened her existence.  For some weeks after the
scene between her and Maxwell, he ceased to see her; a circumstance
which made her husband for a moment rejoice; he believed that a
rupture having taken place, his wife would return to him.  The hope
was not of long duration.  She, at first indifferent, became at last
uneasy at Maxwell's absence.  She loved him, she was accustomed to
his presence, she liked the excitement of his love, with its fierce
whims, its brutal expressions, and its passionate, unrestrained
vehemence.  She _missed_ him.

Unable longer to bear his absence, she wrote a long and touching
letter, in which real feeling aided her natural adroitness, and
gained the victory.

Maxwell was on the point of giving way, when it reached him.
Obstinate, violent, and revengeful as he was, he too was so uneasy at
being absent from her, that he was glad to have such an excuse for
forgiveness.  He felt as if he could have stabbed her to the heart;
yet he was softened in an instant by her letter.

Peace was made between them.  He promised never again to doubt her
love; she promised never again to offend him.  Things resumed their
old course; yes, even to the renewal of his jealousy and his threats;
but on the whole Mrs. Vyner's brow was smooth!

Not very long after the reconciliation, they were together at a party
at Mrs. Langley Turner's.  Among the company there happened to be
Lord * * * *, notorious in his early days for his successful
gallantries, and not having yet relinquished the ambition of making
conquests.  He sat next to Mrs. Vyner, who was that evening in high
spirits, and looked enchantingly _piquante_.  She was a violent
radical in her opinions, and a great tuft-hunter; a title was always
resplendent in her eyes, no matter what the wearer might be like.  It
is easily conceivable therefore, how, both as a coquette and a
tuft-hunter, she should have been inordinately gratified at the
attentions of Lord * * * *.  She put forth all her fascinations; and
although from time to time she met the dark scowl of Maxwell, who was
observing her like a panther watching from his jungle, she only
answered his anger with a scornful smile, and continued her
attentions to the old nobleman.

As Maxwell saw her rise to depart, he hurried down stairs to the
cloak-room, and there awaited her with the intention of expressing
his anger, as he handed her into the carriage; but to his rage he saw
Lord * * * * accompany her down stairs, gallantly cover her white
shoulders with the shawl, and then handing her to the carriage, take
leave of her in the most significant manner.

Maxwell with difficulty restrained himself from challenging his rival
on the spot.

The next day when he called on Mrs. Vyner, he saw a cab drive from
the door: it was Lord * * * * coming from his first visit.  Maxwell
refused to go in.

Day after day he saw that cab standing there for an hour or two
together; he waited in the street the whole time, and in his
impatience the hour seemed quadrupled.  It was enough to irritate the
least jealous of men; him it drove to phrenzy.

Pale with passion he at last went in, and found the two together.
She received him with easy unconcern, as if he were no more than an
_habitué_.  Lord * * * * looked somewhat "glum" at his presence, and
after a few commonplaces, rose and departed.

"So," said Maxwell to her when they were alone, "my place is taken,
is it?"

"What! jealous again?"

"Not jealous, but convinced."

"Convinced of your own folly?"

"Yes."

"Then, there are hopes of a reformation.  George, don't scowl in that
way; you are not handsome at any time, and when you scowl, least of
all."

"Mary, you must see him no more."

"Him? explain: I hate enigmas."

"Lord * * * * I insist upon it."

"Now, don't be absurd, pray!  Why should I not see a man old enough
to be my father?"

"But not too old to be your lover."

"The old story!  What a queer creature you are!  Why, who ever could
suppose there was danger in a man of his age--he hasn't an unbleached
hair on his head."

"Perhaps not; but a coronet hides that."

"Ha! ha! ha!  Oh, you green-eyed monster!  Really, you are capital
fun, though you don't mean it."

"Beware, beware!"

"Ah! now you are getting tragic ... have you an unloaded pistol about
you by chance?"

A dark smile passed over his face.

"Mary, listen to me: I am very serious.  Laugh, if you please, at my
jealousy, but at any rate, acknowledge that I have a right to insist
on a cessation of his visits."

"I acknowledge nothing of the kind.  Why am I to be deprived of
seeing whom I please?  My husband does not object to my receiving
Lord * * * * why should you?"

"Because you take pleasure in those visits."

"I do."

"They flatter you."

"They do."

"He flatters you."

"He is gallant enough to find my society agreeable--that is more than
I can say for yours at this moment."

"You think it a feather in your cap to have a worthless old nobleman
dangling after you."

"Perhaps I do; what then?"

"I will not allow it."

"Come, come; this is getting a little too imperious."

"I will not allow it, I say."

"Your permission is not necessary."

"I tell you it _shall not be_!"

"George--I am serious now--as you raise your voice--if you know me,
you must know that I may be persuaded to anything, but I am not to be
_driven_.  Obstinacy may not be an amiable quality; but it is a
quality which belongs to me.  Cease that tone of command therefore;
you will get nothing by it."

"I shall not cease that tone.  I shall adopt any tone I please."

"Do so; then don't wonder if I refuse to listen to you."

"But, by God! you shall listen."

"Try me."

Her eyes dilated as she said this, though her voice was perfectly
calm.  She was getting almost as angry as he was.  The spirit of
opposition was abetted by the resolution she had formed not to rebut
the attentions of Lord * * * *, and she now was roused for the
struggle.

And yet, flattered as she undoubtedly was, by the admiration of the
old roué, she loved Maxwell well enough to have sacrificed that
delight, had he taken another course, had he implored instead of
threatened; but that was not in his nature, and his brutal
imperiousness roused her to rebellion.

He had become livid with passion, and it was only with great effort
that he could articulate--

"Don't play with me ... you know not the danger ... I warn you ... I
warn you."

"And I laugh at your threats."

"You think I am not serious?"

"I do not care a straw whether you are serious or not."

"You are resolved then?"

"Quite."

"Oh, beware! beware! do not drive me to the last extremity...."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"By God!" he exclaimed, striking a small table with his fist.

"See," she said, "you have broken my china--a real bit of rococo;
that's what it is to be ungentlemanly and violent."

"Mary ... This is .... You are rushing to destruction!  Look here; I
am almost mad ... but I know what I say ... choose whether you will
obey me--if you do not, as I live, I will blow your brains out, and
then my own!"

"Mr. Maxwell, if you think I am to be frightened by your ravings, if
you think I am to obey your ridiculous caprices, if you think you are
to be my _master_, you are egregiously mistaken.  Leave the house: _I
hate you_!"

Her look expressed her hate, as she said this.

He was convulsed; the veins started on his forehead; his chest heaved
laboriously, and his eyes were dilated with fury, but he uttered no
sound.

"Your love is degradation!  Your soul is as ignoble as your manners
are brutal!  I have put up with this too long.  I have been
contaminated by your presence, and now, I hate you!"

A sort of gurgle, like the death rattle, sounded in his throat; his
face was purple.

"I hate you!" she added.  "Is that clear?  Do you understand me now!"

With his eyes fixed horribly upon her furious countenance, he put his
handkerchief to his mouth; when he removed it, she saw that it was
stained with blood.

A sudden sickness overcame her, and she trembled.

He did not speak another word, but staggered rather than walked
towards the door.  Slowly he descended the stairs, and with his
handkerchief still at his mouth reached home.  The paroxysm of
passion had burst a small bloodvessel.

Left to herself, Mrs. Vyner sank on a couch shivering, and her teeth
chattering together from the combined effects of rage, excitement,
and fear.

The heavy pall of a terrible doom seemed stretched over her future:
dark, mysterious, and awful.  She shuddered as she thought of what
had passed, and only recovered a slight decree of calmness as the
thought occurred to her that perhaps that broken bloodvessel might
put an end to him!




CHAPTER II.

LOVE NOT KILLED BY UNKINDNESS.

  For what will love's exalting not go through,
  'Till long neglect and utter selfishness
  Shames the fond pride it takes in its distress?
                                LEIGH HUNT.--_Rimini._


Cecil had removed to miserable lodgings at Hammersmith, consisting of
two rooms, and those wretchedly furnished; he had also reduced his
expenses by giving up his _atélier_, and was now, without pretence at
concealment, a gambler, and nothing else.

Blanche's grief when she first discovered his relapse was not so
great as might have been expected, simply because she had to defend
him against the bitter accusations of her father, and in the effort
to excuse her husband in the eyes of another, she succeeded in
greatly excusing him in her own.

There were doubtless many sleepless nights she had to pass, moodily
contemplating the probable consequences of their fate; but when Cecil
came home, her sorrow fled.  Either he had won, and then his gaiety
charmed her, and she allowed herself to be seduced into sharing his
sanguine expectations; or else he had lost, and then she had to
comfort and console him, and in that effort to assuage his grief,
forgot her own.

There was something indescribably affecting in the tender solicitude
and unshaken love of this gentle creature for her wretched husband;
she had truly married him for better and for worse, in sickness and
in health, in joy and in sorrow, and no adversity could alter the
current of that love, which flowed from the everlasting fountain of
her heart.  He had blighted her youth; he had blighted the existence
of their child; but she loved him perhaps still more dearly than on
that happy day when the priest had joined them at the altar.  He had
been weak, contemptible, even infamous; but he had never ceased to be
the idol of her heart.

One day she missed her watch; that watch which Cecil had given her,
and which had always been at her side.  She hunted about the house
for it.  All day she was in great distress at having lost it, and
endeavoured in vain to persuade herself that perhaps Cecil had taken
it out with him.  He returned at two o'clock in the morning.  Her
first question was,

"Darling, have you my watch?"

"No," said he sulkily.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! it is lost, then--I have lost it--some one has
stolen it!"

"Pooh! don't make a fuss--it's all right."

"Have you got it?'

"No; but I know where it is."

"Where?"

"In a place where it is quite safe--never fear!"

She understood him.  He had pawned it, and the proceeds had gone
where every shilling went.

Another day she missed the baby's coral with its golden bells.  This
time she said nothing; she knew too well what must have become of it,
and she burst into tears as she thought of the fearful situation of a
father robbing his own child to feed an infatuated passion!

One by one, every article upon which money could be raised had
disappeared, until he possessed literally nothing more than the
clothes he stood up in.

It was in vain she argued with herself that he, as the master, had a
right to sell his own property, to sell anything and everything he
pleased; she could not drive away the idea of there being something
sneaking in this furtive disposal of his goods; an open sale might be
necessitated, but this silent disappearance by stealth of article
after article was horrible.  She never knew what was gone until she
wanted it; and at last her uneasiness became so great that she
trembled to seek the most trifling thing.

Blanche's eyes were not shut to all the weakness of her husband's
character, though her affection made her sophisticate with herself to
an extraordinary extent.  She saw the deplorable effects of his
infatuation, and tried her best to wean him from it; but she always
trusted that he would see the folly of the pursuit, and that, after a
certain amount of experience, he would be cured.  Meanwhile, that
hope grew fainter and fainter, as time, instead of lessening, seemed
to increase his passion.

To Vyner, Julius, Rose, and Violet, it seemed perfectly
incomprehensible that Blanche should continue to love such a wretch
as Cecil.

"His conduct," Vyner would say, "is enough to have estranged an
angel."

Yet the fact is, that his conduct had not in the least degree
alienated her affection from him; and the explanation of this fact
resides in the moral axiom (the truth of which a large experience of
human nature cannot fail to illustrate), that affection depends upon
_character_, not upon _conduct_.

We love those most with whom we sympathize most, not those from whom
we have received the greatest benefits.  The husband who ill-treats
his wife (as people say) is often idolized, while the husband who
idolizes his wife is often looked upon as a "good sort of person" at
the best.  No doubt, the ill-treated wife suffers from, and resents
each act of ill-treatment; as the kindly-treated wife is pleased and
grateful for each act of kindness; but in the one case, occasional
acts cannot destroy that sympathy which is the bond of love; nor in
the other case, can the occasional kindnesses create it.  Again, I
say it is character, not conduct, which creates affection.

It was Cecil's character that Blanche sympathized with.  His
affectionate, caressing manners--his gaiety, his cleverness, and as
she thought genius, were qualities the charm of which could not be
resisted.  Then he loved her so truly! not enough, indeed, to forego,
for her sake, the excitement of the gaming-table: not enough to
prevent his sacrificing her with himself to this infatuation: but
that was because he was incapable of _self-mastery_.  And if he was
weak, she sympathized with his weakness.

Turn the phrase how we will, it always comes back to these simple
pregnant words: she loved him!




CHAPTER III.

CAPTAIN HEATH RETURNS.

  O why, when Love doth wound, doth it not then
  Strike deeper down--and kill!
                                      _Old Play._


There was not a farthing in the house.  Cecil was out on the
chimerical expedition of borrowing a few pounds from one of his
gaming-table acquaintances.  Continual assistance had been lent them
by Vyner and by Julius; but, of course, these sums were dissipated in
the usual way; and so recent had been the assistance, that even Cecil
had not the face to apply again.

Blanche was weeping over the cradle of her child, whom she had just
rocked asleep, when the door opened, and the servant put in her head
to say,--

"Please, mum, a gentleman."

In another instant, Captain Heath stood before her with outstretched
hand, and embarrassed countenance: she grasped his hand in both of
hers and pressed it warmly, for she felt that a deliverer was near.
Since last they had met, what changes in her life!  What had they
both not undergone!  He was much thinner, and looked older.  Sorrow
had deeply lined his noble brow, and dimmed his kind blue eye.  He
had sought in travel to forget the cause of his voluntary exile; and
had learned, if not to forget, at least to master his feelings.  When
men have passed the impressionable and changeable age of youth, love
becomes a more serious and enduring passion with them--it becomes
consolidated in their manhood.  And Captain Heath--too old not to
have lost all the volatility of youth, but still too young to have
lost its fervour--found that his passion for Blanche was ineffaceable.

Had he, then, returned with any hopes?  No; his was one of those
strong, brave, manly natures which know how to endure any calamity,
any condition, so soon as it is recognised as _inevitable_; they
endure, without childish repining, what they know must be endured;
they brace their minds to the struggle, and they conquer at least
that weak and fretful anxiety which attends upon those who cannot
calmly look fate in the face.

He returned, but it was to watch over his beloved; and on his return,
what was his horror to hear of the situation into which her wretched
husband had precipitated her!

Blanche was embarrassed, yet delighted.  From childhood she had known
him, and loved him almost as a father; and to her old affection there
was now added, the unconscious flattery of her knowledge of his love
for her.  No woman is ever insensible to such flattery; the man who
loves her, though hopelessly, is always interesting in her eyes.
Blanche was eminently a woman.

"How kind of you to come and see us," she said, "and in such a place
as this!  But then you are one of our true friends, and poverty
cannot scare you."

"Yes, Blanche, I am your friend: always remember that, and in any
difficulty, be sure not to forget it.  But let me see your child: she
is asleep?--what a beauty!  How you must love it!  Dear little thing,
how quiet its breathing! may I kiss it? will she wake up?"

"No; kiss her gently: she is so used to it!"

