Molly Bawn (part 3)

"Is this the way you amuse yourself?" he asks, in a compressed voice.

"Do not reproach me," murmurs she, hurriedly; "I could not bear it now." She speaks clearly, but her tone has lost its firmness, because of the little tremor that runs through it, while her face is white as one of the pale blossoms she holds within her hand. "Besides, it is not deserved. Were you long here before you spoke?"

"Long enough." With a world of meaning in his tone.

"Then you heard my exculpation. 'Cold as ice,' he called me. And he was right. As I am to you, Sir Penthony, so am I to all men. No one yet has touched my heart."

"For myself I can answer," replies he, bitterly; "but for the others——"

"Not another word," she breaks in, vehemently. "Do not say—do not even hint at—what I might find it impossible to forgive. Not even to you will I seek to justify myself on such a point. And you," she says, tears of agitation arising from all she has undergone, mingled with much pent-up wounded feeling, coming thickly into her eyes, "you should be the last to blame me for what has happened, when you remember who it was placed me in such a false position as makes men think they may say to me what they choose."

"You are unjust," he answers, nearly as white as herself. "I only followed out your wishes. It was your own arrangement; I but acceded to it."

"You should not have done so," cries she, with subdued excitement. "You were a man of the world, capable of judging; I was a foolish girl, ignorant of the consequences that must follow on such an act. Our marriage was a wretched mistake."

"Cecil, you know you can escape from your false position as soon as you choose. No one loves you as I do."

"Impossible." Coldly. "In this world a thing once done can never be undone. Have you lived so long without learning that lesson?"

As she speaks she turns from him, and, walking quickly away, leaves him alone in the garden. Much as he has grown to love her, never until now has the very tenderness of affection touched him,—now, when the laughter-loving Cecil has changed for him into the feeling, accusing woman; although a woman dead to him, with a heart locked carefully, lest he should enter it.

How can he tell, as she goes so proudly along the garden-path, that her bosom is heaving with shame and unconfessed longing, and that down her cheeks—so prone to dimple with joyous laughter—the bitter tears are falling?

Almost as she reaches the house she encounters Tedcastle, and turns hastily aside, lest he should mark the traces of her recent weeping. But so bent is he on his own dismal thoughts that he heeds her not, but follows aimlessly the path before him that leads to the balcony from, which the smaller drawing-room may be reached.

He is depressed and anxious, the night's vigil having induced him to believe himself somewhat hasty in his condemnation of Molly. As he gains the boudoir he starts, for there in the room, with the light flashing warmly upon her, stands Molly Bawn alone.

She is dressed in a long trailing gown of black velveteen,—an inexpensive dress, but one that suits her admirably, with its slight adornment of little soft lace frillings at the throat and wrists. Pausing irresolutely, Luttrell makes as though he would retrace his steps.

"Do not go," says Molly's voice, clear and firm. "As you are here, I wish to speak to you."

She beckons him to come a little nearer to her, and silently he obeys the gesture. There is a small round table between them, upon which Molly is leaning rather heavily. As he approaches, however, and waits, gazing curiously at her for her next word, she straightens herself and compels her eyes to meet his.

"Here is your ring," she says, drawing the glittering treasure from her finger and placing it before him.

There is not the extremest trace of excitement or feeling of any kind in her tone. Luttrell, on the contrary, shrinks as though touched by fire.

"Keep it," he says, involuntarily, coloring darkly.

"No—no."

"Why?" he urges. "It will not hurt you, and"—with a quickly-suppressed sigh—"it may perhaps compel you to think of me now and then."

"I have neither wish nor desire ever to think of you again," returns she, still in the same cold, even tone, pushing the ring still closer to him with her first finger. There is something of contempt in the action. A ray from the dancing sun outside falls through the glass on to the diamonds, making them flash and sparkle in their gold setting.

"That admits of no answer," says Luttrell, with low but passionate bitterness; and, taking up the ring, he flings it lightly into the very heart of the glowing fire.

With a sudden loss of self-restraint Molly makes a movement forward as though to prevent him; but too late,—already the greedy flames have closed upon it.

Not all the agitation, not all his angry words of the night before, have affected her so keenly as this last act. She bursts into a very storm of tears.

"Oh! what have you done?" cries she. "You have destroyed it; you have burned it,—my pretty ring!"

She clasps her hands together, and gazes with straining eyes into the cruel fire. Something within her heart feels broken. Surely some string has snapped. The ring, in spite of all, was a last link between them; and now, too, it has gone.

"Molly!" says he, taking a step toward her, and holding out his hands, softened, vanquished by her tears, ready to throw himself once more an abject slave at her feet.

"Do not speak to me," returns she, still sobbing bitterly. "Have you not done enough? I wish you would leave me to myself. Go away. There is nothing more that you can do."

Feeling abashed, he scarcely knows why, he silently quits the room.

Then down upon her knees before the fire falls Molly, and with the poker strives with all her might to discover some traces of her lost treasure. So diligent is her search that after a little while the ring, blackened, disfigured, altered almost beyond recognition, lies within her hand. Still it is her ring, however changed, and some small ray of comfort gladdens her heart.

She is still, however, weeping bitterly, and examining sadly the precious relic she has rescued from utter oblivion, and from which the diamond, soiled, but still brilliant, has fallen into her palm, when Philip enters.

"Molly, what has happened?" he asks, advancing toward her, shocked at her appearance, which evinces all the deepest signs of woe. "What has distressed you?"

"You have," cries she, with sudden vehement passion, all her sorrow and anger growing into quick life as she sees him. "You are the cause of all my misery. Why do you come near me? You might, at least, have grace enough to spare me the pain of seeing you."

"I do not understand," he says, his face very pale. "In how have I offended,—I, who would rather be dead than cause you any unhappiness? Tell me how I have been so unfortunate."

"I hate you," she says, with almost childish cruelty, sobbing afresh. "I wish you had died before I came to this place. You have come between me and the only man I love. Yes,"—smiting her hands together in a very agony of sorrow,—"he may doubt it if he will, but I do love him; and now we are separated forever. Even my ring"—with a sad glance at it—"is broken, and so is—my heart."

"You are alluding to—Luttrell?" asks he,—his earliest suspicions at last confirmed,—speaking with difficulty, so dry his lips have grown.

"I am."

"And how have I interfered between you and—him?"

"Why did you speak to me of love again last night," retorts she, "when you must know how detestable a subject it is to me? He saw you put your arm around me; he saw—ah! why did I not tell you then the truth (from which through a mistaken feeling of pity I refrained), that your mere touch sickened me? Then you stooped, and he thought—you know what he thought—and yet," cries Molly, with a gesture of aversion, "how could he have thought it possible that I should allow you of all men to—kiss me?"

"Why speak of what I so well know?" interrupts he hoarsely, with bent head and averted eyes. "You seldom spare me. You are angered, and for what? Because you still hanker after a man who flung you away,—you, for whose slightest wish I would risk my all. For a mere chimera, a fancy, a fear only half developed, he renounced you."

"Say nothing more," says Molly, with pale lips and eyes large and dark through regretful sorrow; "not another word. I think he acted rightly. He thought I was false, and so thinking he was right to renounce. I do not say this in his defense or because—or for any reason only——" She pauses.

"Why not continue? Because you—love him still."

"Well, and why not?" says Molly. "Why should I deny my love for him? Can any shame be connected with it? Yes," murmurs she, her sweet eyes filling with tears, her small clasped hands trembling, "though he and I can never be more to each other than we now are, I tell you I love him as I never have and never shall love again."

"It is a pity that such love as yours should have no better return," says he, with an unlovely laugh. "Luttrell appears to bear his fate with admirable equanimity."

"You are incapable of judging such a nature as his," returns she, disdainfully. "He is all that is gentle, and true, and noble: while you——" She stops abruptly, causing a pause that is more eloquent than words, and, with a distant bow, hurries from the room.

Philip's star to-day is not in the ascendant. Even as he stands crushed by Molly's bitter reproaches, Marcia, with her heart full of a settled revenge toward him, is waiting outside her grandfather's door for permission to enter.

That unlucky shadow of a kiss last night has done as much mischief as half a dozen real kisses. It has convinced Marcia of the truth of that which for weeks she has been vainly struggling to disbelieve, namely, Philip's mad infatuation for Molly.

Now all doubt is at an end, and in its place has fallen a despair more terrible than any uncertainty.

All the anguish of a heart rejected, that is still compelled to live on loving its rejector, has been hers for the past two months, and it has told upon her slowly but surely. She is strangely altered. Dark hollows lay beneath her eyes, that have grown almost unearthly in expression, so large are they, and so sombre is the fire that burns within them. There is a compression about the lips that has grown habitual; small lines mar the whiteness of her forehead, while among her raven tresses, did any one mark them closely enough, fine threads of silver may be traced.

Pacing up and down her room the night before, with widely-opened eyes, gazing upon the solemn blackness that surrounds her, all the wrongs and slights she has endured come to her with startling distinctness. No sense of weariness, no thought of a necessity for sleep, disturbs her reverie or breaks in upon the monotonous misery of her musings. She is past all that. Already her death has come to her,—a death to her hope, and joy, and peace,—even to that poor calm that goes so far to deceive the outer world.

Oh, the cold, quiet night, when speech is not and sleep has forgotten us! when all the doubts and fears and jealousies that in the blessed daylight slumber, rise up to torture us when even the half-suspected sneer, the covert neglect, that some hours ago were but as faintest pin-pricks, now gall and madden as a poisoned thrust!

A wild thirst for revenge grows within her breast as one by one she calls to mind all the many injuries she has received. Strangely enough,—and unlike a woman,—her anger is concentrated on Philip, rather than on the one he loves, instinct telling her he is not beloved in return.

She broods upon her wrongs until, as the first bright streak of yellow day illumes the room, flinging its glories profusely upon the wall and ceiling, pretty knickknacks that return its greeting, and angry, unthankful creature alike, a thought comes to her that promises to amply satisfy her vengeful craving. As she ponders on it a curious light breaks upon her face, a smile half triumph, half despair.

Now, standing before her grandfather's room, with a folded letter crushed within her palm, and a heart that beats almost to suffocation, she hears him bid her enter.

Fatigued by the unusual exertions of a ball, Mr. Amherst is seated at his table in a lounging-chair, clad in his dressing-gown, and looking older, feebler, than is his wont.

He merely glances at his visitor as she approaches, without comment of any description.

"I have had something on my mind for some time, grandpapa," begins Marcia, who is pale and worn, through agitation and the effects of a long and hopeless vigil. "I think it only right to let you know. I have suppressed it all this time, because I feared distressing you; but now—now—will you read this?"

She hands him, as she speaks, the letter received by Philip two months before relative to his unlucky dealings with some London Jews.

In silence Mr. Amherst reads it, in silence re-reads it, and finally, folding it up again, places it within his desk.

"You and Philip have quarreled?" he says, presently, in a quiet tone.

"No, there has been no quarrel."

"Your engagement is at an end?"

"Yes."

"And is this the result of last night's vaunted pleasures?" asks he, keenly. "Have you snatched only pain and a sense of failure from its fleeting hours? And Eleanor, too,—she was pale at luncheon, and for once silent,—has she too found her coveted fruit rotten at its core? It is the universal law," says the old man, grimly, consoling himself with a pinch of snuff, taken with much deliberation from an exquisite Louis Quinze box that rests at his elbow, and leaning back languidly in his chair. "Life is made up of hopes false as the ignis-fatuus. When with the greatest sense of security and promise of enjoyment we raise and seek to drain the cup of pleasure, while yet we gaze with longing eyes upon its sparkling bubbles, and, stooping thirstily, suffer our expectant lips at length to touch it, lo! it is then, just as we have attained to the summit of our bliss, we find our sweetest draught has turned to ashes in our mouth."

He stops and drums softly on the table for a moment or two, while Marcia stands before him silently pondering.

"So Philip is already counting on my death," he goes on, meditatively, still softly tapping the table. "How securely he rests in the belief of his succession! His father's son could scarcely fail to be a spendthrift, and I will have—no—prodigal at Herst—to hew—and cut—and scatter. A goodly heritage, truly, as Buscarlet called it. Be satisfied, Marcia: your revenge is complete. Philip shall not inherit Herst."

"I do not seek revenge," says Marcia, unsteadily, now her wish is fulfilled and Philip hopelessly crushed, a cold, troubled faintness creeping round her heart. An awful sense of despair, a fruitless longing to recall her action, makes her tremble. "Only I could not bear to see you longer deceived,—you, after all the care—the trouble—you bestowed upon him. My conscience compelled me to tell you all."

"And you, Marcia,"—with an odd smile she is puzzled to explain,—"you have never deceived me, have you? All your pretty speeches and tender cares have been quite sincere?"

"Dear grandpapa, yes."

"You have not wished me dead, or spoken or thought evilly of the old tyrant at Herst, who has so often crossed and thwarted you?"

"Never, dear: how could I—when I remember——"

"Ay, quite so. When one remembers! And gratitude is so common a thing. Will you oblige me by sending a line to Mr. Buscarlet, asking him to come to me without delay?"

"You are going to alter your will?" she asks, faintly, shocked at the speedy success of her scheme.

"Yes," coolly. "I am going to cut Philip out of it."

"Grandpapa, do not be too hard on him," she says, putting her hand across her throat, and almost gasping. "He is young. Young men sometimes——"

"I was once a young man myself, you seem to forget, and I know all about it. Why did you give me that letter?" he asks, grimly. "Are you chicken-hearted, now you have done the deed, like all women? It is too late for remorse to be of use: you have done it. Let it be your portion to remember how you have willfully ruined his prospects."

A choking sigh escapes her as she quits the room. Truly she has bought her revenge dearly. Not the poorest trace of sweetness lingers in it.

By this time it will be perceived that the house is in a secret turmoil. Every one is at daggers drawn with every one else. Molly and Lady Stafford have as yet exchanged no confidences, though keenly desirous of doing so, each having noticed with the liveliest surmisings the depression of the other.

Mr. Potts alone, who is above suspicion (being one of those cheerful people who never see anything—no matter how closely under their noses—until it is brought before them in the broadest language), continues blissfully unconscious of the confusion that reigns around, and savors his conversation throughout the evening with as many embarrassing remarks as he can conveniently put in.

"Eaten bread is soon forgotten," says he, sententiously, during a pause. "You all seem strangely oblivious of the fact that last night there was a ball in this house. Why shirk the subject? I like talking," says Mr. Potts, superfluously, "and surely you must all have something to communicate concerning it. Thanks to our own exertions, I think it was as good a one as ever I was at; and the old boy"—(I need scarcely say Mr. Amherst has retired to rest)—was uncommon decent about giving us the best champagne."

"You took very good care to show him how you appreciated his hospitality," says Sir Penthony, mildly.

"Well, why shouldn't I do honor to the occasion? A ball at Herst don't come every day. As a rule, an affair of the kind at a country house is a failure, as the guests quarrel dreadfully among themselves next day; but ours has been a brilliant exception."

"Brilliant indeed," says Lady Stafford, demurely.

"But what became of Lowry?" demands this wretched young man, who has never yet learned that silence is golden. "He told me this morning he intended staying on until the end of the week, and off he goes to London by the midday train without a word of warning. Must have heard some unpleasant news, I shouldn't wonder, he looked so awfully cut up. Did he tell you anything about it?" To Lady Stafford.

"No." In a freezing tone. "I see no reason why I, in particular, should be bored by Mr. Lowry's private woes."

"Well, you were such a friend, you know, for one thing," says Potts, surprised, but obtuse as ever.

"So I am of yours; but I sincerely trust the fact of my being so will not induce you to come weeping to me whenever you chance to lose your heart or place all your money on the wrong horse."

"Did he lose his money, then?"

"Plantagenet, dancing has muddled your brain. How should I know whether he lost his money or not? I am merely supposing. You are dull to-night. Come and play a game at écarté with me, to see if it may rouse you."

They part for the night rather earlier than usual, pleading fatigue,—all except Mr. Potts, who declares himself fresh as a daisy, and proposes an impromptu dance in the ball-room. He is instantly snubbed, and retires gracefully, consoling himself with the reflection that he has evidently more "go" in his little finger than they can boast in their entire bodies.