He stooped down, and kissed its warm, soft cheek, and then gazed at
it for some minutes in silence.  With a mother's pride, Blanche
watched him, occasionally looking down upon her darling, with that
yearning tenderness, which only mothers know.

A low sigh escaped from him as he turned away from the cradle.

"Have you been long in England?" she asked.

"I came home last week.  This is my second visit."

"Your first was to papa, I suppose?"

"Yes.  Things are in a sad state there, Blanche.  Your father is very
much altered.  But what could he expect?  What could induce him to
marry again?"

"Mama's conduct is shocking!--To think of a wife forgetting herself
so!--Did you see her?"

"Yes, and she was as civil to me as ever, talked as
hypocritically--and spoke of you in terms that made me excessively
angry."

"What did she say?"

"It was not _what_ she said, so much as the manner of saying it: the
tone of pity, of false pity, affecting to look upon you as if..."

"And what...  Did she speak of ... of Cecil!"

Heath was silent.

"Ah!  I know she did; but you must not believe her; indeed, it is not
true--indeed, he is not."

"Is it possible?"

"That is .... she must have exaggerated....  He has been imprudent,
unfortunate.... but he is the kindest, best of men....  They are all
against him; they do not understand him; they require a man of genius
to be as formal and regular as other men .... absurd, is it not? ....
Are not all men of genius ... are they not?"

"Unhappily!" replied Heath.

"I know you would not join the cabal against him.  You are more
liberal!  Oh! if you knew his heart, how good it is!--I wish he were
here..."

At this moment little Rose Blanche cried; and her mother took her up.
The little creature was terrified at first seeing the captain, and
clung to her mother for protection; but after a little coaxing, she
became pacified, and in a few minutes was in his arms and playing
with his dark moustache, which greatly interested her.

This interruption saved Heath from an embarrassing situation, and
threw the conversation entirely upon the child, of whom the fond
mother had innumerable anecdotes to relate, all of which went to the
establishment of the fact, that for intelligence and goodness, no
such baby was to be met with in the three kingdoms.  Heath was too
happy to let the conversation continue in that strain, and having
spent an agitated yet delicious hour with her, he thought it time to
go.

"My dear Blanche," he said at last, "I came here upon a matter of
business, which I must not forget in the pleasure of seeing you.  My
residence in Italy has developed in me a taste for pictures.  I am
not rich; but I am alone in the world, and can afford to indulge my
taste.  Your husband is an artist, and I am come to command a picture
from him.  I leave the subject, size, and price, entirely to him.
Let him execute whatever his genius prompts him; and I am quite sure
I shall be the gainer by leaving the price to him.  Meanwhile, as you
are not in flourishing circumstances, here is a cheque for fifty
pounds, on account.  When he wants more, he knows where to apply."

He placed a cheque in her hand as he said this.  She understood but
too well this delicate mode of assisting them, and a tear rose into
her eye as she pressed his hand significantly: she could not speak.
He embraced her child repeatedly, and, with a fond protecting look,
bade her good-bye.

Left alone, she burst into tears: they were tears of gratitude and
tears of shame: gratitude for the beautiful and delicate friendship
of the act and its manner: shame at finding herself reduced to such a
state, that she was forced to accept alms from her former lover.

As she grew calmer, the thought rose within her, that perhaps this
might be the saving of Cecil--that he, finding employment, might
resolutely set to work, and--no longer forced to seek a subsistence
by gaming,--resume his honourable career.

Building cloud-castles on the landscape of the future, she was light
and joyous when Cecil returned, and flung herself upon his neck, with
almost frantic delight.




CHAPTER IV.

HUMBLED PRIDE.

Cecil received those demonstrations of joy with moody sullenness.  He
had returned exasperated by failure, gloomy with the dark thoughts
which lowered upon him, like heavy clouds collected over the sunny
fields, boding a coming storm.

"Blanche," he said, "we are beggars."

The smile was still upon her face; she pushed the hair gently from
off his forehead.

"There is no hope left.  I have tried every body."

"I have had a visitor, darling, since you went out.  Guess who it
was."

"Julius?"

"No."

"Your father?"

"No."

"A dun?"

"Captain Heath."

"The devil it was!"

"Yes; I thought it would surprise you.  Oh!  I was so happy to see
him!"

"Heath... here!" exclaimed Cecil, his cheek burning as he spoke.
"And you saw him? ... received him here ... and in my absence?  You
did?"

"Was I wrong?" she, trembling, asked.

"Wrong?  Oh, no; it was not wrong to receive your lover.  You needn't
start ... he is your lover, and you know it!  You know, moreover,
that I hate him... The scoundrel!  And he saw you here ... here, in
this beggarly place ... in this hole of poverty!  And he triumphed
over me ... triumphed because his prophecy was fulfilled!  Didn't he,
too, urge you to leave me?  Didn't he, too, tell you I was a villain,
dragging you to ruin?  Didn't he offer to take you home? .... Speak!
don't stare at me in that way!  Tell me all the scoundrel said ...
quick!"

"Cecil, Cecil, down on your knees, and beg his pardon for having so
slandered him!  You are not in your senses to speak so--and of him,
of him!"

"Slandered him, have I?  What! the sneaking wretch who takes
advantage of my present situation...."

"To assist _you_!" indignantly exclaimed Blanche.

"Assist _me!_ and for what _purpose_?  For whose sake--for mine?  No;
for yours!  Oh!  I see all his plans--I see them all!"

Cecil, mad with jealousy and rage, dashed his hand upon the table,
and swore a fearful oath.  It was not that he for a moment suspected
his wife; but he had never been able to overcome his jealousy of
Heath; and what added tenfold torture to that venomous feeling now,
was the thought that Heath had come back to find Blanche reduced to
want--to find her in this miserable lodging deprived of all the
comforts and necessaries of life.  He felt himself horribly
humiliated in the eyes of his hated rival; he felt that his rival
triumphed over his degradation; and he dreaded lest Blanche should
have made an involuntary comparison between her present condition,
and what it would have been had she married Heath.  All this rapidly
crossed his mind, and drove him to fury.

"Cecil," she said, struggling with her tears, "you are unhappy, and
that makes you unjust.  If you but knew the noble nature of him...."


"Hold your tongue!  Am I to sit here and listen to _his_ praises?
Noble nature, indeed!  Yes, yes, I know it....  I know it."

"Then you know...."

"Silence, I say!  Are you going to draw a comparison between us?  Are
you going to contrast his virtues with my vices?  A good subject, but
a bold one for a wife to touch upon!"

"Cecil, you break my heart...  Will you hear me?"

"No!"

"What have I said or done...."

"You have received, during my absence, a man I hate--a man who, if he
again crosses my threshold, I will throw out of the window."

"Look at this!" she said, presenting the cheque to him.

"What is that?"

"If you will not listen to me, trust your own eyes."

"A cheque for fifty pounds--and from _him_?"

"He came here to command a picture; you are to name your own price;
that is on account."

Cecil took the cheque, looked at it, and then at her.

"And do you believe this?" he said, with intense calmness.  "Do you
really believe that he wants a picture?"

"No; I believe that to be an excuse...."

"An excuse!  By God! she knows it!"

"It is a delicate way of assisting us.--That is the conduct of the
man whom you have outraged by your suspicions."

Cecil was stupefied.  Her perception of the subterfuge quite
staggered him.

"So, so--he thinks to _buy_ you, does he?" he at last said, choking
with rage.

She coloured deeply with shame, and exclaimed,--

"Oh, Cecil!  Cecil!"

"Well then, to buy _me_!  He thinks I am to be _patronized_.... to be
his workman.... to receive his orders.... to receive his money!
Blanche, this cheque is either an outrage to you, or an insult to me.
Don't speak! .... Not another word."

He rose, and put on his hat.

"Good God!  Cecil, what are you about to do?"

"To find out this liberal patron."

"Cecil, Cecil! do be calm!"

"I am.  I will fling this cheque in his odious face, and tell him
what I think."

She threw herself upon him.

"Cecil! my own darling! listen to your Blanche....  For God's sake,
be calm! ... Think of me; think of your child! .... A duel! oh,
Cecil! could you leave your child fatherless, Cecil?"

He flung her from him, and rushed out of the house: she reeled and
fell.  The child began to scream; the old lady living in the parlours
hurried up stairs, and found Blanche lifeless on the floor.

Like a madman, Cecil bounded along the streets, goaded by one of
those irresistible outbreaks of passion which sometimes mastered him.
On reaching the house where Heath formerly lived, and hearing that he
no longer lived there, he remembered Heath having just returned from
abroad, and that his residence could only be known at his bankers.
Thither he went: on his way he passed through Jermyn-street.  It was
in that street was kept the gaming-house where he had spent so many
of his days and nights.

A new direction was given to his thoughts: insensibly they left the
subject of Captain Heath to merge into that of play.  Still he walked
on, but less swiftly.  The idea of the splendid martingale he had
recently discovered, which this fifty pounds would enable him to
play, would not leave him.

He walked more and more slowly.  Fifty pounds--it might make his
fortune.

After all, Heath might possibly have desired a picture.  The fool! as
if he knew anything about pictures--he, the heavy guardsman, purchase
pictures!

Yet, if he was rich, that was one way of spending his money.  There
was nothing but what was perfectly legitimate in an artist receiving
a commission;--all artists receive them.

And with this fifty pounds a fortune was within his grasp.

He no longer walked, he crawled.  This money was certainly his, if he
chose to take it; why should he refuse?  To be sure, the money of
that scoundrel!  All an excuse, too: Blanche knew it was an excuse.

He quickened his pace again.  He was at the banking-house: he pushed
the door, and entered.

"I can return him the money to-morrow.  I will say Blanche changed
it.  Out of my winnings I can repay it."

He handed the cheque to the cashier.

"How will you take it, sir?" demanded the cashier.

"Gold," was the brief answer.

His eyes sparkled as the fifty sovereigns were shovelled across the
counter; and he left the bank with lights dancing before him.




CHAPTER V.

"BLACK WINS."

The fascination of the gaming-table was too much for him; all his
sense of dignity vanished before it; even his very jealous rage
seemed thus powerless against it.  Humiliated as he felt at the idea
of accepting charity from his rival, he could not reject it when it
came to feed his passion for play.  Although he had not a farthing in
the house, although utter destitution threatened him, he would not,
to save himself from it, have accepted Heath's assistance; but he
could accept it when it enabled him to play.

To one of his old haunts he went.  The first man he saw there was the
large-whiskered, jovial, and eccentric gentleman whom he had noticed
on the second evening: of his entering a house of play: he had since
lost sight of him.  The little man stroked his bushy whiskers fondly
over his face, and, offering Cecil a pinch of snuff, expressed his
pleasure at meeting him again.

"Come to try the goddess, sir?" he inquired.  "Fickle goddess! now
smiling, now frowning--quite a _woman_!  I am no great hand _myself_;
but, as far as a few crowns go, I find it a _pleasant
game_--decidedly pleasant.  Would you like to _regulate_ yourself by
my _card_?--duly _pricked_, you see.  There have been three runs upon
the black; once it turned up eleven times.  Shall we take a glass of
_wine_ together?  Yes;--waiter! some _wine_."

"No wine for me, thank you; I never touch it before dinner.  Have you
seen Mr. Forrester here to-day?"

"The gentleman with the large moustachios?--Yes; he has been playing,
and won; but he went away about a quarter of an hour _ago_."

Cecil took his seat at the table.  Gambling by day has, somehow, a
more hideous aspect than by night: I suppose because it looks so
little like an amusement, and so much like a mere affair of cupidity.
But Cecil had grown used to this, as to other loathsome aspects of
his vice, and sat down to the table with as much _sang froid_ as if
he were about to transact the most ordinary piece of business.

He had not been playing long, winning and losing in pretty equal
succession, when Frank came back.

"What, again!" said Cecil.  "I thought you had gone for the day: I
heard you had departed with your winnings."

"The fact is, that I found my winnings rapidly decreasing, so I
thought a little interval might very properly elapse; after which
fortune again might be on my side.  Besides, old boy, you must know
that I haven't dined for eight days;--and when I say dined, I don't
mean dining in the true sense, but in the common, vulgar, _pauper_
sense of the word.  I have made no meal which could _represent_ a
dinner.  For eight days I haven't touched meat, damn my whiskers!
So, being as ravenous as a hyena, I determined that to-day, at least,
I _would_ dine."

"And have you?"

"Have I, Cis?  Why it's not yet five: do you imagine that under _any_
circumstance I could lower myself so far as to dine at the
shopkeeper's hour?  No, damn it! one may be hard up, but one does not
forget one is a gentleman!"

"Have you ordered your dinner then?"

"More than ordered it--_paid_ for it.  I went to the butcher's, and
bought two pounds of magnificent steak: this I carried to a small
Public, hard by, with the strictest injunctions as to the dressing of
it--saw the cook myself, and am satisfied she knows what's what.  It
is to be ready at half-past six precisely, with no end of fried
potatoes, and a bottle of their old crusted, which I know from
experience is a wine that a gentleman can drink.  The dinner you will
say is not epicurean, but at any rate it is _certain_, because I have
paid for it all.  Now I don't mind risking the rest of my winnings.
My mind is at rest: the baser appetites are provided for."

He began to play also; and he won.

"I told you luck would change," he said.

But he soon lost again, and lost repeatedly.

"Never mind, I have secured a dinner for to-day, which will last a
week."

Cecil was equally unfortunate; the run seemed to be decidedly against
him.

At last Frank threw down his final half-crown.  It went like the
others.  He started up, and hurried away, without saying good-bye;
indeed, giving no other expression of his feelings than was convoyed
in an energetic denunciation of his whiskers.

Cecil played on; and as he saw the sovereigns disappear in spite of
his famous martingale, his heart sank within him, and the gloom of
despair seemed to paralyse his mind.  Suffering horrible agony from
the intense excitement of each coup, he yet played mechanically,
almost listlessly, he lost, and won, and lost again, with fearful
alternation of sick despair and dull joy.  It was as if he were
staking his heart's blood on each turn.

Frank returned, not without a certain hilarity in his manner.

"Where have you been?" Cecil faintly inquired.

"To my worthy host of the Coach and Horses, at whose house my dinner
is commanded.  It struck me that I could very well dispense with wine
to-day--the more so as it costs six shillings a bottle, and here one
gets it for nothing--so I negociated with the worthy publican, and
sold him the wine back again for two half-crowns.  Here they are.
What d'ye think of that?  Is that management of financial
difficulties, eh?"

A sickly smile was the only answer Cecil gave, for at that moment he
had just lost his fourth _coup_ running.  The two half-crowns seemed
to bring back Frank's luck, for he won rapidly; Cecil, who played the
same colours, also won.  Winning and losing, and losing and winning,
so the game went on, with alternate rising and falling of hopes, and
in the rapidity with which small gains mounted up to large sums, and
those sums dwindled down again, crowding as much excitement as would
have filled a month of ordinary life.

"Done! cleaned out!" exclaimed Frank, as he saw himself once more
penniless.

A sharp pang shot across Cecil's face, as he threw down his last
sovereign on the red.

"_Après_," said the dealer.