Sir Penthony having refused to acknowledge his wife's parting salutation,—meant to conciliate,—Cecil retires to her room in a state of indignation and sorrow that reduces her presently to tears.

Her maid, entering just as she has reached the very highest pinnacle of her wrongs, meets with anything but a warm reception.

"How now, Trimmins? Did I ring?" asks she, with unwonted sharpness, being unpleasantly mindful of the redness of her eyes.

"No, my lady; but I thought——"

"Never think," says Cecil, interrupting her with unreasoning irritation.

"No, my lady. I only thought perhaps you would see Miss Massereene," persists Trimmins, meekly. "She wishes to know, with her love, if you can receive her now."

"Miss Massereene? Of course I can. Why did you not say so before?"

"Your ladyship scarcely gave me time," says Trimmins, demurely, taking an exhaustive survey of her cambric apron.

"True; I was hasty," Cecil acknowledges, in her impulsive, honest, haughty way. "Tell Miss Massereene I shall be delighted to see her at once."

Presently Molly enters, her eyelids pink, the corners of her mouth forlornly curved, a general despondency in her whole demeanor.

Cecil, scarcely more composed, advances to meet her.

"Why, Molly!" she says, pathetically.

"You have been crying," says Molly, in the same breath, throwing herself into her arms.

"I have indeed, my dear," confesses Cecil, in a lachrymose tone, and then she begins to cry again, and Molly follows suit, and for the next five minutes they have a very comfortable time of it together.

Then they open their hearts to each other and relate fluently, as only a woman can, all the intolerable wrongs and misjudgment they have undergone at the hands of their lovers.

"To accuse me of anything so horrible!" says Molly, indignantly. "Oh, Cecil! I don't believe he could care for me one bit and suspect me of it."

"'Care for you!' Nonsense, my dear! he adores you. That is precisely why he has made such a fool of himself. You know—

Trifles light as air,

Are to the jealous confirmations strong

As proofs of holy writ.

"I like a man to be jealous,—in reason. Though when Sir Penthony walked out from behind that hedge, looking as if he could, with pleasure, devour me and Talbot at a bite, I confess I could gladly have dispensed with the quality in him. You should have seen his face: for once I was honestly frightened."

"Poor Cecil! it must have been a shock. And all because that tiresome young man wouldn't go away."

"Just so. All might have been well had he only seen things in a reasonable light. Oh, I was so angry! The most charming of your charms, Molly," says Cecil, warmly, "is your ability to sympathize with one. You can feel so thoroughly with and for me; and you never season your remarks with unpalatable truths. You never say, 'I told you so,' or 'I knew how it would be,' or 'didn't I warn you?' or anything else equally objectionable. I really would rather a person boxed my ears outright than give way to such phrases as those, pretending they know all about a catastrophe, after it has happened. And," says her ladyship, with a pensive sigh, "you might perhaps (had you so chosen) have accused me of flirting a leetle bit with that stupid Talbot."

"Well, indeed, perhaps I might, dear," says Molly, innocently.

"What, are you going to play the traitor after all that flattery? and if so, what am I to say to you about your disgraceful encouragement of Captain Shadwell?"

"I wonder if I did encourage him?" says Molly, contritely. "At first, perhaps unconsciously, but lately I am sure I didn't. Do you know, Cecil, I positively dislike him? he is so dark and silent, and still persistent. But when a man keeps on saying he is miserable for love of you, and that you are the cause of all his distress, and that he would as soon be dead as alive, because you cannot return his affection, how can one help feeling a little sorry for him?"

"I don't feel in the least sorry for Talbot. I thought him extremely unpleasant and impertinent, and I hope with all my heart he is very unhappy to-night, because it will do him good."

"Cecil, how cruel you are!"

"Well, by what right does he go about making fierce love to married women, compelling them to listen to his nonsense whether they like it or not, and getting them into scrapes? I don't break my heart over Sir Penthony, but I certainly do not wish him to think badly of me."

"At least," says Molly, relapsing again into the blues, "you have this consolation: you cannot lose Sir Penthony."

"That might also be looked on as a disadvantage. Still, I suppose there is some benefit to be gained from my position," says Cecil, meditatively. "My lover (if indeed he is my lover) cannot play the false knight with me; I defy him to love—and to ride away. There are no breakers ahead for me. He is mine irrevocably, no matter how horribly he may desire to escape. But you need not envy me; it is sweeter to be as you are,—to know him yours without the shadow of a tie. He is not lost to you."

"Effectually. What! do you think I would submit to be again engaged to a man who could fling me off for a chimera, a mere trick of the imagination? If he were to beg my pardon on his knees,—if he were to acknowledge every word he said to me a lie,—I would not look at him again."

"I always said your pride would be your bane," says Cecil, reprovingly. "Now, just think how far happier you would be if you were friends with him again, and think of nothing else. What is pride in comparison with comfort?"

"Have you forgiven Sir Penthony?"

"Freely. But he won't forgive me."

"Have you forgiven him the first great crime of all,—his indifference toward his bride?"

"N—o," confesses her ladyship, smiling; "not yet."

"Ah! then don't blame me. I could have killed myself when I cried," says Molly, referring again to the past, with a little angry shiver; "but I felt so sorry for my poor, pretty, innocent ring. And he looked so handsome, so determined, when he flung it in the fire, with his eyes quite dark and his figure drawn up; and—and—I could not help wondering," says Molly, with a little tremble in her tone, "who next would love him—and who—he—would love."

"I never thought you were so fond of him, dearest," says Cecil, laying her hand softly on her friend's.

"Nor I,—until I lost him," murmurs poor Molly, with a vain attempt at composure. Two tears fall heavily into her lap; a sob escapes her.

"Now you are going to cry again," interposes Cecil, with hasty but kindly warning. "Don't. He is not going to fall in love with any one so long as you are single, take my word for it. Nonsense, my dear! cheer yourself with the certainty that he is at this very moment eating his heart out, because he knows better than I do that, though there may be many women, there is only one Molly Bawn in the world."

This reflection, although consolatory, has not the desired effect. Instead of drying her eyes and declaring herself glad that Luttrell is unhappy, Molly grows more and more afflicted every moment.

"My dear girl," exclaims Lady Stafford, as a last resource, "do pray think of your complexion. I have finished crying; I shall give way to crying no more, because I wish to look my best to-morrow, to let him see what a charming person he has chosen to quarrel with. And my tears are not so destructive as yours, because mine arise from vexation, yours from feeling."

"I hardly know," says Molly, with an attempt at nonchalance she is far from feeling, "I really think I cried more for my diamond than for—my lover. However, I shall take your advice; I shall think no more about it. To-morrow"—rising and running to the glass, and pushing back her disordered hair from her face, that is lovely in spite of marring tears—"to-morrow I shall be gayer, brighter than he has ever yet seen me. What! shall I let him think I fret because of him! He saw me once in tears; he shall not see me so again."

"What a pity it is that grief should be so unbecoming!" says Cecil, laughing. "I always think what a guy Niobe must have been if she was indeed all tears."

"The worst thing about crying, I think," says Molly, "is the fatal desire one feels to blow one's nose: that is the horrid part of it. I knew I was looking odious all the time I was weeping over my ring, and that added to my discomfort. By the bye, Cecil, what were you doing at the table with a pencil just before we broke up to-night? Sir Penthony was staring at you fixedly all through,—wondering, I am sure, at your occupation, as, to tell the truth, was I."

"Nothing very remarkable. I was inditing a 'sonnet to your eyebrow,' or rather to your lids, they were so delicately tinted, and so much in unison with the extreme dejection of your entire bearing. I confess, unkind as it may sound, they moved me to laughter. Ah! that reminds me," says Cecil, her expression changing to one of comical terror, as she starts to her feet, "Plantagenet came up at the moment, and lest he should see my composition I hid it within the leaves of the blotting-book. There it is still, no doubt. What shall I do if any one finds it in the morning? I shall be read out of meeting, as I have an indistinct idea that, with a view to making you laugh, I rather caricatured every one in the room, more or less."

"Shall I run down for it?" says Molly. "I won't be a moment, and you are quite undressed. In the blotting-book, you said? I shan't be any time."

"Unless the ghosts detain you."

"Or, what would be much worse, any of our friends."

CHAPTER XXVI.

"A single stream of all her soft brown hair

Poured on one side.

Half light, half shade,

She stood, a sight to make an old man young."

—Gardener's Daughter.

Thrusting her little bare feet into her slippers, she takes up a candle and walks softly down the stairs, past the smoking and billiard-rooms, into the drawing-room, where the paper has been left.

All the lamps have been extinguished, leaving the apartment, which is immense, steeped in darkness. Coming into it from the brilliantly-lighted hall outside, with only a candle in her hand, the gloom seems even greater, and overcomes her sight to such a degree that she has traversed at least one-half its length before she discovers she is not its only occupant.

Seated before a writing-table, with his hand, indeed, upon the very blotting-book she seeks, and with only another candle similar to hers to lend him light, sits Luttrell.

As her eyes meet his she starts, colors violently, and is for the moment utterly abashed.

Involuntarily she glances down at the soft blue dressing-gown she wears, over which her hair—brushed and arranged for the night—falls in soft, rippling, gold-brown masses, and from thence to the little naked feet that peep out shamelessly from their blue slippers.

The crimson blood rises to her face. Covered with a painful though pretty confusion, she stands quite still, and lets her tell-tale eyes seek the ground.

Luttrell has risen, and, without any particular design, has advanced toward her. Perhaps the force of habit compels him to do so; perhaps intense and not altogether welcome surprise. For the future to see her is but to add one more pang to his intolerable regret.

"I was writing to you," he says, indicating with a slight movement of the hand the chair on which he has been sitting, and thus breaking the awful silence which threatens to last until next day, so mute has Molly grown. With a delicate sense of chivalry he endeavors to appear oblivious of her rather scanty and disconcerting—however becoming—costume. "But as it is, perhaps I may as well say to you what is on my mind,—if you will permit me."

"I cannot forbid your speech." Coldly.

"I will not keep you long. But"—with a slight, almost imperceptible, glance at her dressing-gown—"perhaps you are in a hurry?"

"I am—rather." At this juncture, had they been friends, Molly would undoubtedly have laughed. As it is, she is profoundly serious. "Still, if it is anything important, I will hear you."

"Can I do anything for you?" asks he, hesitating, evidently fearing to approach the desired subject.

"Nothing, thank you. I came only for a paper,—left in the blotting-book. If you wish to speak, do so quickly, as I must go." Then, as he still hesitates, "Why do you pause?"

"Because I fear incurring your displeasure once again; and surely the passages between us have been bad enough already."

"Do not fear." Coldly. "It is no longer in your power to wound me."

"True. I should not have allowed that fact to escape me. Yet hear me. It is my love urges me on."

"Your—love!" With slow and scornful disbelief.

"Yes,—mine. In spite of all that has come and gone, you know me well enough to understand how dear you still are to me. No, you need not say a word. I can see by your face that you will never pardon. There is no greater curse than to love a woman who gives one but bare tolerance in return."

"Why did you not think of all this while there was yet time?"

"One drifts—until it is too late to seek for remedies. My heaviest misfortune lies in the fact that I cannot root you from my heart."

"A terrible misfortune, no doubt,"—with a little angry flash from her azure eyes,—"but one that time will cure."

"Will it?" Wistfully. "Shall I indeed learn to forget you, Molly,—to look back upon my brief but happy past as an idle dream? I hardly hope so much."

"And would you waste all your best days," asks she, in tones that tremble ever so little, "in thinking of me? Remember all you said,—all you meant,—how 'thankful you were to find me out in time.'"

"And will you condemn forever because of a few words spoken in a moment of despair and terrible disappointment?" pleads he. "I acknowledge my fault. I was wrong; I was too hasty. I behaved like a brute, if you will; but then I believed I had grounds for fear. When once I saw your face, heard your voice, looked into your eyes, I knew how false my accusations were; but it was then too late."

"Too late, indeed."

"How calmly you can say it!" with exquisite reproach. "Have five minutes blotted out five months? Did you know all the anguish I endured on seeing you with—Shadwell—I think you might forgive."

"I might. But I could not forget. Would I again consent to be at the mercy of one who without a question pronounced me guilty? A thousand times no!"

"Say at once you are glad to be rid of me," breaks he in bitterly, stung by her persistent coldness.

"You are forgetting your original purpose," she says, after a slight pause, declining to notice his last remark. "Was there not something you wished to say to me?"

"Yes." Rousing himself with an impatient sigh. "Molly," blanching a little, and trying to read her face, with all his heart in his eyes,—"are you going to marry Shadwell?"

Molly colors richly (a rare thing with her), grows pale again, clasps and unclasps her slender fingers nervously, before she makes reply. A prompting toward mischief grows within her, together with a sense of anger that he should dare put such a question to her under existing circumstances.

"I cannot see by what right you put to me such a question—now," she says, at length, haughtily. "My affairs can no longer concern you." With an offended gleam at him from under her long lashes.

"But they do," cries he, hotly, maddened by her blush, which he has attributed jealously to a wrong cause. "How can I see you throwing yourself away upon a roué—a blackleg—without uttering a word of warning?"

"'A roué—a blackleg'? Those are strong terms. What has Captain Shadwell done to deserve them? A blackleg! How?"

"Perhaps I go too far when I say that," says Luttrell, wishing with all his heart he knew something vile of Shadwell; "but he has gone as near it as any man well can. You and he cannot have a thought in common. Will you sacrifice your entire life without considering well the consequences?"

"He is a gentleman, at all events," says Miss Massereene, slowly, cuttingly. "He never backbites his friends. He is courteous in his manner; and—he knows how to keep—his temper. I do not believe any of your insinuations."

"You defend him?" cries Luttrell, vehemently. "Does that mean that you already love him? It is impossible! In a few short weeks to forget all the vows we interchanged, all the good days we spent at Brooklyn, before we ever came to this accursed place! There at least you liked me well enough,—you were willing to trust to me your life's happiness; here!—And now you almost tell me you love this man, who is utterly unworthy of you. Speak. Say it is not so."

"I shall tell you nothing. You have no right to ask me. What is there to prevent my marrying whom I choose? Have you so soon forgotten that last night you—jilted me?" She speaks bitterly, and turns from him with an unlovely laugh.

"Molly," cries the young man, in low tones, full of passion, catching her hand, all the violent emotion he has been so painfully striving to suppress since her entrance breaking loose now, "listen to me for one moment. Do not kill me. My whole heart is bound up in you. You are too young to be so cruel. Darling, I was mad when I deemed I could live without you. I have been mad ever since that fatal hour last night. Will you forgive me? Will you?"

"Let my hand go, Mr. Luttrell," says the girl, with a dry sob. Is it anger, or grief, or pride? "You had me once, and you would not keep me. You shall never again have the chance of throwing me over: be assured of that."

She draws her fingers from his burning clasp, and once more turns away, with her eyes bent carefully upon the carpet, lest he shall notice the tears that threaten to overflow them. She walks resolutely but slowly past where he is standing, with folded arms, leaning against the wall, toward the door.

Just as her fingers close on the handle she becomes aware of footsteps on the outside coming leisurely toward her.

Instinctively she shrinks backward, casts a hasty, horrified glance at her dressing-gown, her bare feet, her loosened hair; then, with a movement full of confidence, mingled with fear, she hastens back to Luttrell (who, too, has heard the disconcerting sound) and glances up at him appealingly.

"There is somebody coming," she breathes, in a terrified whisper.

The footsteps come nearer,—nearer still; they reach the very threshold, and then pause. Will their owner come in?

In the fear and agony and doubt of the moment, Molly lays her two white hands upon her bosom and stands listening intently, with wide-open gleaming eyes, too frightened to move or make any attempt at concealment; while Luttrell, although alarmed for her, cannot withdraw his gaze from her lovely face.

Somebody's hand steals along the door as though searching for the handle. With renewed hope Luttrell instantly blows out both the candles near him, reducing the room to utter darkness, and draws Molly behind the window-curtains.