Cecil had now only ten shillings remaining of the fifty pounds.  In
breath-suspended agony he watched the cards.

"Red wins!" said the dealer.

He breathed again, and looked round to smile at Frank; but that
worthy had again departed to negociate the sale of his dinner.

Yes; this dinner, so cherished, so anticipated, paid for in advance,
on which the imagination had luxuriated as on a kingly banquet; this
dinner was sold for a miserable trifle, that he might risk one more
coup at that table where so many men had ruined themselves before!

Cecil continued in luck until Frank returned; this time with no
hilarity on his face, but a quiet gravity, which seemed prepared for
the worst; and when he lost the last shilling he broke out into a
short, sharp, hysterical laugh, and turning to Cecil, said with
forced calmness,--

"I shall not dine to-day."

"Pleasant _game_ this, sir," said the bushy-whiskered gentleman,
coming up to where Frank sat, "take a pinch of _snuff_, sir?"  Frank
accepted with grace, and began chatting with the smiling gentleman,
who was very communicative, and informed Frank that he had that
afternoon won no less than ten half-crowns by backing the red.

"Quite right, sir," said Frank, "red _is_ the colour."

"No doubt about it."

"Yes, yes.  By the way, you haven't a half-crown about you at this
minute, have you?  I am cleared out for the day."

"Why, I certainly have _such_ a thing, but..."

"Say no more, my dear fellow," said Frank, shaking him warmly by the
hand, "half a crown will be abundance, I only want to try the red
once.  I'm really obliged to you for the offer of the loan, and shall
accept it with pleasure.  Now-a-days one does not often meet with
such a trump!  If ever you should run low, you know, in me you will
always find one ready to reciprocate a civility."

The smiling gentleman rubbed his whiskers and filled his nose with
snuff; but he concluded by slipping the half-crown into Frank's hand,
who instantly threw it on the red.

Cecil had thrown his last five pounds upon the red, and with
straining eyeballs watched the falling cards.

"Black wins," said the dealer.

Frank saw the croupier rake away his half-crown, and with it Cecil's
five pounds.

A low cry burst from Cecil, as he learned his fate; and, leaning his
elbows on the table, he let his head fall into his hands, and sobbed
aloud.

The dealers and croupiers, accustomed to every expression of grief,
sat with immoveable, expressionless faces, pursuing their routine
with an indifference which was quite ghastly.  The players looked
upon him with different feelings: some with compassion, some with
contempt, some with sympathetic fear.  But above his wretched sobs
were heard the unvarying tones of, "Gentlemen, make your game; the
game is made."

Frank touched Cecil on the shoulder, and beckoned him to come away.
Mechanically Cecil did so, and they stepped together out into the
dull, dismal, November evening, and walked through the mist and
lightly falling snow, without uttering a word.

At Park Lane they parted; a pressure of the hand was the only
expression of their feelings which passed between them.  Sick at
heart, they both felt that nothing could be said to comfort them.

The lights glimmered dimly through the dirty air of that November
evening, and the snow fell, and the rain, and the whole scene was
drear and desolate, as Cecil wandered on, crushed in spirit, savage
from remorse, exasperated by his impotent efforts to shake off the
galling remembrance that he was now Heath's debtor--that he had taken
his money, and could not throw it back at him.

Wild thoughts of suicide chased across his soul, like dancing lights
over a bleak moor at night; but they did not long abide with him.




CHAPTER VI.

CECIL'S WEAKNESS.

  O God!  O God! that it were possible
  To undo things done,--to call back yesterday!
  That Time could turn his swift and sandy glass
  To untell days, or to redeem these hours!
        HEYWOOD.--_A Woman Killed with Kindness._


When Blanche returned to her senses, she found herself in the arms of
her landlady, who was bathing her forehead with vinegar and water.

"My husband!" she murmured; "where is my husband?"

"Oh, he's not come back yet.  There, you are better now, aren't you?"

"Thank you; yes, I can walk now."

"Don't attempt it just yet."

"I must.  I must go out."

"Go out such a day as this!  Why, see how it snows."

"I must.  You see I can stand.  Oh, pray God, I may not be too late."

"But where do you wish to go, my dear?  Can't I send my girl for you?"

"Where?  Where?  Ay, indeed.  He did not tell me where.  But then
Cecil will not know where to find .... Thank God!  Thank God!"

She sank down again upon the chair, relieved of her terrible anxiety;
for she doubted not that if Cecil were unable to meet with Captain
Heath, he would soon grow calmer, and look at things more rationally.

She waited for his return, however, with extreme uneasiness, fearful
lest he should not have missed the captain; and dreading lest he
should still continue his jealous suspicions.  Free from all
sentiment of jealousy herself, she could not understand Cecil's
excessive susceptibility; and knowing Captain Heath so well as she
did, she was perfectly convinced that her husband's jealousy was
quite motiveless.  This made her feel secure on this subject.  Her
deep sense of her own innocence, and of Heath's high-mindedness, made
her convinced that Cecil must see the matter in its true light, so
soon as he should calmly consider it.

It was nearly seven o'clock before her anxiety was relieved by
hearing his knock at the door; but she screamed with terror as he
entered the room.  Although his coat and hat were covered with snow,
he had left his chest exposed to the cold, and his shirt-collar and
front were dripping with wet.  He had evidently been altogether
heedless of his person, and had given no thought of protecting it
from the weather.

His face was pale and haggard, his eyes dull and blood-shot, his lips
compressed--his whole aspect that of one who has just committed some
fearful crime.  She interrogated his face with watchful terror.  He
avoided her eye.

He seated himself in silence, and began brushing the snow off his
hat.  That completed, he placed his wet feet on the fender, and
looked stedfastly at the fire.

Unable to bear this suspense, she went up to him, and laying her hand
upon his shoulder, said timidly,--

"Have you seen him?"

"No."

She felt greatly relieved.  He continued to look at the fire, but
gave no signs of wishing to prolong the conversation.  She drew a
stool by his side, and sat down upon it; and in silence they both
contemplated the evanescent shapes in the burning coals.

Having sat thus for some time, Blanche rose and went into the next
room, and presently returned with her baby in her arms, asleep, which
she gently laid upon Cecil's lap.

He turned a dull, sad eye upon her, inquiringly, and then looked down
upon the sleeping infant on his knee.

"Unhappy child!" he said, and the tears rolled down his cheeks, as he
gazed upon the sleeping babe, unconscious of the sorrow it awakened
in its father's heart, and the remorse for infatuated villany, the
consequences of which must eventually fall upon its head.

"Take her away," he said, "take her away.  Why do you bring her to
me?"

"To make you happy."

"To make me more miserable than I was before--to reproach me--me, her
father, that she has not a better home, warmer clothing!  Take her
away."

Blanche, sobbing, took the child and laid it again in its cradle.

"Blanche you must write a note for me," he said, after a pause.

"To whom, dearest?"

No reply.

"To whom am I to write?"

"To--Captain Heath!" he said, with an effort.

She started at the name, alarmed and wondering.

"What am I to say?"

"Whatever you please--you are sure to succeed."

"But tell me what the object is?"

"Money."

"Money?"

"For my picture--I am to paint him one, am I not? he has ordered it.
Well!  I want money in advance."

Blanche would have been highly delighted at such a speech, had it
been uttered in a different tone, and had not Captain Heath, already,
that very day, given a cheque in advance.

She made no reply.

"Well!" he said, "are you ready?  Write it at once."

"But the fifty pounds...."

"Gone!  I met a man to whom I owed it--he demanded payment--I was
forced to let him have the cheque.  You can explain it all to Heath,
and tell him I must have ten pounds more to buy materials with.  Tell
him what you please, but get the money."

He resumed his contemplation of the fire after this speech, and
scarcely opened his lips again for the evening.  Blanche wrote the
letter, but it was with loathing, and she hated herself while she was
doing it, and was sure Captain Heath would also hate her.

Glad as she would have been to see her husband relinquish his absurd
jealousy of the captain, it came with quite a different aspect when
that relinquishment was not a matter of conviction, but of degraded
calculation.  She guessed at once the truth of the whole history; she
saw that Cecil had gambled away the fifty pounds, and that he had not
only reconciled himself to it, but had made up his mind to extort
from the generosity of the captain certain sums which would enable
him to indulge his unhappy passion.

What a situation for a loving wife!  Never before, not even in his
worst exhibitions of selfishness and weakness, had Blanche despised
her husband; but she could not master the feeling now; a lurking
sense of contempt would intrude itself upon her thoughts.

The letter was sent under cover to her father.

All the next day Cecil sat over the fire, sometimes whistling, but
mostly quite silent.  He was playing over again the games which he
had lost on the previous day: and _now_, as he played them, he
calculated rightly, and always won.

Blanche observed that he exhibited singular impatience for the
arrival of the postman; and when the day entirely passed over without
bringing a letter, he constantly muttered to himself, "Very
extraordinary!"

The next morning his impatience was greater, and when the two o'clock
postman brought a letter for her from Rose, and nothing from Captain
Heath, he began to swear and mutter to himself, till she was quite
terrified.

He took up his hat and lounged out, without saying a word as to where
he was going.

About three, Captain Heath called.  Blanche was frightened lest Cecil
should return and find him there; and was also alarmed at the
probable storm which would burst upon her in consequence of this
visit.

Heath saw her embarrassment, and attributed it to a sense of shame at
her husband's conduct; for the note was so incoherently written, that
he divined pretty nearly the whole truth of the matter.

"I have brought a cheque for your husband," he said, "because I did
not wish to trust it to the post--also, because I wished to say a
word to you.  Blanche, I take the privilege of an old, a very old
friend, to speak frankly to you; therefore, you must not be offended
with me when I ask you to receive another ten pounds in advance for
the picture, besides the cheque which your husband has requested.  I
mean the second sum to be received by you, for household expenses--to
be kept a secret by you--you can keep a secret from your husband, can
you not?"

"Why do you wish it?"

"Because, Blanche, affairs are not in a flourishing condition with
you at present; and as your husband owes a good deal of money,
perhaps, if he knew you had this sum, instead of allowing it to be
devoted to your immediate necessities, he might also play that away."

She blushed deeply, as she perceived that he had guessed the truth.

"I wish, therefore, that you would give him this cheque from me,
which he has asked, but that you would say nothing, if you can help
it, about the other sum.  I am asking, perhaps, that which I ought
not to ask.  I am overstepping, perhaps, the bounds of friendship,
and interfering in domestic concerns where I have no sort of right to
interfere.  But it is my friendship which dictates the wish, and
which must be my excuse.  I do not bind you to any condition; I do
not even wish you to keep the matter a secret, if it is at all
repugnant to your feelings: but I would strenuously _advise_ you to
do so.  Act just as you think fitting and proper; do not imagine that
I wish in any way to dictate to you; but, as a brother might counsel
you, I would venture to suggest, that on many accounts it would be
well if you did not speak of this."

"Kindest, best of men!" she exclaimed, pressing his hand.  She could
say no more.

He quietly laid the cheque upon the mantelpiece, and slipped ten
sovereigns into the pocket of her apron.  He then, to change the
subject, asked after Rose Blanche, who was brought to him immediately.

Blanche, after a long struggle with herself, at last said,--

"Captain Heath, you know me well enough to believe that I am neither
insensible to your friendship, nor ungrateful for it--do you not?"

"Assuredly, dear Blanche."

"And if I were to say anything to you that might look ungrateful, you
would not believe that it sprang from ingratitude? you would at once
see that I was forced by circumstances, not by my own will?"

He shook slightly, as he answered,--

"I could not doubt you."

"You do not believe me to be capricious?"

"I do not."

"And if I were to beg you .... to .... if I were to say.... do not
come here any more....?"

Her voice faltered, and died away in a whisper.  He started as the
words fell on his ear, and turned first red, then pale again.

There was a moment of embarrassed silence.

"Oh! do not believe," she passionately exclaimed, "that it comes from
me; do not fancy that I should ever....  But I cannot do what my
heart dictates: I owe obedience to another."

He saw at once what was in her mind; he saw that Cecil's absurd
jealousy was at the bottom of her agitation: and in a low but firm
tone, he said,--

"Blanche, do not continue.  I understand you.  I never was a
favourite of his, and he naturally enough does not desire my
acquaintance; in which case, of course, I must relinquish the
pleasure of seeing you.  Do not sob, Blanche--you cannot help this.
Such cases are frequent.  I shall not regard you less--shall not be
less your friend, because I am not permitted to see you.  Perhaps, if
he knew me better, he might think otherwise of me; but sympathy is
not to be commanded, and too many people dislike me, for me to be
either surprised or hurt at his opinion.  Besides, I have already
interfered too much between you.  He thinks my conduct
unwarrantable--perhaps it was--and he dislikes me.  There, you see I
look at the matter in its true light.  I do not blame you--I do not
blame him.  A husband is not forced to accept the friends of his
wife."

At this moment Cecil returned.

Heath coloured as he saw him enter the room; Blanche turned aside her
head to conceal her tears, but not before Cecil's glance had detected
them; a fierce pain shot across Cecil's heart, as if a burning iron
had entered it, but with a hypocritical smile he extended his hand to
the captain, and expressed himself delighted to see him.

The situation was excessively uncomfortable for all three.  The
captain could not depart, it would have looked so pointed, yet to
remain was torture.  Blanche was terrified, and silent.  Cecil, who
in an instant saw that Heath's presence betokened a fresh assistance
from him, stifled the horrible jealousy which his presence awakened,
and resolved not to lose the benefit.  He began a common-place
conversation, and soon led it to the subject of the commissioned
picture, for which he declared he had been inspired with a
magnificent idea.

Heath's replies were brief and cold; but Cecil was not to be daunted.
So completely had his vice corrupted him, that he had lost all sense
of dignity, and only looked upon the captain as a victim from whom to
draw sums of money.  That Heath loved his wife he knew; and doubted
not but that from such an affection he should draw golden results.
That Blanche did not return the captain's love, he was firmly
convinced--and yet that conviction could not allay his jealousy.
Awful moral perplexity and corruption!  Despicable weakness and
meanness!  Here was a man base enough to barter his honour, yet not
strong enough to resist the petty irritation of the pettiest jealousy!

As the captain took his leave, Cecil said:--

"We are generally at home,--if you should be in this neighbourhood,
pray don't forget to give us a look in.  It is but a miserable place
to come to--but old friends, you know."

Blanche's eye met the captain's, and most significantly
expressed,--"Don't accept the invitation."

Heath merely bowed his acceptance, and departed, marvelling much
whether it was corruption or irony which dictated Cecil's speech.

Cecil made no observation to Blanche respecting the captain's
presence; but took up the cheque with delight, and forthwith
proceeded to get it cashed, and to carry the money to
Leicester-square, whence, after spending the afternoon and night at
play, with various alternations of fortune, he came away a winner of
thirteen pounds.

He was in excellent spirits on his return home.  Blanche said nothing
respecting the ten sovereigns in her possession.




CHAPTER VII.

ALL HOPE DESTROYED.

  I am so well acquainted with despair,
  I know not how to hope; I believe all.
                                      DECKAR.