There is a breathless pause. The door opens slowly,—slowly. With a gasp that can almost be heard, Molly puts out one hand in the darkness and lays it heavily upon Luttrell's arm. His fingers close over it.

"Hush! not a word," whispers he.

"Oh, I am so frightened!" returns she.

His heart has begun to beat madly. To feel her so close to him, although only through unwished-for accident, is dangerously sweet. By a supreme effort he keeps himself from taking her in his arms and giving her one last embrace; but honor, the hour, the situation, all alike forbid. So he only tightens his clasp upon her hand and smothers a sigh between his lips.

Whoever the intruder may be, he, she, or it, is without light; no truth-compelling ray illumines the gloom; and presently, after a slight hesitation, the door is closed again, and the footsteps go lightly, cautiously away through the hall, leaving them once more alone in the long, dark, ghostly drawing-room.

Molly draws her hand hurriedly away, and moving quietly from Luttrell's side, breathes a sigh, half relief, half embarrassment; while he, groping his way to the writing-table, finds a match, and, striking it, throws light upon the scene again.

At the same moment Molly emerges from the curtains, with a heightened color, and eyes, sweet but shamed, that positively refuse to meet his.

"I suppose I can trust you—to—say nothing of all this?" she murmurs, unsteadily.

"I suppose you can." Haughtily.

His heart is still throbbing passionately; almost, he fears, each separate beat can be heard in the oppressive stillness.

"Good-night," says Molly, slowly.

"Good-night."

Shyly, and still without meeting his gaze, she holds out her hand. He takes it softly, reverently, and, emboldened by the gentleness of her expression, says impulsively:

"Answer me a last question, darling,—answer me—Are you going to marry Philip?"

And she answers, also impulsively:

"No."

His face changes; hope once more shines within his blue eyes. Involuntarily he draws up his tall, slight figure to its full height, with a glad gesture that bespeaks returning confidence; then he glances longingly first at Molly's downcast face, then at the small hand that lies trembling in his own.

"May I?" he asks, and, receiving no denial, stoops and kisses it warmly once, twice, thrice, with fervent devotion.

"My dear, how long you have been!" says Cecil, when at length Molly returns to her room. "I thought you were never coming. Where have you been?"

"In the drawing-room; and oh, Cecil! he was there. And he would keep me, asking me question after question."

"I dare say," says Cecil, looking her over. "That blue négligée is tremendously becoming. No doubt he has still a good many more questions he would like to put to you. And you call yourself a nice, decorous, well-behaved——"

"Don't be silly. You have yet to hear the 'decorous' and thrilling part of my tale. Just as we were in the middle of a most animated discussion, what do you think happened? Somebody actually came to the door and tried to open it. In an instant Tedcastle blew out both our candles and drew me behind the curtain."

"'"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.' I begin to think I'm in Wonderland. Go on. The plot thickens; the impropriety deepens. It grows more interesting at every word."

"The 'somebody,' whoever it was, opened the door, looked in,—fortunately without a light, or we might have been discovered,—and——"

"You fainted, of course?" says Cecil, who is consumed with laughter.

"No, indeed," answers Molly; "I neither fainted nor screamed."

"Tut! nonsense. I think nothing of you. Such a golden opportunity thrown away! In your place I should have been senseless in half a minute in Tedcastle's arms."

"Forgive my stupidity. I only turned and caught hold of Teddy's arm, and held him as though I never meant to let him go."

"Perhaps that was your secret wish, were the truth known. Molly, you are wiser than I am. What is a paltry fainting fit to the touch of a soft, warm hand? Go on."

"Well, the invader, when he had gazed into space, withdrew again, leaving us to our own devices. Cecil, if we had been discovered! I in my dressing-gown! Not all the waters of the Atlantic would have saved me from censure. I never was so terrified. Who could it have been?"

"'Oh! 'twas I, love;

Wandering by, love,'"

declares Cecil, going off into a perfect peal of laughter. "Never, never have I been so entertained! And so I frightened you? Well, be comforted. I was terrified in my turn by your long absence; so much so that, without a candle, I crept down-stairs, stole along the hall, and looked into the drawing-room. Seeing no one, I retreated, and gained my own room again as fast as I could. Oh, how sorry I am I did not know! Consider your feelings had I stolen quietly toward your hiding-place step by step! A splendid situation absolutely thrown away."

"You and Mr. Potts ought to be brother and sister, you both revel so in the bare idea of mischief," says Molly, laughing too.

And then Cecil, declaring it is all hours, turns her out of her room, and presently sleep falls and settles upon Herst and all its inmates.

CHAPTER XXVII.

"Death is here, and death is there;

Death is busy everywhere;

All around, within, beneath,

Above is death,—and we are death.

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,

Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight

No more, O never more."

—Shelley.

It is just two o'clock, and Sunday. They have all been to church. They have struggled manfully through their prayers. They have chanted a depressing psalm or two to the most tuneless of ancient ditties. They have even sat out an incomprehensible sermon with polite gravity and many a weary yawn.

The day is dull. So is the rector. So is the curate,—unutterably so.

Service over, they file out again into the open air in solemn silence, though at heart glad as children who break school, and wend their way back to Herst through the dismantled wood.

The trees are nearly naked: a short, sad, consumptive wind is soughing through them. The grass—what remains of it—is brown, of an unpleasant hue. No flowers smile up at them as they pass quietly along. The sky is leaden. There is a general air of despondency over everything. It is a day laid aside for dismal reflection; a day on which hateful "might have beens" crop up, for "melancholy has marked it for its own."

Yet just as they come to a turn in the park, two magpies (harbingers of good when coupled; messengers of evil when apart) fly past them directly across their path.

"'Two for joy!'" cries Molly, gayly, glad of any interruption to her depressing thoughts. "I saw them first. The luck is mine."

"I think I saw them first," says Sir Penthony, with no object beyond a laudable desire to promote argument.

"Now, how could you?" says Molly. "I am quite twenty yards ahead of you, and must have seen them come round this corner first. Now, what shall I get, I wonder? Something worth getting, I do hope."

"'Blessed are they that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed,'" says Mr. Potts, moodily, who is as gloomy as the day. "I expect nothing."

"You are jealous," retorts Molly. "Sour grapes,"—making a small moue at him. "But you have no claim upon this luck; it is all my own. Let nobody for a moment look upon it as his or hers."

"You are welcome to it. I don't envy you," says Cecil, little thinking how prophetic are her words.

They continue their walk and their interrupted thoughts,—the latter leading them in all sorts of contrary directions,—some to love, some to hate, some to cold game-pie and dry champagne.

As they enter the hall at Herst, one of the footmen steps forward and hands Molly an ugly yellow envelope.

"Why, here is my luck, perhaps!" cries she, gayly. "How soon it has come! Now, what can be in it? Let us all guess."

She is surprised, and her cheeks have flushed a little. Her face is full of laughter. Her sweet eyes wander from one to another, asking them to join in her amusement. No thought, no faintest suspicion of the awful truth occurs to her, although only a thin piece of paper conceals it from her view.

"A large fortune, perhaps," says Sir Penthony; while the others close round her, laughing, too. Only Luttrell stands apart, calmly indifferent.

"Or a proposal. That would just suit the rapid times in which we live."

"I think I would at once accept a man who proposed to me by telegraph," says Molly, with pretty affectation. "It would show such flattering haste,—such a desire for a kind reply. Remember,"—with her finger under the lap of the envelope,—"if the last surmise proves correct I have almost said yes."

She breaks open the paper, and, smiling still, daintily unfolds the enclosure.

What a few words!—two or three strokes of the pen. Yet what a change they make in the beautiful, debonnaire countenance! Black as ink they stand out beneath her stricken eyes. Oh, cruel hand that penned them so abruptly!

"Come home at once. Make no delay. Your brother is dead."

Gray as death grows her face; her body turns to stone. So altered is she in this brief space, that when she raises her head some shrink away from her, and some cry out.

"Oh, Molly! what is it?" asks Lady Stafford, panic-stricken, seizing her by the arm; while Luttrell, scarcely less white than the girl herself, comes unconsciously forward.

Molly's arms fall to her sides; the telegram flutters to the floor.

"My brother is dead," she says, in a slow, unmeaning tone.