  Oh! press me, baby, with thy hand,
    It loosens something at my chest;
  About that tight and deadly band
    I feel thy little fingers prest.
                                    WORDSWORTH.


Although the life of a gamester is full of emotion, full of successes
and reverses, the incidents are all so very similar that I need not
enter into more details.  Suffice it, that Cecil made such frequent
applications to Captain Heath, that a point blank refusal came at
last; much to Blanche's satisfaction, for she deeply felt the
humiliation of seeing him plundered in that shameless way to feed the
gaming-table.  She knew that it was for her sake Heath gave the
money; and she knew that it only added fresh fuel to her husband's
unhappy passion.

The last few weeks had completely banished from her heart all hope of
an amendment.  Not only had Cecil shamelessly applied to Heath for
money in advance on a picture which he had made no attempt even to
commence; but he had, by one act, opened her eyes to the extent of
his reckless infatuation.

It was about a fortnight after Captain Heath's visit, when, as Cecil
sat in his usual attitude over the fire, indolently smoking a cigar,
Blanche said to him,--

"When are you going to paint that picture, dearest, which you have
engaged for?"

"In good time."

"But why not do it at once?"

"He did not stipulate that it was to be done at once, did he?"

"No; but there can be no reason why you should not do it.  You have
nothing else in hand.  Besides, when that is finished you can paint
another; and you know how badly we want money."

"Badly enough, God knows!"

"I do not like to accept the advances he makes us, when I see you not
working at the picture."

"Bah!"

"You must do it sooner or later; why not now?  Come, Cecil, make an
effort--begin it."

"Begin when I haven't even money to buy the necessary materials.
Write to him and tell him I have a splendid subject, but that
really----"

"That is unnecessary.  I have money--I will go and get you all you
want."

"You, Blanche!  And where did you get money from?'

"Never mind," she replied playfully.  "Perhaps it was a little fairy.
Enough that I have some."

"Oh, I'm not curious; so that you have got money, that is all I care
about.  How much?"

"There again!  Not curious!  Why, you are as curious as a woman.
Don't inquire."

"Very well.  Get me the things, that's all."

She went into the next room, and he heard her unlock a drawer.  He
continued calmly smoking; she put on her bonnet and tripped down
stairs.

No sooner did he hear the street door shut than he rose and walked
into her bed-room to search for the money.  He saw a drawer with a
key in it, but on opening it he found nothing there.  He next
unlocked all the other drawers, but without result.

There was nothing now in the room likely to conceal any money, and he
began to think that perhaps she had only a few shillings, which she
had carried away with her.  Almost mechanically he opened the small
drawer of her wash-hand stand, and there he saw six sovereigns
glittering in the farther corner.  His face lighted up with a strange
expression as they met his eye, and rapidly clutching them, and
turning over the drawer to see if it concealed any more, he took his
hat, and was out of the house in an instant.

When Blanche returned and found him gone, her heart misgave her; with
trembling limbs she staggered into the bed-room--opened the
drawer--and saw her fears confirmed.  It is impossible to render the
despair which seized her at this discovery.  That little incident was
more frightful to her, was more damning evidence of the unconquerable
nature of his vice than any she had yet known; and helpless, hopeless
she sank upon the bed, not to weep, but to brood upon the awful
prospect of her life.

It was not grief which laid her prostrate, it was a stupor: a dull,
heavy agony, like a shroud closing her from life, from hope, from
happiness.  Before, her heart had been wrung; she had been
humiliated, she had been tortured; but in the bitterest moments, she
had never been utterly prostrate,--never absolutely without gleam of
hope.  Now, her husband stood before her as irreclaimable,--marching
with frightful rapidity to his doom, and dragging with him, a wife
and child.

That child's cries on awaking, partly aroused her.  She felt the
necessity for an effort; she felt that another demanded she should
not give way to the stupor which oppressed her.  She put the child to
her breast; but, alas! the shock she had received had dried up its
life-giving fountains, and the disappointed infant sucked in vain.
Tears gushed from her, as she became aware of this new
misfortune--tears, scalding yet refreshing tears, which melted down
her stubborn grief into something more like human woe; and relieved
by them, she rose to make some food for the hungry babe, whose
impatient cries recalled her to a sense of duties, which allowed not
the passive indulgence of sorrow.  Cecil, meanwhile, had lost the
little treasure he had obtained possession of in so despicable a
manner; and having lost it, remained sauntering about the streets,
without courage to return home to face his wife.  Exhausted at last
by fatigue, he came back.

Not a word passed between them.  He got into bed feeling humbled and
exasperated, yet not having courage even to put a bullying face on
the matter.  She was brushing her hair, and he heard the sighs which
she struggled to suppress, but he feigned sleep, and _would not_ hear
them.

She crept into bed, anxious not to awake him; and through the long
night he heard her weeping, so that it almost broke his heart: yet he
feigned sleep, and dared not speak!

From that time, there was always a sort of barrier between them.  A
wall had grown up between their loves, formed out of shame, remorse,
pity and hopelessness.  They never alluded to the incident which
caused it; but they both felt that it was constantly present in each
other's minds.

Their existence was wretched indeed.  Vyner and Julius took care that
Blanche should want for no necessities--food, clothing, little
articles of necessity were all regularly sent in by them; and the
rent was paid by Vyner himself.  But no more money could Cecil extort
from them on any pretext.  They knew well enough, that to give him
money was only to give him opportunities of playing, and so they
limited their charity to seeing that Blanche and her child, were not
in absolute want.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE FORGERY.

One day as Cecil was sauntering down Piccadilly, he was astonished to
see Frank Forrester, in a superb cab, with tiger behind, drive up to
Burlington Arcade, and there, arrayed in dashing style, step out as
if the lord and master of three thousand a year, at least.

The contrast between his appearance at that moment, and the last time
Cecil had seen him, when in the final stage of seediness, he had
gambled away even his dinner, so amazed Cecil, that he rubbed his
eyes as one awaking from a dream.

"Ah!  Cis, my boy, how are you?" said Frank, grasping him by the
hand.  "Why, you're quite a stranger.--I am so glad to see you.
Flourishing now, damn my whiskers!  flourishing, Cis, as you
perceive.  Nobby style, eh?  Correct thing that, I hope."

"Quite--But whence this change?"

"Oh! tell you that presently.  Just step up the arcade with me.--I'm
only going to look in upon Jeffs, to see if Paul de Kock's last novel
has arrived, and then command me."

He put his arm within Cecil's, and marched up the arcade, playing
with an elegant watch-chain which drooped from his waistcoat button,
and winking at every woman they passed.

When they turned into Jeffs' shop, that worthy bibliopole, albeit
accustomed daily to a strange variety of customers, from noblemen and
their flunkies, to dingy, sallow, foreigners, redolent of garlic, and
bearded like pards, opened his eyes at such a strange apparition as
the resplendent, insolent Frank, arm in arm with the careworn,
battered, shabby, Cecil.

"Paul de Kock arrived yet?" said Frank.

"No, sir," replied Jeffs, "but we expect our case to-morrow."

"I think your to-morrow never arrives--at any rate, your case doesn't
arrive with it.  Is your case a pleasing fiction, or a reality?"

"It will be here to-morrow, sir, I have no doubt.  In fact I expected
it yesterday."

"Well, then, send me up Paul de Kock the instant you get it; will
you?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Come along, Cis, my boy."

"You are quite a _grand seigneur_, I perceive, Frank," said Cecil, as
they strolled out of the shop.  "Cab--tiger--chains--French
novels--have you come into an inheritance?"

"Something like it, but jump into my cab, and I'll tell you all about
it."

They got in, and Frank, handling the reins with no small degree of
pride, drove into the Park, and thus explained his present fortune.

"The fact is, Cis, I have discovered the true method of playing.  I
broke the bank at No. 14, last Saturday; and have won no trifle
since.  You see all the martingales yet invented have some inherent
imperfection.  They go smoothly enough in theory; but damn the
practice, say I!"

"Is not yours a martingale, then?'

"No: it is simply playing with skill.  To explain it in a few words:
you know that there are constantly runs upon a colour; sometimes it
is the red, sometimes the black.  You also know that they dodge
about, and that the red will alternately win and lose every
successive coup.  My plan is to wait quietly while the game is
dodging, and directly I see a run, I back in heavily.  If the red has
turned up three times, the chances are, that there is to be a run on
that colour, and I back it till it loses.  D'ye understand?'

"Perfectly.  But I don't so clearly see how you must win at it."

"Bah--_that's_ the very best proof!  In every martingale, don't you
on the contrary clearly see how you must win, but does that prevent
your losing when you begin to play?  So, you may not see how I must
win, but I see how I do win--that's enough for me."

They dined together that day, and Frank, who had a box at Drury Lane,
proposed that Cecil should accompany him, but Cecil was too unwell,
and went home brooding on his friend's prosperity, and playing
imaginary games with fantastic success.

All the next day he was moody and irritable.  He would not even
notice his child, but walked up and down his small room, or sat with
his feet on the fender, cowering over the fire, his head buried in
his hands.

Towards evening, he wrote to Captain Heath a hypocritical letter, the
object of which was, as may be expected, to extract a few pounds from
him.  He was less moody after sending this off; but Blanche observed
a strange wandering in his thoughts.

On the morrow he received a cold, firm answer from the captain, who
stated that he had already advanced as much money on the picture as
he could afford to pay for it, and that he was therefore forced to
refuse.

"Damn him!" Cecil muttered, as he read the letter and crumpled it
between his fingers.

Blanche guessed the contents by that action; but she made no remark.

For at least an hour did he sit looking fixedly on the ground,
keeping the crumpled letter in his closed hand; and then she saw him
slowly open it, smooth the paper, and examine it attentively.  While
she was thus watching his countenance, curious as to what could be
his motive for examining so minutely a handwriting he knew, he
suddenly looked up at her.  A strange expression distorted his face
as he shouted,--

"What the devil are you looking at me for?"

"I ... I ... Cecil..."

"You don't suspect anything, do you?" he fiercely asked.

"Suspect, Cecil; and what?"

"What's that to you?" he said brusquely, and again turned away his
head.

She began to fear that he was getting insane.

"Are you not well, dearest?"

"No."

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing.  Don't bother me!  It must be near dinner, is it not?"

"Yes.  Are you hungry?"

"Very; go and see about it."

She left the room.

A few minutes afterwards he was seated at the table, with Captain
Heath's letter before him, carefully copying the writing, and
comparing his copy with the original.  He smiled grimly at his own
success; and after several further trials, he forged a check for
eighty pounds, which he had just folded and thrust into his waistcoat
pocket, when Blanche returned with the dinner.

His agitation and the eager manner with which he caught up some
scraps of paper, and threw them into the fire, did not escape her.

He sat down to dinner, but he could not swallow a morsel; and his
hand shook so, that he dared not venture to raise it to his mouth.

"You are ill, dearest," she said.  "I am sure you are."

"Pooh! it's want of exercise.  I will take a walk."

"Do not go out such weather as this; see how fast the snow falls."

"It won't hurt me.  I must go out."

She dared not further interpose; and in a few minutes he was gone.

Left alone, she meditated on the singular change in his manner--on
his fierceness when he had observed her watching him--his
paleness--his agitation--and his throwing those pieces of paper into
the fire.

She opened his writing-case.  There, among some loose pieces of blank
paper, she found one with some writing on it.  A film overspread her
eyes, as she recognised in it a copy of Captain Heath's writing--so
like it, that had not the characters been traced on a stray slip of
paper, she could never have suspected it to be other than his writing.

Rushing upon her like an overwhelming tide, came the swift and
terrible thoughts which revealed that her husband had committed a
forgery.  In the desperate hope that she might not yet be too late to
save him from the last act--that she might yet meet him at the
banker's and save him--she threw a shawl around her, put on her
bonnet, and in an instant she was in a cab driving furiously to
Charing Cross; in her anxiety too much excited to feel the horror of
her situation.

As the cab dashed round the corner, by Charles the First's statue,
she saw Cecil hurry from Messrs. Drummonds' banking-house.  She saw
no more: her brain swam round.  When the driver opened the cab door,
he found her in a swoon.

It did not last long: she recovered herself; and wildly looking round
her, remembered in an instant all that had passed.

"To South Audley Street!" she impatiently exclaimed.

To Captain Heath's she drove, and astonished the servant very much by
hurrying up stairs, and rushing into the room as if life and death
depended on her speed.

"Good God, Blanche! what is this?" he exclaimed, as the half lifeless
woman threw herself speechless into his arms.

It was a long time before she could speak; and even then, in such
incoherent sentences that it was with difficulty Heath understood
what she meant to tell him; but he found that it was something
terrible, and about Cecil; and he redoubled his attention, trying to
piece together into a coherent narrative, the broken utterances of
this wretched wife.

At last he understood her, and tears of deep compassion stood in his
eyes as he said,--

"Cheer up, dear Blanche, cheer up!  It is not so bad after all.  You
terrified me at first.  He has only drawn on me in anticipation.  You
know I still owe him money for the picture,--he has paid himself,--he
was doubtless close pressed."

"But," she sobbed, "he has forged."

"He has been irregular, that is all; he should have warned me of it.
However, now you have told me, it is all safe.  Quiet yourself."

"Oh, that I should have lived for this!"

"Courage, courage."

"Dishonoured!  My Cecil dishonoured!"

"Not yet, Blanche.  He has been imprudent, that is all--imprudent."

"Dishonoured!" she exclaimed, distractedly.

"Do you not see, that now I am informed of what has passed I shall be
on my guard?  He has been imprudent; no one knows it but ourselves.
You can gently point out to him the imprudence--and he is saved.
Only yesterday I heard of a situation for him in the Colonies--an
excellent place.  Away from England, he will have broken from his
present connexion, and lose his unfortunate habits.  A new sphere
will call forth fresh energy.  He may be saved yet, Blanche; only
take courage."

She took his hand, and kissed it in mute thankfulness, but her sobs
still tore her bosom, and all his persuasion could not calm her.

Now that she felt the great danger was past, she had time to feel the
immensity of the blow--she could grieve.

Heath allowed her to weep without trying to soothe her; for he saw
that the great crisis was over; and silently compassionating the
sorrow of this broken-hearted creature, to dry whose eyes, he would
have sold the world, he sat by her side holding her hand, from time
to time replying to its convulsive pressure.

She rose at last to go home.  He accompanied her to the door--saw her
take Rose Blanche from the servant girl, and cover it with frantic
kisses; and then departed sad and thoughtful to his own solitary home.

He could not, in his sympathy with her, forbear picturing to himself
the contrast of what her fate would have been had she married him
instead of Cecil; nor could he refrain from bitterly commenting on
the truth of his own prophecies that Cecil would make her unhappy.
No lover ever believes that his beloved can possibly be happy with
his rival; but Heath had too clearly read Cecil's character, not to
feel assured that, rivalry out of the question, Blanche was badly
matched in wedding one so weak and selfish.




CHAPTER IX.

RUIN.

In one of the low gambling houses, in Leicester-square, Cecil sat, as
in a dream, risking the fruits of his crime.  His brain whirled
round, and his heart beat every time the door opened, for he could
not drive away the fear that his forgery had been detected, and that
they were coming to arrest him.