"He is dead," she says again, in a rather higher, shriller voice, receiving no response from the awed group that surrounds her. Their silence evidently puzzles her. Her large eyes wander helplessly over all their faces, until at length they fall on Luttrell's. Here they rest, knowing she has found one that loves her.

"Teddy—Teddy!" she cries, in an agonized tone of desolation; then, throwing up her arms wildly toward heaven, as though imploring pity, she falls forward senseless into his outstretched arms.

All through the night Cecil Stafford stays with her, soothing and caressing her as best she can. But all her soothing and caressing falls on barren soil.

Up and down the room throughout the weary hours walks Molly, praying, longing for the daylight; asking impatiently every now and then if it "will never come." Surely on earth there is no greater cross to bear than the passive one of waiting when distress and love call loudly for assistance.

Her eyes are dry and tearless; her whole body burns like fire with a dull and throbbing heat. She is composed but restless.

"Will it soon be day?" she asks Cecil, almost every half hour, with a fierce impatience,—her entire being full of but one idea, which is to reach her home as soon as possible.

And again:

"If I had not fainted I might have been there now. Why did I miss that train? Why did you let me faint?"

In vain Cecil strives to comfort; no thought comes to her but a mad craving for the busy day.

At last it comes, slowly, sweetly. The gray dawn deepens into rose, the sun flings abroad its young and chilly beams upon the earth. It is the opening of a glorious morn. How often have we noticed in our hours of direst grief how it is then Nature chooses to deck herself in all her fairest and best, as though to mock us with the very gayety and splendor of her charms!

At half-past seven an early train is starting. Long before that time she is dressed, with her hat and jacket on, fearful lest by any delay she should miss it; and when at length the carriage is brought round to the door she runs swiftly down the stairs to meet it.

In the hall below, awaiting her, stands Luttrell, ready to accompany her.

"Are you going, too?" Cecil asks, in a whisper, only half surprised.

"Yes, of course. I will take her myself to Brooklyn."

"I might have known you would," Cecil says, kindly, and then she kisses Molly, who hardly returns the caress, and puts her into the carriage, and, pressing Luttrell's hand warmly, watches them until they are driven out of her sight.

During all the long drive not one word does Molly utter. Neither does Luttrell, whose heart is bleeding for her. She takes no notice of him, expresses no surprise at his being with her.

At the station he takes her ticket, through bribery obtains an empty carriage, and, placing a rug round her, seats himself at the farthest end of the compartment from her,—so little does he seek to intrude upon her grief. And yet she takes no heed of him. He might, indeed, be absent, or the veriest stranger, so little does his presence seem to affect her. Leaning rather forward, with her hands clasped upon her knees, she scarcely stirs or raises her head throughout the journey, except to go from carriage to train, from train back again to carriage.

Once, during their last short drive from the station to Brooklyn, moved by compassion, he ventures to address her.

"I wish you could cry, my poor darling," he says, tenderly, taking her hand and fondling it between his own.

"Tears could not help me," she answers. And then, as though aroused by his voice, she says, uneasily, "Why are you here?"

"Because I am his friend and—yours," he returns, gently, making allowance for her small show of irritation.

"True," she says, and no more. Five minutes afterward they reach Brooklyn.

The door stands wide open. All the world could have entered unrebuked into that silent hall. What need now for bars and bolts? When the Great Thief has entered in and stolen from them their best, what heart have they to guard against lesser thefts?

Luttrell follows Molly into the house, his face no whit less white than her own. A great pain is tugging at him,—a pain that is almost an agony. For what greater suffering is there than to watch with unavailing sympathy the anguish of those we love?

He touches her lightly on the arm to rouse her, for she has stood stock-still in the very middle of the hall,—whether through awful fear, or grief, or sudden bitter memory, her heart knoweth.

"Molly," says her lover, "let me go with you."

"You still here?" she says, awaking from her thoughts, with a shiver. "I thought you gone. Why do you stay? I only ask to be alone."

"I shall go in a few minutes," he pleads, "when I have seen you safe with Mrs. Massereene. I am afraid for you. Suppose you should—suppose—you do not even know—the room," he winds up, desperately. "Let me guard you against such an awful surprise as that."

"I do," she answers, pointing, with a shudder, to one room farther on that branches off the hall. "It—is there. Leave me; I shall be better by myself."

"I shall see you to-morrow?" he says, diffidently.

"No; I shall see no one to-morrow."

"Nevertheless, I shall call to know how you are," he says, persistently, and kissing one of her limp little hands, departs.

Outside on the gravel he meets the old man who for years has had care of the garden and general out-door work at Brooklyn.

"It is a terrible thing, sir," this ancient individual says, touching his hat to Luttrell, who had been rather a favorite with him during his stay last summer. He speaks without being addressed, feeling as though the sad catastrophe that has occurred has leveled some of the etiquette existing between master and man.

"Terrible indeed." And then, in a low tone, "How did it happen?"

"'Twas just this," says the old man, who is faithful, and has understood for many years most of John Massereene's affairs, having lived with him from boy to man; "'twas money that did it. He had invested all he had, as it might be, and he lost it, and the shock went to his heart and killed him. Poor soul! poor soul!"

"Disease of the heart. Who would have suspected it? And he has lost all. Surely something remains?"

"Only a few hundreds, sir, as I hear,—nothing to signify,—for the poor mistress and the wee bits. It is a fearful thing, sir, and bad to think of. And there's Miss Molly, too. I never could abide them spickilations, as they're called."

"Poor John Massereene!" says Luttrell, taking off his hat. "He meant no harm to any one,—least of all to those who were nearest to his kindly heart."

"Ay, ay, man and boy I knew him. He was always kind and true, was the master,—with no two ways about him. When the letter came as told him all was gone, and that only beggary was before him, he said nothing, only went away to his study dazed like, an' read it, an' read it, and then fell down heart-broken upon the floor. Dead he was—stone dead—afore any of us came to him. The poor missis it was as found him first."

"It is too horrible," says Luttrell, shuddering. He nods his head to the old man and walks away from him down to the village inn, depressed and saddened.

The gardener's news has been worse than even he anticipated. To be bereft of their dearest is bad enough, but to be thrown penniless on the mercies of the cold and cruel—nay, rather thoughtless—world is surely an aggravation of their misery. Death at all times is a calamity; but when it leaves the mourners without actual means of support, how much sadder a thing it is! To know one's comforts shall remain unimpaired after the loss of one's beloved is—in spite of all indignant denial—a solace to the most mournful.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"As the earth when leaves are dead,

As the night when sleep is sped,

As the heart when joy is fled,

I am left lone—alone."

—Shelley.

Meantime, Molly, having listened vaguely and without interest, yet with a curious intentness, to his parting footfalls, as the last one dies away draws herself up and, with a sigh or two, moves instinctively toward the door she had pointed out to Luttrell.

No one has told her, no hint has reached her ears. It is not his usual bedroom, yet she knows that within that door lies all that remains to her of the brother so fondly loved.

With slow and lagging steps, with bent head and averted eyes, she creeps tardily near, resting with her hand upon the lock to summon courage to meet what must be before her. She feels faint,—sick with a bodily sickness,—for never yet has she come face to face with Death.

At last, bringing her teeth firmly together, and closing her eyes, by an immense effort she compels herself to turn the handle of the door, and enters.

Letitia is seated upon the floor beside the bed, her head lowered, her hands folded tightly in her lap. There is no appearance of mourning so far as garments are concerned. Of course, considering the shortness of the time, it would be impossible: yet it seems odd, out of keeping, that she should still be wearing that soft blue serge, which is associated with so many happy hours.

She is not weeping: there are no traces, however faint, of tears. Her cheeks look a little thinner, more haggard, and she has lost the delicate girlish color that was her chief charm; but her eyes, though black circles surround them,—so black as to suggest the appliance of art,—have an unnatural brilliancy that utterly precludes the possibility of crying.

Some one has pulled a piece of the blind to one side, and a fitful gleam of sunlight, that dances in a heartless manner, flickers in and out of the room, nay, even strays in its ghastly mirth across the bed where the poor body lies.

As Molly walks, or rather drags her limbs after her, into the chamber (so deadly is the terror that has seized upon her), Letitia slowly raises her eyes.