He had dishonoured himself to play this new game which Frank had
explained to him, and now that the crime was committed he could not
profit by it!

Such a game required, above all others, consummate coolness, and
self-mastery; Cecil was more agitated, his brain was more confused
than ever it had been, and he played utterly at random.  It would be
difficult to conceive greater torture than that which he endured, for
he won without satisfaction, and lost with agony; his brain was not
so confused but that he had a distinct perception of his situation,
and of the necessity for playing every _coup_ as if for life; but at
the same time his brain was so drugged with horror and despair, that
his will seemed paralyzed, and he was forced, as by an unseen hand,
into the ruin which he saw yawning before him.

While the cards were dealt with mechanical precision by the impassive
dealer, and Cecil's crime-furnished gold was passing away before his
eyes, visions of his happy youth, of his early days of marriage, and
healthy activity, floated before his mind; and he, the gambler, on
the edge of that dark gulph which gaped before him, turned back his
thoughts to those sunny days when his soul was stainless, and his
life was full of love and hope, of activity and happiness; it was
like a small wild flower on a mass of loosening rock, which the next
gust of wind will quite unloosen, and tumble thundering into the
ravine.

He thought of his mother, and of her dying injunctions, and her words
of blessing fell upon his ear, just as the dealer in his passionless
voice proclaimed,--

"Black wins."

And a heap of gold was swept away before him.

For hours did this tortured gamester play, becoming gradually inured
to the pain he suffered, and deadened to the whispers of his
conscience.

It was now eleven o'clock.  The room was full of players.  A
succession of new faces replaced those who one by one fell off,
contented with their winnings, or, and this was by far the most
frequent case, desperate from their losses.  But Cecil never moved.
He called for wine occasionally, but nothing interrupted his play.

His last three sovereigns were staked upon the black: his life was on
the hazard of that one deal.  Even the old players, accustomed to
every species of intense emotion, could not keep their eyes off
Cecil, as with parted lips, straining eyes, and purple face, he
watched the rapid progress of the game.  Intensely they felt the
moment was supreme.

He lost!

With a burst of uncontrollable despair, he snatched the rake from the
hand of the croupier, who had just swept away his money, and with
both hands snapped it in two; a murmur followed this act of violence,
which only seemed preparatory to something worse; but he glared round
upon the players with such a look of mad fury that they were
awe-stricken.

Instead of any further violence, however, he broke out into a wild
hysterical laugh, which made their blood run cold, and staggered out
of the house.

In that moment which had preceded his wild laugh, a vision of his
young wife and child destitute,--starving,--thinned with want and
sickness, had appeared to him, and, as in a flash, revealed to him
the hideous extent of his ruin.

Beggared, dishonoured, stained with a profitless crime, nought
remained for him but death; and in death he resolved to still the
throbbing of his agony.

As he stumbled into Leicester Square, he ran up against one of those
unfortunate women, who, flaunting in satin and faded frippery, make
the streets hideous after sunset.

"Now then, my dear, are you going to rush into my arms without an
invitation?

  'Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
  Was ever woman in this humour won?'"


The fumes of bad wine poisoned the breath of the speaker, but the
tones struck so strangely upon Cecil's ears, that they arrested him
even on the path of death.

He seized her by the wrist, and dragged her under a lamp-post.  As
the light fell upon both their faces, and he recognised in the
wretched woman arrayed in the garb of shame, the Hester Mason whom he
had known so prosperous and ambitious--and, as she recognised in the
emaciated haggard wreck before her, the only man she had ever loved,
he gasped with inexpressible emotion, she wept with intense shame.

Not a word passed between them.  With a suffocating sense of bitter
humiliation, she wrested herself from his grasp, and darted down
Cranbourne Alley.  He put his hand to his brow, as if to repress its
throbbing, and slowly walked on.




CHAPTER X.

THE SINNER THAT REPENTETH.

The cause of Hester's degradation was one which always has, and one
fears always will, people our streets with those unhappy women, whom
the law refuses either to acknowledge or to suppress--refuses either
to protect or to punish: a lasting stigma upon our civilization!

When Sir Chetsom Chetsom was killed, she had to look about her for
means of subsistence; and at first imagined that literature would be
an ample field.

Thanks to the diffusion of knowledge, and to the increasing taste for
reading, it is now very possible for man or woman to earn a decent
and honourable livelihood by the pen; but if possible, it is not
easy, and is always, with the best of talents, eminently precarious.
For a woman still more so than for a man.  Above all, the woman must
have good friends, must be "respectable," and fortunate.

Hester had no good friends; she had many acquaintances, but no one
who interested himself in her success, no one, at any rate, who both
could and would assist her.  Moreover, she was not "respectable;" and
what was the consequence? dissolute editors were afraid of her
contributions "on the score of morals."

To be brief, Hester struggled in vain to get employment; and in great
danger of starving, she determined to go back to Walton.  Her father
consented to receive his unhappy child, and promised that "bye-gones
should be bye-gones."

She had better have taken a situation as servant of all-work in a
lodginghouse, than have returned to her home after what had occurred.
She found her father, indeed, glad enough to receive her, and willing
enough to forgive the past, on condition of not absolutely
_forgetting_ it: from time to time he could not refrain from
"throwing it in her teeth," when he was at a loss for an argument or
an invective.

This is always the case when a fallen daughter returns home, or when
she commits the one unpardonable fault, and stays at home: her
parents, her brothers, and sisters--oh! especially the sisters--never
forget that fault.  It is held over her head _in terrorem_.  It is an
ever-present warning and illustration.  Bridling up in _their_
unshaken chastity--too often unshaken because untempted--the sisters
make her feel in a hundred ways, that her fault is unpardoned and
unpardonable.  Exasperated by this incessant and unjust retribution
for a fault which the girl feels deserves more pity, she is at last
driven from home and takes refuge in the streets, because her
virtuous family cannot forget!

It has been often remarked that women are more pitiless towards each
other, on that very point where common sympathy should make them most
tolerant; and little do they know the extent of the mischief their
intolerance creates.

Hester had not to suffer from the sneers and allusions of chaste and
offended sisters, but she had to endure worse--the sneers and slights
of the whole offended town.  The reader remembers how Walton was
scandalized at her flirtation, how shocked at her flight; let him
then imagine the howl of outraged purity which saluted her repentant
return!  She, indeed, come back to a town she had disgraced!  She to
show herself amongst the daughters of respectable people!  She to be
allowed to wallow in corruption, and then as soon as she found that
course led to no good, to return again to her home as if nothing had
occurred!  The minx!

Mrs. Ruddles hoped her husband would take notice of it from the
pulpit: such an example as it was to other girls!

Mrs. Spedley expected to see many imitations of such conduct; it was
such a premium on vice!

The post-mistress hoped she was as charitable as most people, but she
knew what was due to herself, and as long as that creature remained
in Walton, she, the post-mistress, could not think of purchasing
anything at her father's shop.

Nor, for that matter, could Mrs. Spedley.

Mrs. Ruddles had never for an instant thought of such a thing.  It
would be a positive encouragement.  Mrs. Ruddles herself had
daughters.  She knew something, she thought, of what constituted a
well-regulated mind.  She had no fears for her Arabella, Mary, and
Martha Jane; but Mrs. Ruddles knew the ill effects of example.

When Hester appeared in the street, all the women instantly crossed
to the other side.  If she went into a shop to make a purchase, the
shop immediately became empty.  Women avoided her as if she were a
walking pestilence.

_En revanche_ the men ogled her with effrontery, and even middle-aged
rotundities with large families, gave themselves killing airs when in
her presence.

The stupid ignorance of men!  I declare the older I grow the more
amazed I am at the dull, purblind, inexcusable ignorance in which
one-half of the human race seems destined to remain with respect to
the other half, in spite of all experience.  To meet with a man who
has not some gross prejudice, founded on the most blundering
misconception with regard to the nature of women, and on that point,
too, which one would imagine they would best understand, is really
one of the rarest occurrences.  The vast majority of men never seem
to escape from the ideas they form about women at school; and no
contradiction in the shape of experience seems to suggest to them
that those ideas are essentially false.  To hear men--and men of the
world too--talk about women, is to hear the strangest absurdities and
platitudes you can listen to on any subject; to be let into the
secret of their conduct towards women, is only to see the ludicrous
results to which such erroneous opinions lead them.

It is a tempting subject, but I am not going to pursue this diatribe.
I have an illustration to give instead.

Hester Mason having committed a _faux pas_, was instantly, and from
that very cause, looked upon by all the men, young and old, as a
woman "to be had for the asking."  In their simplicity, they could
admit of no gradations between a Lucretia and Messalina.  If a woman
were not as chaste as ice, she must necessarily be utterly abandoned.
If one man had succeeded in overcoming her scruples, of course
another might.  The dolts!

Perhaps it is owing to our prudery, which keeps so strict a
surveillance over every word and act, that the smallest licence seems
to imply the extremity of licentiousness!

The school-boy notion of the facility of women was at the bottom of
their minds, and with beautiful simplicity some of the "knowing dogs"
commenced the attack upon Hester's virtue, without even thinking it
necessary to adopt a semblance of respect and attachment.

Certainly Hester was not a woman, under any circumstances, to have
admitted the addresses of these men; but now, the undisguised
insolence and fatuity of their approaches not only made her cheek
burn with shame, but made her heart sick with disgust.

With scorn and withering sarcasms she discomfited them one after the
other.  The contemptible fools instantly joined the chorus of the
women; and with good proof that at any rate, she was not altogether
abandoned, they were unanimous in their execration of her infamy.

If women were not purer, stronger, and honester than the dull and
coarse imaginations of most men depict them, what a world this would
be! what children would these women bring forth!

Those men who have known women, known how great their influence for
good and for evil, known what a well of feeling, of pure, spontaneous
nature, untarnished by contact with the world, there lies hidden in a
woman's breast; those who have known how this nature has moulded
their own minds, refined its coarseness, giving beauty to its
strength, will exclaim with me: what a world would this be were women
what men generally suppose them!

Here is Hester Mason, certainly not a good specimen of her sex: vain,
capricious, wilful, sensual, perverted by sounding sophisms
respecting the rights of women, and the injustice of the marriage
laws; she acts up to her opinions, and throws herself away upon a
rich and titled noodle for the sake of furthering her ambitious
projects; she finds out her mistake, returns home repentant, and
instantly a number of ill-conditioned, coarse-minded, coarse-mannered
men imagine she cannot hesitate to stoop to them!  Believing that she
acted from unrestrained licentiousness, they interpreted one act, in
this school-boy fashion, and hoped to profit by her weakness.  But
they found out their mistake; or rather never found it out, for they
attributed her refusal to viler motives than those to which they
would have attributed her consent.

The insult of their proposals struck deep into her heart--deeper far
than the scorn of her own sex; and it made her so wretched, that, at
last, it drove her once more from her home.  Yes, home became
insupportable, and in a moment of desperation she fled; fled to
London, and there endeavoured to seek oblivion in the turbulent
vortex of a career which one shudders to contemplate.

Of all the tortures, of all the humiliations to which she had
submitted, none equalled that of meeting Cecil.  In her strange
unhappy life there had been but one short dream, and that was her
love for Cecil; even when he had rejected her love, and humiliated
her by his rejection, she still felt towards him something of that
elevating, purifying attachment which forms a sort of serene heaven
smiling upon the most abject condition--which is, as it were, the
ideal region where the purest, brightest thoughts take refuge.  And
to meet him in the streets--to appear before his eyes in the
flaunting finery of disgrace--to let him see the abyss into which she
had fallen!  Poor girl! if her errors had no other expiation than
that, bitterly would she have expiated them.




CHAPTER XI.

THE WIFE AWAITING HER HUSBAND.

While the wretched girl wandered distractedly on her way, goaded by
the pangs of shame and remorse, the still more wretched Cecil, calm
in his concentrated despair, was walking along the river side,
pursued by the Eumenides, eager to reach a quiet spot where he might
end his blighted existence.

The snow fell in large flakes that cold January night; and as each
flake sank gently on the quiet bosom of the river, and silently
disappeared in it, leaving no other trace than the smallest possible
circle, it seemed to him an image of his own disappearance from this
stormy, sunless world.  In the deep, quiet bosom of Eternity was he
about to vanish: from this scene of turmoil and disgrace, he was to
drop into the swiftly flowing river of Eternity, in it to be absorbed
like to those flakes of snow.  There was comfort in that thought.

He walked on, thinking of what his wife and child would do when left
by him.  He thought sadly of Blanche's misery; for he knew the depth
of her affection for him--for him who had so ill repaid it, who had
brought such shame and sorrow on her head; but he endeavoured to
console himself with the reflection that her father would take care
of her, and that, perhaps, the best thing that could occur to her was
to become a widow.

In those lucid moments which precede the last solemn act, he reviewed
his conduct with melancholy clearness; and, undimmed by sophisms, his
conduct appeared to him in its true light.

He grew calmer as he walked.  He thought of his child with something
like satisfaction, when he reflected that she was too young to know
anything of her father's disgrace; and that, before she grew old
enough even to prattle about him, all would be forgotten.

Then he thought of Hester, in her miserable finery, and followed her
in imagination through the rapid stages of her inevitable career.

And he thought of Frank, then so prosperous, but soon, as he foresaw,
to be dragged down from his prosperity to the destitution which must
quickly follow; and he saw him dying in an hospital.

And the thought of death was sweeter to him, as he walked musingly on.

A light was dimly shining in Blanche's bedroom, and she was seated by
the window looking out into the night, awaiting the return of him who
was to return no more.  Her child was sleeping calmly; no hint of the
anguish which ploughed the hearts of its parents troubled its quiet
breathing.

The clock struck twelve.

A heavy sigh issued from the watcher as the strokes fell upon her
ear, and she rose to snuff the enormous wick of the neglected candle.
She then resumed her seat at the window.

"When will he come?" she asked herself, sadly.

She feared to meet him--feared to look upon his face, after what had
passed; feared lest he, upon whose brow she had been wont to see the
imperial stamp of genius--in whose eye the lustre of a glorious mind,
on whose lips the smile of unutterable tenderness,--there should now
be legible the stamp of infamy, the dull look of shame, the cynical
sneer of recklessness.

She feared to meet him, yet she could not repress her impatience to
see him: a vague dread that he might not return, shifted to and fro
before her mind, and kept her anxiously watching.

The clock struck one.

Her candle was guttering in the socket, and she lighted another.  She
bent over the cradle of her sleeping infant with a searching look of
love; and seeing that it slept peacefully, she again resumed her seat
at the window.

The snow had ceased to fall.  The bright stars were lustrous in the
deep, dark, moonless heavens, in which they seemed suspended.  The
ground was white with the untrodden snow, as also were the tops of
the houses, and the branches of the trees.  Not a breath of wind
stirred.  All was silent without, hushed in the repose of night.  Not
a footstep was heard; not even the distant barking of some watchful
dog.

Cold, cheerless, desolate as a leafless tree, was the night out into
which the watcher looked, awaiting her husband's return; but he came
not, would not come!

The clock struck two.

The watcher stirred the fire, and drew the shawl closer around her.
She was cold; but it was not the cold of that winter night which
numbed her limbs, it was the cold icy fear which momently assumed a
more definite and consistent shape.

She no longer asked: "when will he come?"

Her teeth chattered as the thought that he would never come, grew
more and more like a certainty.

There was a shroud upon the earth: a pure, white, stainless shroud,
prepared for one who was yet young, but who had lived too long.

To her widowed eyes this garment of snow, which nature wore, became a
terrible symbol, and the stars seemed to look down upon her in
infinite compassion.

He came not; could not come.  The silent river had opened to receive
him, and was now flowing swiftly and silently over his lifeless
corpse.

The clock struck three.

A cry of agony broke from the watcher as those three small strokes
with horrible distinctness fell upon her ear and seemed to utter,--

"He is dead!"

But she remained at her window looking; out into the night.  For two
hours longer did she sit there, and then dropped into a feverish
sleep, visited by happy, though broken, dreams.

She dreamed that she had dreamed her husband had committed a forgery,
and that she awoke to find it but a dream: how great her joy, as she
clasped him by the hand and told him all! and how his tender eyes
bent down upon her as he said,--

"What! think that of _me_!"

And she awoke--awoke to find herself seated at the window--the dull
winter morning struggling into obscure day--the snow heaped up on the
window ledge, and covering everything without--and the crushing
reality was once more threatening her!




CHAPTER XII.

THE GAMBLER'S END.

  Set down, set down that sorrow, 't is all mine.
                                            DECKAR.


Her candle was burnt out; the fire had only a few live embers which
went out directly she attempted to revive it.  She was numbed with
cold; weary with grief; and threw herself upon the bed.

Sleep was impossible.  A settled, though vague, conviction that Cecil
would not return had taken possession of her mind.  She fancied that
he must have lost the money, and was now lying concealed for fear of
the consequences of his crime.

As the morning fairly broke, she put on her things, and hurried to
Captain Heath to ask his assistance and advice.  He was at breakfast
when she arrived, and her appearance so wan, and yet so strangely
supernaturally calm, made him fear the worst.

"Cecil has not returned," she said quietly.  "What is to be done?"

The captain at once guessed the truth, and was silent.

"He is ashamed to return," she said.  "How are we to learn where he
is?"

He remained silent.

"If we were to advertise in the papers," she suggested, "could we not
by that means let him know that his ... imprudence ... has been
overlooked?"

"Yes, yes.  That is the only plan."

"Will you do it?"

"At once; but go you home, he may return every minute."

"You think, then, he will return?" she asked with more emotion in her
voice than she had hitherto betrayed.

He trembled slightly as he answered,--

"At any rate ... you had better be there."

She pressed his hand mournfully, and withdrew, leaving Heath amazed
and alarmed at the quietude of her manner.

On reaching Hammersmith she saw at some distance before her, a large
crowd of people hurrying along.  She quietly wondered what it could
be; perhaps a fire; perhaps a man led to the station house; perhaps a
show which the crowd followed wondering.

She walked on, till she saw the crowd stop at her own house, and then
she flew, urged on by some quick sudden fear--she pierced the
crowd--she entered the house--in the passage were four men bearing a
corpse on a shutter: her heart told her whose corpse it was before
her eyes had recognised it.

She saw no more.

When next she became conscious, she found herself in her old bedroom
at her father's, her sister Violet seated by her bedside, gazing
inquiringly upon her.  The fever was subsiding, and her life was
saved.




CHAPTER XIII.

EXPLANATION.

"Mrs. Dombey, it is very necessary that there should be some
understanding arrived at between us.  Your conduct does not please
me, madam .... I have made you my wife.  You bear my name.  You are
associated with my position and my reputation."

CHARLES DICKENS.


On the day on which Cecil had forged the cheque, Meredith Vyner
entered his wife's boudoir with the intention of coming to a serious
explanation with her.

Several times, lately, had the word "separation" been pronounced
between them, without, however, her attaching much importance to it.
She knew that he was miserable, she knew that his love for her had
been worn away, but she knew also that he was weak, and thought he
would never have courage enough to proceed to extremities.

In this she made a great mistake.  Vyner was weak, it is true, but he
was also obstinate; he was easily cajoled, but not easily driven from
any plan he had once resolved on.  Unable to resist the wildest
caprices of his wife, while he loved her, she lost all power over him
in losing his affection.  This she did not suspect.  Like many other
people, she altogether miscalculated the nature of her power over
him, and imagined that what she really gained by cajolery and
pretended affection, she gained by mere cunning and strength of will.

Their relative positions were altogether changed.  Vyner, no longer
the doating husband, was now the obstinate man.  He saw that it was
impossible to live happily with her, and saw that if his children
were once more around him--if Violet especially were once more at
home--he could again resume his peaceful routine of existence.

"I am come to speak seriously to you," he said, as seating himself
opposite to her, he drew out his deliberative snuff-box.

"And I am in no humour for it," she replied, "my head aches.  My
nerves are irritable this morning."

"What I have to say must be said, and the sooner it is said the
better for both of us."

She was surprised at the firmness of his manner.

"It is on the old subject," he added; "I need not again recapitulate
the many strong objections your conduct this last year has given rise
to, but I wish once for all to understand whether you intend
persisting in it, or whether you will pay a little more attention to
what is due both to me and yourself."

"How tiresome you are on that subject!  When will you understand that
a young woman cannot have an old head upon her shoulders, unless it
is also an ugly one?  I shall be grave and sedate enough in time, I
dare say; meanwhile, allow me to observe, that, although I may be
fond of admiration, yet I know perfectly well what is due to myself."

"If you know it, you do not demean yourself in consequence."

"That is the question.  I maintain that I do; and I suppose I am old
enough to know what is right on such matters."

He shook his head.

"Can you name any one instance in which I have overstepped the limits
to which even English rigidity confines a young woman?"

"Your encouragement of the attentions of Mr. Ashley...."

"Again, Mr. Ashley!"

"Of Mr. Maxwell...."

She burst out laughing; but the laugh was hollow.

"Of Lord * * * * who every day...."

"Why he's as old as you are!"

Vyner winced at the epigram, which indeed was cruel and insulting.

"It is a pity you did not think of the great disparity in our ages
before you married me, Mrs. Vyner."

"A great pity."

"I have often thought so of late."

"How much better had you thought so before you made me an offer!"

"It was the greatest mistake I ever made, but--

  'Sic visum Veneri, cui placeat impares
  Formas atque animos sub juga aënea
  Sævo mittere cum joco!'"


Vyner had often made that quotation to himself, and now launched it
with great satisfaction, as was evident by the noisy pinch of snuff
with which he closed it.

Mrs. Vyner shrugged her shoulders.

"You have spoken," he said, "of incompatibilities, and I fear they
exist.  But, Mrs. Vyner, if you have destroyed my domestic happiness,
you shall not destroy my future comfort.  I will not be made a
laughing-stock abroad, and be made miserable at home.  I say I will
_not_.  I am come, therefore, to offer you an alternative."

"Let me hear it."

"You must cease to see Mr. Maxwell and Lord * * * *"

"Impossible!"

"I say you _must_.  Moreover, you must change your manner entirely,
both to other men and to your husband."

"What manner am I to adopt?"

"That which befits a well-conducted wife."

"Mr. Vyner, you are insulting."

"In demanding you to do your duty?"

"No; in asserting that I do anything derogatory."

"You have strange ideas, Mrs. Vyner, on that point."

"Perhaps so; but they are mine."

"They are not mine, however."

"That is unfortunate!"

"Very.  I am demanding nothing extraordinary, I imagine, in insisting
that you should cease to flirt with others, and should pay more
respect and deference to my wishes than you have done of late.  I do
not demand affection..."

She again shrugged her shoulders; he perceived it.

"Because," he continued, "I know that is absurd; whatever regard you
may once have had for me is gone.  I do not even demand gratitude for
the kindness I have ever shown you--and you must admit that I have
been an indulgent husband--foolishly so.  But I have a right to
demand from a wife a fulfilment at least of the most ordinary duties
of a wife, and a certain amount of respect, or the show of it at any
rate.  This I have a right to demand, and this I will have."

Mrs. Vyner was not a woman to brook such a dictatorial tone even from
the man she loved; and we have seen how Maxwell, when he adopted it,
only irritated her to an unusual degree; from Vyner, whom she had
been accustomed to sway as she pleased; from Vyner whom she disliked,
and somewhat despised, this tone was, therefore, excessively
offensive.

Her lip quivered as she replied, "This is a subject upon which we can
never agree.  I hold myself to be quite competent to judge of my own
actions, and until I have done anything to forfeit the good opinion
of the world, I shall continue to act as I think proper."

"That is your final determination?"

"It is.  I hope it will be unnecessary for me to repeat it."

"In coming here I expected this, so I came prepared."

"Let me hear your alternative."

"A separation."

She started; not at the word--that she had heard before--but at the
quiet, dogged resolution of the tone.  A flush of angry pride ran
over her cheeks and brow.

"It is very terrible, your alternative!" she said, ironically.

"Are you prepared to accept it?"

"Perfectly."

"Very well, then, in that case, I have only to see about the
settlements, and in a week or two, at the farthest, the affair can be
arranged."

He put back his snuff-box into his huge pocket, as he said this, and
walked out of the room with a calmness that lent dignity to his
lumpish figure.

She drooped her head upon her hand, and reflected.  Revolted pride,
anger, and fear were struggling in her breast.  Irritated as she was
by her husband's manner, she could not reflect upon the separation
without uneasiness.

As his wife, she had an enviable position; separated from him, she
not only lost the advantages of that position, in a deprivation of
wealth, but also in a deprivation of the consideration with which the
world regarded her.  A woman separated from her husband is always
equivocally placed; even when the husband is notorious as a bad
character, as a man of unendurable temper, or bitten with some
disgraceful vice, society always looks obliquely at the woman
separated from him; and when she has no such glaring excuse, her
position is more than equivocal.  "Respectable" women will not
receive her; or do so with a certain nuance of reluctance.  Men
gossip about her, and regard her as a fair mark for their gallantries.

Mrs. Vyner knew all this thoroughly; she had refused to know women in
that condition; at Mrs. Langley Turner's, where she had more than
once encountered these black sheep, she had turned aside her head,
and by a thousand little impertinent airs made them feel the
difference between her purity and their disgrace.  A separation,
therefore, was not a thing to be lightly thought of; yet the idea of
obeying Vyner, of accepting his conditions, made her cheek burn with
indignation.

Absorbed in thought she sat, weighing, as in a delicate balance, the
conflicting considerations which arose within her, and ever and anon
asking herself,--"What has become of Maxwell?"




CHAPTER XIV.

THE ALTERNATIVE.

Maxwell had just recovered from the effect of that broken bloodvessel
which terminated the paroxysm of passion Mrs. Vyner's language and
conduct had thrown him into.

At the very moment when she was asking herself, "What has become of
Maxwell?" he concluded his will, arranged all his papers, burnt many
letters, and, going to a drawer, took from them a pair of pocket
pistols with double barrels.

He was very pale, and his veins seemed injected with bile in lieu of
blood; but he was excessively calm.

In one so violent, in one whose anger was something more like madness
than any normal condition of the human mind, who from childhood
upwards had been unrestrained in the indulgence of his passion, this
calmness was appalling.

He loaded the four barrels with extreme precision, having previously
cleared the touchholes, and not only affixed the caps with care, but
also took the precaution of putting some extra caps in his waistcoat
pocket in case of accidents.

His hand did not tremble once; on his brow there was no scowl; on his
colourless lips no grim smile; but calm, as if he were about the most
indifferent act of his life, and breathing regularly as if no unusual
thought was in his mind, he finished the priming of those deadly
instruments, and placed them in his pocket.

Once more did he read over his will; and then having set everything
in order, rang the bell.

"Fetch a cab," he said quietly to the servant who entered.

"Are you going out, sir?" asked the astonished servant.

"Don't you see I am?"

"Yes, sir,--only you are but just out of bed...."

"I am quite well enough."

There was no reply possible.  The cab was brought.  He stepped into
it, and drove to Mrs. Vyner's.

Although she was thinking of him at the very moment when he was
announced, she started at the sound of his name.  His appearance
startled her still more.  She saw that he could only just have risen
from a bed of sickness, and that sickness she knew had been caused by
the vehemence of his love for her.

Affectionate as was her greeting, it brought no smile upon his lips,
no light into his glazed eyes.

"The hypocrite!" was his mental exclamation.

"Oh! Maxwell, how I have longed to see you," she said  "you left me
in anger, and I confess I did not behave well to you; but why have
you not been here before? did you not know that I was but too anxious
to make it up with you?"

"How should I know that?" he quietly asked.

"How! did you not know my love for you?"

"I did not," he said, perfectly unmoved.

"You did not?  Oh you ungrateful creature!  Is that the return I am
to meet with?  Is it to say such things that you are here?"

A slight smile played in his eyes for a moment, but his lips were
motionless.

"Come," she said, "you have been angry with me--I have been
wrong--let us forget and forgive."

He did not touch her proffered hand, but said,--

"If for once in your life you can be frank, be so now."

"I will.  What am I to say?"

Carelessly putting both hands into his coat pockets, and grasping the
pistols, he rose, stretched out his coat tails, and stood before her
in an attitude usual with him, and characteristic of Englishmen
generally, when standing with their backs to the fire.

"You promise to be frank?" he said.

"I do."

"Then tell me whether Lord * * * * * was here yesterday."

"He was."

"Will he be here to-morrow?"

"Most likely."

"Then you have not given him his congé?"

"Not I."

Maxwell paused and looked at her keenly, his right hand grasping
firmly the pistol in his pocket.

"Then may I ask the reason of your very civil reception of me to-day?"

"The reason!  Civil!"

"Yes, the reason, the motive: you must have one."

"Is not my love...."

"You promised to be frank," he said, menacingly.

"I did--I am so."

"Then let us have no subterfuge of language--speak plainly--it will
be better for you."

"Maxwell, if you are come here to irritate me with your jealousy, and
your absurd doubts, you have chosen a bad time.  I am not well.  I am
not happy.  I do not wish to quarrel with you--do not force me to it."

"Beware!" he said, in deep solemn tones.

"Beware you!  George, do not provoke me--pray do not.  Sit down and
talk reasonably.  What is it you want to ask me?"

"I repeat: the motive for your civility to me?"

"And I repeat: my love."

"Your love!"

"There again!  Why will you torment me with this absurd doubt?  Why
should you doubt me?  Have I any interest in deceiving you?  You are
not my husband.--It is very strange that when I do not scruple to
avow my love, you should scruple to believe me."

"My scruples arise from my knowledge of you: you are a coquette."

"I know it; but not to you."

"Solemnly--do you love me?"

"Solemnly--I do!"

He paused again, as unprepared for this dissimulation.  She withstood
his gaze without flinching.

An idea suddenly occurred to him.