She evinces no surprise at her sister's home-coming.

"There is all that is left you," she says, in a hard, slow voice, that makes Molly shiver, turning her head in the direction of the bed, and opening and shutting her hands with a peculiarly expressive, empty gesture. Afterward she goes back to her original position, her face bent downward, her body swaying gently to and fro.

Reluctantly, with trembling steps and hidden eyes, Molly forces herself to approach the dreaded spot. For the first time she is about to look on our undying foe,—to make acquaintance with the last great change of all.

A cold hand has closed upon her heart; she is consumed by an awesome, unconquerable shrinking. She feels a difficulty in breathing; almost she thinks her senses are about to desert her.

As she reaches the side of the bed opposite to where Letitia crouches, she compels herself to look, and for the moment sustains a passionate feeling of relief, as the white sheet that covers all alone meets her gaze.

And yet not all. A second later, and a dread more awful than the first overpowers her, for there, beneath the fair, pure linen shroud, the features are clearly marked, the form can be traced; she can assure herself of the shape of the head,—the nose,—the hands folded so quietly, so obediently, in their last eternal sleep upon the cold breast. But no faintest breathing stirs them. He is dead!

Her eyes grow to this fearful thing. To steady herself she lays her hand upon the back of a chair. Not for all the world contains would she lean upon that bed, lest by any chance she should disturb the quiet sleeper. The other hand she puts out in trembling silence to raise a corner of the sheet.

"I cannot," she groans aloud, withdrawing her fingers shudderingly. But no one heeds. Three times she essays to throw back the covering, to gaze upon her dead, and fails; and then at last the deed is accomplished, and Death in all its silent majesty lies smiling before her.

Is it John? Yes, it is, of course. And yet—is it? Oh, the changeless sweetness of the smile,—the terrible shading,—the moveless serenity!

Spell-bound, heart-broken, she gazes at him for a minute, and then hastily, though with the tenderest reverence, she hides away his face. A heavy, bursting sigh escapes her; she raises her head, and becomes conscious that Letitia is upon her knees and is staring at her fixedly across the bed.

There is about her an expression that is almost wild in its surprise and horror.

"You do not cry either," says she, in a clear, intense whisper. "I thought I was the only thing on earth so unnatural. I have not wept. I have not lost my senses. I can still think. I have lost my all,—my husband,—John!—and yet I have not shed one single tear. And you, Molly,—he loved you so dearly, and I fancied you loved him too,—and still you are as cold, as poor a creature as myself."

There is no reply. Molly is regarding her speechlessly. In truth, she is dumb from sheer misery and the remembrance of what she has just seen. Are Letitia's words true? Is she heartless?

There is a long silence,—how long neither of them ever knows,—and then something happens that achieves what all the despair and sorrow have failed in doing. In the house, through it, awakening all the silence, rings a peal of childish laughter. It echoes; it trembles along the corridor outside; it seems to shake the very walls of the death-chamber.

Both the women start violently. Molly, raising her hands to her head, falls back against the wall nearest to her, unutterable horror in her face. Letitia, with a quick, sharp cry, springs to her feet, and then, running to Molly, flings her arms around her.

"Molly, Molly," she exclaims, wildly, "am I going mad? That cannot—it cannot be his child."

Then they cling to each other in silent agony, until at length some cruel band around their hearts gives way, and the sorrowful, healing, blessed tears spring forth.

The last sad scene is over; the curtain has fallen. The final separation has taken place. Their dead has been buried out of their sight.

The room in which he lay has been thrown open, the blinds raised, the windows lifted. Through them the sweet, fresh wind comes rushing in. The heartless sun—now grown cold and wintry—has sent some of its rays to peer curiously where so lately the body lay.

The children are growing more demonstrative. More frequently, and with less fear of reproof, the sound of their mirth is heard throughout the silent house. Only this very morning the boy Lovat—the eldest born, his father's idol—went whistling through the hall. No doubt it was in a moment of forgetfulness he did it; no doubt the poor lad checked himself an instant later, with a bitter pang of self-reproach; but his mother heard him, and the sound smote her to the heart.

Mr. Buscarlet (who is a kind little man, in spite of his "ways and his manners" and a few eccentricities of speech), at a word from Molly comes to Brooklyn, and, having carefully examined letters, papers, and affairs generally, turns their fears into unhappy certainty. One thousand pounds is all that remains to them on which to live or starve.

The announcement of their ruin is hardly news to Letitia. She has been prepared for it. The letter found crushed in her dead husband's hand, although suppressing half the truth, did not deceive her. Even at that awful moment she quite realized her position. Not so Molly. With all the unreasoning trust of youth she hoped against hope until it was no longer possible to do so, trying to believe that something forgotten would come to light, some unremembered sum, to relieve them from absolute want. But Mr. Buscarlet's search has proved ineffective.

Now, however, when hope is actually at an end, all her natural self-reliance and bravery return to her; and in the very mouth of despair she makes a way for herself and for those whom she loves to escape.

After two nights' wakeful hesitation, shrinking, doubt, and fear, she forms a resolution, from which she never afterward turns aside until compelled to do so by unrestrainable circumstances.

"It is a very distressing case," says Mr. Buscarlet, blowing his nose oppressively,—the more so that he feels for her very sincerely; "distressing, indeed. I don't know one half so afflicting. I really do—not—see what is to be done."

"Do not think me presumptuous if I say I do," says Molly. "I have a plan already formed, and, if it succeeds, I shall at least be able to earn bread for us all."

"My dear young lady, how? You with—ahem!—you must excuse me if I say—your youth and beauty, how do you propose to earn your bread?"

"It is my secret as yet,"—with a faint wan smile. "Let me keep it a little longer. Not even Mrs. Massereene knows of it. Indeed, it is too soon to proclaim my design. People might scoff it; though for all that I shall work it out. And something tells me I shall succeed."

"Yes, yes, we all think we shall succeed when young," says the old lawyer, sadly, moved to keenest compassion at sight of the beautiful, earnest face before him. "It is later on, when we are faint and weary with the buffetings of fortune, the sad awakening comes."

"I shall not be disheartened by rebuffs; I shall not fail," says Molly, intently. "However cold and ungenerous the world may prove, I shall conquer it at last. Victory shall stay with me."

"Well, well, I would not discourage any one. There are none so worthy of praise as those who seek to work out their own independence, whether they live or die in the struggle. But work—of the sort you mean—is hard for one so young. You have a plan. Well, so have I. But have you never thought of your grandfather? He is very kindly disposed toward you; and if he——"

"I have no time for 'buts' and 'ifs,'" she interrupts him, gently. "My grandfather may be kindly disposed toward me, but not toward mine,—and that counts for much more. No, I must fall back upon myself alone. I have quite made up my mind," says Molly, throwing up her small proud head, with a brave smile, "and the knowledge makes me more courageous. I feel so strong to do, so determined to vanquish all obstacles, that I know I shall neither break down nor fail."

"I trust not, my dear; I trust not. You have my best wishes, at least."

"Thank you," says Molly, pressing his kind old hand.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"I fain would follow love, if that could be."

—Tennyson.

Letitia in her widowed garments looks particularly handsome. All the "trappings and the signs" of woe suit well her tall, full figure, her fair and placid face.

Molly looks taller, slenderer than usual in her mourning robes. She is one of those who grow slight quickly under affliction. Her rounded cheeks have fallen in and show sad hollows; her eyes are larger, darker, and show beneath them great purple lines born of many tears.

She has not seen Luttrell since her return home,—although Letitia has,—and rarely asks for him. Her absorbing grief appears to have swallowed up all other emotions. She has not once left the house. She works little, she does not read at all; she is fast falling into a settled melancholy.

"Molly," says Letitia, "Tedcastle is in the drawing-room. He particularly asks to see you. Do not refuse him again. Even though your engagement, as you say, is at an end, still remember, dearest, how kind, how more than thoughtful, he has been in many ways since—of late——"

Her voice breaks.

"Yes, yes, I will see him," Molly says, wearily, and, rising, wends her way slowly, reluctantly, to the room which contains her lover.