"Mary, after what I have seen, doubts are justifiable.  Are you
prepared to give me a proof?"

"Yes, any; name it."

"Will you go with me to France?"

"Run away with you?"

"You refuse!" he said, half drawing a pistol from his pocket.

She was bewildered.  The suddenness of the proposition, and its
tremendous importance staggered her.

A deep gloom concentrated on his face; the crisis had arrived, and he
only awaited a word from her to blow her brains out.

With the indescribable rapidity of thought, her mind embraced the
whole consequences of his offer--weighed the chances--exposed the
peril of her situation with her husband, and permitted her to
calculate whether, since separation seemed inevitable, there would
not be an advantage in accepting Maxwell's offer.  "He loves me," she
said; "loves me as no one ever loved before.  With him I shall be
happy."

"I await your decision," he said.

"George, I am yours!"

She flung herself upon his neck.  He was so astonished at her
resolution, that at first he could not believe it, and his hands
still grasped the pistols; but by degrees her embrace convinced him,
and clasping her in his arms, he exclaimed,--

"Your love has saved you!  You shall be a happy woman--I will be your
slave!"




CHAPTER XV.

THOSE LEFT TO WEEP.

The discovery of Mrs. Vyner's flight was nearly coincident with the
announcement of Cecil's suicide.  Poor Vyner was like a madman.  He
reproached himself for having spoken so harshly to his wife, for
having driven her to this desperate act, and thus causing her ruin.
Had he been more patient, more tolerant!  She was so young, so giddy,
so impulsive, he ought to have had more consideration for her!

It was quite clear to Vyner's mind that he had behaved very brutally,
and that his wife was an injured innocent.

In the midst of this grief, there came the horrible intelligence of
Cecil's end.  There again Vyner reproached himself.  Why did he allow
Blanche to marry that unhappy young man?  On second thoughts, "he had
never allowed it"; but yet it was he who encouraged Cecil--who
invited him to his seat--who pressed him to stay!

In vain did Captain Heath remonstrate with him on this point; Vyner
was at that moment in a remorseful, self-reproachful spirit, which no
arguments could alter.  He left everything to Captain Heath's
management, with the helplessness of weak men, and sat desolate in
his study, wringing his hands, taking ounces of snuff, and
overwhelming himself with unnecessary reproaches.

Blanche, in a brain fever, was removed to her father's, where she was
watched by the miserable old man, as if he had been the cause of her
sorrow.  Violet was sent for from her uncle's, and established
herself once more in the house.  Now her step-mother was gone, she
could devote herself to her father.

Blanche's return to consciousness was unhappily also a return to that
fierce sorrow which nothing but time could assuage.  She was only
induced to live by the reflection that her child needed her care.
But what a prospect was it for her!  How could she ever smile again!
How could she ever cease to weep for her kind, affectionate, erring,
but beloved Cecil!

It is the intensity of all passion which makes us think it must be
eternal; and it is this very intensity which makes it so short-lived.
In a few months Blanche occasionally smiled; her grief began to take
less the shape of a thing present, and more that of a thing past; it
was less of a sensation, and more of a reverie.

At first the image of her husband was a ghastly image of dishonour
and early wreck; his face wore the stern keen look of suspicion which
had agitated her when last she saw him alive; or else it wore the
placidity of the corpse which she had last beheld.  Behind that
ghastly image stood the background of their happy early days of
marriage, so shortlived, yet so exquisite!

In time the ghastliness faded away, and round the image of her
husband, there was a sort of halo--the background gradually invaded
the foreground, till at last the picture had no more melancholy in it
than there is in some sweet sunset over a quiet sea.  The tears she
shed were no longer bitter: they were the sweet and pensive tears
shed by that melancholy which finds pleasure in its own indulgence.

Grief had lost its pang.  Her mind, familiarized with her loss, no
longer dwelt upon the painful, but on the beautiful side of the past.
Her child was there to keep alive the affectionate remembrance of its
father, without suggesting the idea of the moody, irritable,
ungenerous husband, which Cecil had at the last become.

Like a child crying itself to sleep--passing from sorrow into quiet
breathing--her grief had passed into pensiveness.  Cecil's image was
as a star smiling down upon her from heaven: round it were clustered
quiet, happy thoughts, not the less happy because shadowed with a
seriousness which _had been_ grief.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE VOICE OF PASSION.

Vyner soon recovered from the double shock he had sustained, and was
now quite happy again with his two girls, and his excellent friend
Heath, as his constant companions; while Julius and Rose were seldom
two days absent from them.

For the sake of Blanche they now returned to Wytton Hall, and there
her health was slowly but steadily restored.

Captain Heath was her companion in almost every walk and drive;
reading to her the books she wished; daily becoming a greater
favourite with little Rose Blanche, who would leave even her nurse to
come to him; and daily feeling serener, as his love grew not deeper,
but less unquiet: less, as he imagined, like a lover's love, and more
like that of an elder brother.

Blanche was happier with him than with any one else; not that she
loved him, not even that she divined his love; since Cecil's death,
his manner had been even less demonstrative than it had ever been
before, and it would have been impossible for the keenest observer to
have imagined there was anything like love in his attentions.

What quiet blissful months those were which they then passed: Vyner
once more absorbed in his Horace; Blanche daily growing stronger, and
less melancholy; Heath living as one in a dream; Violet hearing, with
a woman's pride in him she loves, of Marmaduke's immense success in
parliament, where he was already looked up to as the future Chatham
or Burke.

Every time Violet saw Marmaduke's name in the papers, her heart
fluttered against the bars of its prison, and she groaned at the idea
of being separated from him.  Indeed her letters to Rose were so full
of Marmaduke, that Rose planned with Julius a little scheme to bring
the two unexpectedly together, as soon as Violet returned to town.

"I am sure Violet loves him," said Rose; "I don't at all understand
what has occurred to separate them.  Violet is silent on the point,
and is uneasy if I allude to it.  But don't you agree with me,
Julius, that she must love him?"

"I think it very probable."

"Probable!  Why not certain?"

"Because, you know, I am apt to be suspicious on that subject."

"I know you are," she said, laughing and shaking her locks at him,
"and a pretty judge you are of a woman's heart!"

Julius allowed himself to be persuaded that Violet really did love
Marmaduke, and accordingly some weeks afterwards, when the Vyners had
returned, Julius arranged a pic-nic in which Marmaduke was to join,
without Violet's knowledge.  Fearful lest she should refuse to
accompany them if she saw him before starting, it was agreed that
Marmaduke should meet them at Richmond.

Imagine with what feverish impatience he awaited them, and with what
a sinking, anxious heart he appeared amongst them.  Violet blushed,
and looked at Rose; the laughter in her eyes plainly betrayed her
share in the plot, in defiance of the affected gravity of her face.
He shook hands with such of the company as he knew personally, was
introduced to the others, and then quietly seated himself beside
Violet, in a manner so free from either embarrassment or gallantry,
that it put her quite at her ease.  She had determined, from the
first, to frustrate Rose's kindly-intentioned scheme; and she felt
that she had strength enough to do so.  But his manner at once
convinced her that, however he might have been brought there, it was
with no intention of taking any advantage of their meeting to open
forbidden subjects.

Marmaduke was in high spirits, and talked quite brilliantly.  Violet
was silent; but from time to time, as he turned to address a remark
to her, he saw her look of admiration, and that inspired him.

I need not describe the pic-nic, for time presses, and pic-nics are
all very much alike.  Enough if we know that the day was spent
merrily and noisily, and that dinner was noisier and merrier than
all: the champagne drank, amounting to something incredible.

Evening was drawing in.  The last rays of a magnificent sunset were
fading in the western sky, and the cool breeze springing up warned
the company that it was time to prepare for their return.

The boisterous gaiety of the afternoon and dinner had ceased.  Every
one knows the effect of an exhilarating feast, followed by a listless
exhausted hour or two; when the excitement produced by wine and
laughter has passed away, a lassitude succeeds, which in poetical
minds induces a tender melancholy, in prosaic minds a desire for
stimulus or sleep.

As the day went down, all the guests were exhausted, except Marmaduke
and Violet, who, while the others were gradually becoming duller and
duller, had insensibly wandered away, engrossed in the most
enchanting conversation.

"Did I not tell you?" whispered Rose, as she pointed out to Julius
the retreating figures of her sister and Marmaduke.

Away the lovers wandered, and although their hearts were full of
love, although their eyes were speaking it as eloquently as love can
speak, not a syllable crossed their lips which could be referred to
it.  A vague yearning--a dim, melancholy, o'ermastering feeling held
its empire over their souls.  The witching twilight, closing in so
strange a day, seemed irresistibly to guide their thoughts into that
one channel which they had hitherto so dexterously avoided.  Her hand
was on his arm--he pressed it tenderly, yet gently--so gently!--to
his side.  He gazed into her large lustrous eyes, and intoxicated by
their beauty and tenderness, he began to speak.

"It is getting late.  We must return.  We must separate.  Oh!
Violet, before we separate, tell me that it is not for ever----"

"Marmaduke!" she stammered out, alarmed.

"Dearest, dearest Violet, we shall meet again--you will let me see
you--will you not?"

She was silent, struggling.

They walked on a few paces; then he again said,--

"You will not banish me entirely--you will from time to time----"

"No, Marmaduke," she said, solemnly; "no, it will not be right.  You
need not look so pained--I--have I nothing to overcome when I forego
the delight of seeing you?  But it must not be.  You know that it
cannot be."

"I know nothing of the kind!" he impetuously exclaimed; "I only know
that you do not love me!"

She looked reproachfully at him; but his head was turned away.

"Cold, cold as marble," he muttered as they walked on.

She did not answer him.  Lovers are always unreasonable and unjust.
He was furious at her "coldness;" she was hurt at his
misunderstanding her.  She could have implored him to be more
generous; but he gave her no encouragement--he spoke no word--kept
his look averted.  Thus neither tried to explain away the other's
misconception; neither smoothed the other's ruffled anger.  In
silence they walked on, environed by their pride.  The longer they
kept silent, the bitterer grew their feelings;--the more he
internally reprobated her for coldness, the more she was hurt at his
refusal to acknowledge the justness of her resolution, after all that
had passed between them by letter.

In this painful state of feeling, they joined their companions just
as the boats were got ready.

Rose looked inquiringly at Violet; but Violet averted her head.
Julius was troubled to perceive the evident anger of Marmaduke.

The boats pushed off.  The evening was exquisite, and Rose murmured
to Julius the words of their favourite Leopardi:--

  Dolce e chiara è la notte, e senza vento,
  E queta sovra i tetti e in mezzo agli orti
  Posa la luna, e di lontan rivela
  Serena ogni montagna.


Wearied by the excitement of the day, they were almost all plunged in
reveries from which they made no effort to escape.  The regular dip
of the oars in the water, and the falling drops shaken from them, had
a musical cadence, which fell deliciously on the ear.  It was a
dreamy scene.  The moon rose, and shed her gentle light upon them, as
they moved along, in almost unbroken silence, upon the silver stream.
The last twitter of the birds had ceased; the regular and soothing
sounds of the oars alone kept them in a sort of half consciousness of
being awake.

Marmaduke and Violet were suffering tortures.  She occasionally stole
a glance at him, and with redoubled pain read upon his haughty face
the expression of anger and doubt which so much distressed her.  The
large tears rolled over her face.  She leaned over the boat side to
hide them, and as she saw the river hurrying on beneath her, she
thought of the unhappy Cecil, and of his untimely end.  Over his
dishonoured corpse had this cold river flowed, as gently as now it
flowed beneath her...  From Cecil her thoughts wandered to Wytton
Hall, and her early inclination for him--to her scene in the field
with the bull--to her first meeting with Marmaduke; and then she
thought no more of Cecil.

Thus they were rowed through the silent evening.  On reaching town,
the party dispersed.

Marmaduke and Violet separated with cold politeness, and each went
home to spend a miserable night.

For some days did Marmaduke brood over her refusal, and as he
reflected on the strength of her character, and the slight
probability that she would ever yield--her very frankness told him
that--he took a sudden and very loverlike resolution that he would
quit England, and return to Brazil.

Preparations for his departure were not delayed an instant, and with
his usual impetuosity he had completed every arrangement before
another would have fairly commenced.

Leave-taking began.  He wrote to Vyner announcing his intention, and
saying that he proposed doing himself the pleasure of bidding them
adieu.  He had the faint hope, which was very faint, that Violet
might be present, and that he might see her for the last time.
Lovers attach a very particular importance to a last farewell, and
angry as Marmaduke was with Violet, the idea of quitting England for
ever, without once more seeing her, was extremely painful to him.

It was a dull, drizzly day, enough to depress the most elastic of
temperaments.  Violet was in her father's study, looking out upon the
mist of rain and cloud, debating with herself whether she should be
present during Marmaduke's visit or not.  After what had passed, she
tried to persuade herself that it was fortunate he was going to quit
England, fearing that her resolution would never hold out against his
renewed entreaties; but it was in vain she sophisticated with
herself, her heart told her that she was wretched, intensely wretched
at his departure.

Her father's voice roused her from this reverie, and she passed into
the drawing-room, where a few minutes afterwards the servant entered,
and announced "Mr. Ashley."

A stream of fire seemed suddenly to pour along her veins; but by the
time he had shaken hands with Vyner and Blanche, and had turned to
her, she was comparatively calm.  His face was very sallow, and there
was a nervous quivering of his delicate nostrils, which indicated the
emotion within, but which was unobserved by her, as her eyes were
averted.

The conversation was uneasy and common-place.  Marmaduke's manner was
calm and composed, but his voice was low.  Violet sat with her eyes
upon the carpet, deadly pale, and with colourless lips.  Blanche, who
did not quite understand the relation between them, but who knew that
Violet loved him, was anxious on her account.  Vyner alone was glib
and easy.  He talked of parliament, and remarked, that the best thing
he knew of it was, that the members always quoted Horace.

As the interview proceeded, Marmaduke's grave, cold manner became
slightly tinged with irony and bitterness; and when Vyner said to
him, "Apropos, what--if the question be permissible--what induces you
to leave us? are you to be away long?"

He replied, with a marked emphasis, "Very long."

"Is Brazil, then, so very attractive?"

"England ceases to be attractive.  I want breathing space.  There I
can, as Tennyson sings,--

  'Burst all the links of habit--there to wander far away,
  On from island unto island, at the gateways of the day.'"


Blanche, mildly interposing, said,--

"But what does he also sing, and in the same poem?

  'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.'"


Violet's eyes were fixed upon the ground.

"And, after all--poetry aside--what are you going to do with yourself
in that hot climate?"

"To marry, perhaps," he said, carelessly, and with a forced laugh.

Violet shook all over; but she did not raise her eyes.

"An heiress?" asked Vyner.

"No,--to continue Tennyson,--

  'I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.'"


There was singular bitterness, as he added,--

"In those climates, the passions are not cramped by the swaddling
clothes of civilisation; their franker natures better suit my own
impulsiveness; when they love they love--they do not stultify their
hearts with intricate sophisms."

Violet now raised her large eyes, and, with mournful steadiness,
reproached him by a look, for the words he had just uttered.  He met
her look with one as steady, but flashing with scorn.

"Well, for my part," said Vyner, tapping his snuff-box, "Brazil would
have little attraction for me, especially if the women are violent.
I can't bear violent women."

Marmaduke had expected some remark from Violet in answer to his
speech; but that one look was her only answer, and she was now as
intently examining the carpet as before.  He noticed her paleness,
and the concentrated calmness of her manner, and it irritated him the
more.

Blanche, with true feminine sagacity, saw it was desirable, in every
case, that Violet should have an opportunity of speaking with him
alone, so walked out of the room, and in a few minutes sent the
servant with a message to Vyner that he was wanted for an instant
down stairs.

The lovers were now alone, and horribly embarrassed.  They wanted to
break the uneasy silence, but neither of them could utter a word.

At last Violet, feeling that it was imperative on her to say
something, murmured, without looking at him,--

"And when do you start?"

"On Monday."

Another pause ensued; perhaps worse this time than before, because of
the unsuccessful attempt.

"I wonder whether it still rains?" he said, after a few moments'
silence, and walked to the window to look out.

Left thus sitting by herself--an emblem of the far more terrible
desertion which was to follow--Violet looked in upon her desolate
heart, and felt appalled at the prospect.  The imperious cry of
passion sounded within her, and would not be gagged: the pent-up tide
burst away the barriers, and rushed precipitately onwards, carrying
before it all scruples like straws upon a stream.

"Marmaduke!" she exclaimed.

He turned from the window; she had half-risen from her seat; he
walked up to her.

She flung herself into his arms.

"Is this true, Violet?  Speak--are you mine--mine?"

She pressed him closer to her.  It is only men who find words in such
moments; and Marmaduke was as eloquent as love and rapture could make
him.

When she did speak, it was in a low fluttering tone, her pale face
suffused with blushes, as she told him, that to live apart from him
was _impossible_;--either he must stay, or take her with him.

Meanwhile, Vyner had been prettily rated by Blanche for his dulness
in not perceiving that the lovers wanted to be alone.

"But are you certain, Blanche, that they are lovers?  For my part, I
wish it were so; but although Violet certainly has a regard for him,
I have reason to believe, that he has none for her."

Blanche sighed and said,--

"Then let us go back, for in that case, they will only be
uncomfortable together."

* * * * * *

_N.B._--The journey to Brazil was indefinitely postponed.




EPILOGUE.

1845.

"Je l'aurais supprimée si j'écrivais un roman; je sais que l'héroine
ne doit avoir qu'un goùt; qu'il doit être pour quelqu'un de parfait
et ne jamais finir; mais le vrai est comme il peut, et n'a de mérite
que d'être ce qu'il est."

MADAME DE STAAL DE LAUNAY.


The moon was serenely shining one soft July night, exactly ten years
from the date of the prologue to this long drama, when a young woman
crept stealthily from the door of an old and picturesque-looking
house, at the extremity of the town of Angoulême, and with many
agitated glances thrown back, as one who feared pursuit, ran, rather
than walked, on to the high road.

The moonbeams falling on that pale, wan, terror-stricken face,
revealed the scarcely recognisable features of the gay, daring,
fascinating girl, whom ten years before we saw upon the sands, behind
Mrs. Henley's house, parting, in such hysterical grief, from the
lover whom she then thought never could be absent from her heart, and
whom a few months afterwards she jilted for twelve thousand a year.
Yes, that pale, wan woman was Mrs. Meredith Vyner; and she fled from
the man for whom she had sacrificed her name!

Her face was a pathetic commentary upon her life.  No longer were
those tiger eyes lighted up with the fire of daring triumph, no
longer were those thin lips curled with a smiling cruel coquetry, no
longer drooped those golden ringlets with a fairy grace.  The eyes
were dull with grief; the lips were drawn down with constant
fretfulness; the whole face sharpened with constant fear and
eagerness.  Her beauty had vanished--her health was broken--her
gaiety was gone.  Crushed in spirit, she was a houseless fugitive,
escaping from the most hateful of tyrants.

Retribution, swift and terrible, had fallen upon her head.  From the
moment when, in obedience to that wild impulse, she had fled from her
husband with her saturnine lover, her life had been one protracted
torture.  Better, oh! better far, would it have been for her to have
refused him, and to have died by his hand, than to have followed him
to such misery as she had endured!

It would take me long to recount in detail the sad experience of the
last two years.  She found herself linked to a man, whose diabolical
temper made her shudder when he frowned, and whose mad, unreasonable,
minute jealousy kept her in constant terror.  She dared not look at
another man.  She was never allowed to quit his sight for an instant.
If she sighed, it made him angry; if she wept, it drew down
reproaches upon her, and insinuations that she repented of the step
she had taken, and wished to leave him.  A day's peace or happiness
with such a man was impossible.  He had none of the amiable qualities
which might have made her forget her guilty position.  Dark,
passionate, suspicious, ungenerous, and exacting, he was always
brooding over the difference between the claims he made upon her
admiration and love, and the mode in which she responded to those
claims.  His tyrannous vanity, could only have been propitiated by
the most abject and exorbitant adulation--adulation in word, look,
and act.  She had sacrificed herself, but that was only one act, and
he demanded a continued sacrifice.  No woman had ever loved him
before, yet nothing less than idolatry, or the simulation of it,
would content him.  He could not understand how she should have any
other thought than that of ministering to his exacting vanity.

Now, of all women, Mrs. Vyner was the last to be capable of such a
passion; and certainly, under such circumstances, no woman could have
given way to the passion, had she felt it.  In constant terror and
perpetual remorse, what time had she for the subtleties of love?  She
dreaded and despised him.  She saw that her fate was inextricably
inwoven with his; and--what a humiliation!--she saw that he did not
love her!

No, Maxwell did not love her.  She had not been with him a month
before he became aware of the fact himself.  It is a remark I have
often made, that men thwarted in their desires confound their own
wilfulness with depth of passion.  With fierce energy, they will move
heaven and earth to gain what, when gained, they disregard.  This is
usually considered as a proof of the strength of their love; it only
shows the strength of their self-love.

It was Maxwell's irritated vanity which made him so persisting in his
pursuit of Mrs. Vyner.  It was his wounded vanity which made him
capable of murdering her; not his love: for love, even when wounded,
is still a generous feeling;--it is sympathy, and admits no hate.

What, then, was Maxwell's object in living with Mrs. Vyner after the
discovery that he did not really love her?  Why did he not quit her,
or at least allow her to quit him?

His vanity! precisely that: the same exacting vanity which prompted
all his former actions, prompted this.  He felt that she did not
idolize him; he knew she would be glad to quit him;--and there was
torture in the thought.  Had she really loved him with passionate
self-oblivion, he would have deserted her.  As it was, the same
motive which had roused his desire for her possession, which had made
him force her to sacrifice everything for his sake, was as active now
as then.  If she left him, he was still, except for the one act of
her elopement, as far from his goal as before.

It may seem strange that, not loving her, he should prize so highly
the demonstrations of affection from her; but those who have probed
the dark and intricate windings of the heart, know the persistency of
an unsatisfied desire, and, above all, know the tyrannous nature of
vanity.  To this must be added the peculiar condition of Maxwell: the
condition of a man intensely vain, who had never before been loved,
and who had, as it were, staked his existence on subduing this one
woman's heart.

What a life was theirs!  A life of ceaseless suspicion, and of
ceaseless dread--of bitter exasperation, and of keen remorse--of
unsatisfied demands, and of baffled hope.

It lasted nearly two years.  Then Maxwell, at the conclusion of some
brutal quarrel, burst another bloodvessel, and his life was despaired
of.  Mary was his nurse; he would have no other.  She had to sit up
with him; to attend upon him; to submit to his petty irritability,
made worse by illness; to watch him in his restless slumbers, hoping
that each time he closed his eyes would be the last.

One night--it was the very night on which this chapter opened--she
sat by his side absorbed in gloomy thought.  The candle was flaring
in the socket.  Everything was still.  The dying man slept
peacefully.  With her hands drooping upon her lap, she sat allowing
her thoughts to wander; and they wandered into the dim future, when,
released from her tyrant, she was once more a happy woman.  Long did
she indulge in that sweet reverie, and when it ceased, she turned her
head mechanically to look upon the sleeper.  He was wide awake: his
dull eyes were fixed intently upon her; and a shiver ran all over her
body as she met that gaze!

"_I am not dead yet!_" he said, as if he had interpreted her thoughts.

She trembled slightly.  With a sneer, he closed his eyes again.

Silently she sat by his side, communing with her own dark thoughts.
He slept again; slept soundly.  She rose, and moved about the room;
it did not awaken him.  She took courage:--crept down stairs,
unfastened the door--and fled.

Fled, and left her tyrant dying;--fled, and left him without a human
being to attend upon him--left him to die there like a dog; or to
recover, if it should chance so.  She cared not; her only thought was
flight; and, winged with terror, she flew from the accursed home of
guilt and wretchedness; and felt her heart beat distractedly, as, a
homeless, penniless wanderer, she urged her steps along that dusty
road under the quiet shining moon.

Ten days afterwards, Meredith Vyner received a long letter from his
wife, detailing the misery of her penniless condition, and imploring
pecuniary aid.  The poor, old man wept bitterly over the letter, and
again reproached himself with having been the cause of her ruin.  He
could not forget that he had loved her--had been happy with her.  He
forgave her for not having loved one so old as himself; and wrote to
her the following reply:--


WYTTON HALL, 2nd August, 1845.

"MY DEAR WIFE,

"We have both need of forgiveness--you have mine.  I know I am not
young enough to be loved by you:

  Durum! sed levius fit patientia
  Quidquid corrigere est nefas,

as our favourite says--not that the quotation is very good.  But if
you can have patience, as I can have; if you can forget all
'incompatibilities,' and live quietly and not unhappily with me, come
back again, and all shall be forgotten.  I will do my best to make
you happy, I promise that nothing of what has passed shall ever be
recurred to.  You shall again be mistress of my house and fortune.

"But I do not wish to _force_ you even to this.  If, on deliberate
reflection, you think you cannot live comfortably with me, I have
given instructions to Messrs. Barton and Hadley to remit you,
wherever you may choose to reside, eight hundred pounds a year.  Upon
this you can live in all comfort in France.  With every wish for your
happiness,

  "Believe me, my dear Wife,
      "Yours affectionately,
          "H. S. MEREDITH VYNER."


This letter never reached Mrs. Vyner.  Believing that her application
had been treated with the silent scorn it deserved, she left the
town, and toiled her way to a neighbouring town, where a young woman,
formerly one of her maids, kept a small _magazin de modes_, and
offered a temporary asylum.  There she endeavoured to earn a
subsistence by teaching English; and at first, success crowned her
efforts; but having been recognised by an English traveller spending
a few days there, the fact of her having eloped from her husband
became bruited about, and all her pupils left her.

She was forced to quit the place, and to seek refuge and oblivion in
Paris.  What bitter humiliations, and what severe trials, she had
there to undergo may be readily conceived.  A mystery hangs over her
fate; she was seen once on the _Boulevard du Temple_, miserably
dressed, and so aged by suffering, that every trace of beauty had
disappeared; but nothing has since been heard of her.

Concerning the other persons of this tale, I have few particulars to
add.

Mrs. Langley Turner has married Lord ----, and now gives as many
parties as before, only they are fearfully dull: perhaps because so
much more "select;" for it is a very serious truth, that your high
people are anything but entertaining.

Frank Forrester has seen many ups and downs; but the last time I saw
him, his cab splashed me with mud as I lounged down St.
James's-street.

Rose has two chubby children, who promise to have the spirit of the
mother; they keep the nursery in a constant uproar!

Violet has one large, dark-eyed, solemn boy, who, though not a
twelvemonth old, looks at you with such thoughtful seriousness, that
you are puzzled what to say to him; and I refrained tickling him
under the chin, lest he should consider it as unseemly trifling; and
as to talking to him about his tootsy-pootsies being vezzy
pitty--that never could enter the mind even of the most ignorant
nurse.

Marmaduke continues his political career with dignity and success;
Violet cheering him on, and loving him with all her large heart, so
that Rose declares, except herself and Julius, she knows of nobody so
happy as these two;--Violet disputes the exception.

And Captain Heath?  The narration of his happiness is a _bonne
bouche_ I have reserved for the last.

The whole family were at Wytton Hall, and though so happy in
themselves, frequent were their inquiries as to when the captain was
to come down--only one person never asked that question, and that
person was Blanche; the reason of her silence I leave to be guessed.

He came at last; came not to see the mild, affectionate greeting of a
sister from his much loved Blanche, but the delight, embarrassment,
and pain of one who loved and dared not avow it.  He had been absent
three months.  During that absence, she discovered her love.  At
first, she merely felt a certain weariness; next, succeeded
melancholy; next, impatience to see him; and finally, the yearning of
her heart proclaimed she loved him.

Yes: such is the imperfection of poor human nature, that it cannot
reach the circulating library standard; with our best efforts to be
forlorn and disconsolate, we _will_ accept of society and
consolation; with the strongest idea of the virtue of constancy, a
loving heart cannot but love!

Blanche was embarrassed when she saw her lover again! and he, poor
fellow! was too modest to understand her embarrassment.  In vain did
they ramble about the grounds together, not a syllable did he breathe
of his love.  Blanche began to be almost fretful.

One morning they were playing with Rose Blanche together, and the
little toddler having climbed upon his knee, declared she intended to
"mazzy Captain Heath some day;" upon which her mama said a _leetle_
pettishly: "No, my darling, Captain Heath is not a _marrying man_.
He is to be an old bachelor."

Captain Heath made no reply, for he could not tell her why he was
condemned to be an old bachelor.

Yet, that very afternoon, as they were strolling through the wood
together, and the conversation turned upon her child, he was moved by
some mysterious impulse, to take her hand in his, and with a
faltering voice, to say,--

"Blanche ... dearest Blanche ... forgive me for what I am now going
to say ... refuse the offer if you will, but do not be offended with
me for making it ... Your child, Blanche, is growing up ... She will
soon need a better protector than even your love ... she ... I hope
you will not misunderstand me ... I know you cannot love me ...
though I have loved you so many years ... but I am grown used to that
... I have loved you, Blanche, for years, scarcely ever with the hope
of a return, and latterly, with the certainty, that my love was
hopeless ... But when I offer myself as a husband ... as a protector
to you, and to your child ... I do that which, if it would not pain
you, I feel to be right ... I want to have a husband's authority for
devoting my life to you.  I do not ask your love...!"

Her head was turned away, and her eyes were filling with tears--tears
of exquisite pain, of inexpressible delight; as these words, "I do
not ask your love," thrilled through her, she suddenly turned and
looked him full in the face.

Was it her blushing tremor, was it her undisguised tenderness which
spoke so clearly to the yearning heart of her lover?  I know not.
Love has a language of its own, untranslatable by any words of ours,
and that language in its mystic, yet unequivocal voice, told Captain
Heath, that he was loved.



Printed by STEWART and MURRAY, Old Bailey.