At sight of him some chords that have lain hushed and forgotten in her heart for many days come to life again. Her pulses throb, albeit languidly, her color deepens; a something that is almost gladness awakes within her. Alas! how human are we all, how short-lived our keenest regrets! With the living love so near her she for the first time (though only for a moment) forgets the dead one.

In her trailing, sombre dress, with her sorrowful white cheeks, and quivering lips, she goes up to him and places her hand in his; while he, touched with a mighty compassion, stares at her, marking with a lover's careful eye all the many alterations in her face. So much havoc in so short a time!

"How changed you are! How you must have suffered!" he says, tenderly.

"I have," she answers; and then, grown nervous, because of her trouble and the fluttering of her heart, and that tears of late are so ready to her, she covers her face with her hands, and, with the action of a tired and saddened child, turning, hides it still more effectually upon his breast.

"It is all very miserable," he says, after a pause, occupied in trying to soothe.

"Ah! is it not? What trouble can be compared with it? To find him dead, without a word, a parting sign!" She sighs heavily. "The bitterest sting of all lies in the fact that but for my own selfishness I might have seen him again. Had I returned home as I promised at the end of the month I should have met my brother living; but instead I lingered on, enjoying myself,"—with a shudder,—"while he was slowly breaking his heart over his growing difficulties. It must all have happened during this last month. He had no care on his mind when I left him; you know that. You remember how light-hearted he was, how kindly, how good to all."

"He was indeed, poor—poor fellow!"

"And some have dared to blame him," she says, in a pained whisper. "You do not?"

"No—no."

"I have been calculating," she goes on, in a distressed tone, "and the very night I was dancing so frivolously at that horrible ball he must have been lying awake here waiting with a sick heart for the news that was to—kill him. I shall never go to a ball again; I shall never dance again," says Molly, with a passionate sob, scorning, as youth will, the power of time to cure.

"Darling, why should you blame yourself? Such thoughts are morbid," says Luttrell, fondly caressing the bright hair that still lies loosely against his arm. "Which of us can see into the future? And, if we could, do you think it would add to our happiness? Shake off such depressing ideas. They will injure not only your mind, but your body."

"I do not think I should feel it all quite so much," says Molly, in a low, miserable, expressionless voice, "if I could only see him now and then. No, not in the flesh—I do not mean that,—but if I could only bring his face before my mind I might be content. For hours together I sit, with my hands clasped before my eyes, trying to conjure him up, and I cannot. Almost every casual acquaintance I possess, all the people whose living or dying matters to me not at all, rise at my command; but he never. Is it not curious?"

"Perhaps it is because your mind dwells too much upon him. But tell me of your affairs," says Luttrell, abruptly but kindly, leading her to a sofa and seating himself beside her, with a view of drawing her from her unhappy thoughts. "Are they as bad as Mrs. Massereene says?"

"Quite as bad."

"Then what do they mean to do?" In a tone of the deepest commiseration.

"'They'? We, you mean. What others, I suppose, have learned to do before us—work for our daily bread."

An incredulous look comes into his eyes, but he wisely subdues it.

"And what do you propose doing?" he asks, calmly, meaning in his own mind to humor her.

"You are like Mr. Buscarlet,—he would know everything," says Molly, with a smile; "but this is a question you must not ask me,—just yet. I have a hope,—perhaps I had better say an idea; and until it is confirmed or rejected I shall tell no one of it. No, not even you."

"Well, never mind. Tell me instead when you intend leaving Brooklyn."

"In a fortnight we must leave it. Is it not a little while?—only two short weeks in which to say good-bye forever to my home,—(how much that word comprises!)—to the place where all my life has been spent,—where every stone, and tree, and path is endeared to me by a thousand memories."

"And after?"

"We go to London. There I hope to work out my idea."

"You have forgotten to tell me," says Luttrell, slowly, "my part in all these arrangements."

"Yours? Ah, Teddy, you put an end to our engagement in good time. Now it must have been broken, whether we liked it or not."

"Meaning that I must not throw in my lot with yours? Do you know what folly you are talking?" says Luttrell, almost roughly. "Ours, I am assured, is an engagement that cannot be broken. Not all the cruel words that could be spoken—that have been spoken"—in a low tone of reproach—"have power to separate us. You are mine, Molly, as I am yours, forever. I will never give you up. And now—now—in the hour of your trouble——" Breaking off, he gets up from his seat and commences to pace the room excitedly.

She has risen too, and is standing with her eyes fixed anxiously upon him. At length, "Let us put an end now to all misconceptions and doubts," he says, stopping before her. "Your manner that last evening at Herst, your greeting of to-day, have led me to hope again. I would know without further delay whether I am wrong in thinking you care more for me than for any other man. Am I? Speak, Molly, tell me now—here—if you love me."

"I do—I do!" cries she, bursting into tears again, and flinging herself in an abandonment of grief into his longing arms. "And that is what makes my task so hard. That is why I have not allowed myself to see you all these past days. It was not coldness, Teddy, it was love. I dared not see you, because all must be at an end between us."

"Do you think, with you in my arms like this, with the assurance of your love fresh upon your lips, and now"—stooping—"upon mine, I can do anything but laugh at such treason as that?"

"Nay, but you must listen, Teddy, and believe that I am earnest in all that I say. For the future I shall neither see you nor hear from you: I must even try to forget you, if I would succeed in what lies before me. From henceforth I shall do my best to regard you as a stranger, to keep you at arm's length."

"Never," says Luttrell, emphatically, tightening his arms around her, as though to enforce the meaning of the word and show the absurdity of her last remark. "You talk as though you meant to convince me, but unhappily you don't. The more you say the more determined I am to marry you at once, and put a stop to all such nonsense as your trying to work."

"And are you going to marry Letitia also, and Lovat, and the two little girls, and the baby?" asks she, quietly. "Who is talking nonsense now? You seem to forget that they and I are one."

"Something must be done," says Luttrell, wretchedly.

"I quite agree with you; but who is going to do it?"

"I will"—decidedly; "I shall cut the army. My father has been a member and a staunch Conservative for years, and surely he must have some interest. I have heard of posts under government where one has little or nothing to do, and gets a capital salary for doing it; why should not I drop into one of them? Then we might all live together, and perhaps you might be happy."

"But in the meantime"—sadly—"we poor folks must live."

"That is the worst of it," says Luttrell, with questionable taste, biting his moustache. "Well"—angrily—"I see you are as bent on having your own way as ever. Tell me about this mighty plan of yours."

"I cannot, indeed, and you must not ask me. If I did tell you, probably you would scoff at it, or perhaps be angry, and I will not let myself be discouraged. It is quite useless your pressing me about this matter. I will not tell."

"And do you mean to tell me you purpose going alone into the great London world to seek your fortune, without a protector? You must be mad."

"I have Letitia."

"Letitia"—indignantly—"is a very handsome woman, not more than ten years older than yourself. She a protector!"

"I can't help that."

"Yes, you can; but your—obstinacy—won't allow you. Do you, then, intend to let no one know of your affairs?"

"I shall confide in Cecil Stafford, because I can't avoid it. But I know she will keep my secret until I give her leave to speak."

"It comes to this, then, that you consider every one before me. It is nothing to you whether I eat my heart out in ignorance of whether you are alive or dead."

"Cecil"—hastily—"may tell you so much."

"Thank you; this is a wonderful concession."

"Why should I concede at all, when, as I have said, you are no longer bound to me?"

"But I am,—more strongly so than ever; and I insist, I desire you, Molly, to let me know what it is you intend doing."

He looks sterner than one would have conceived possible for him; Miss Massereene evidently thinks him inhumanly so.

"Don't speak to me like that," she says, with quivering lips. "You should not. I have made a vow not to disclose my secret to you of all people, and would you have me break it?"

"But why?" impatiently.

"Because—have I not told you already?—because"—with a little dry sob—"I love you so dearly that to encourage thoughts of you would unfit me for my work. And it is partly for your own sake I do it, for something tells me we shall never marry each other; and why should you spend your life dreaming of a shadow?"

"It is the cruelest resolution a woman ever formed," replies he, ignoring as beneath notice the latter part of her speech, and, putting away her hands, takes once more to his irritable promenade up and down the room.

Molly is crying, silently, exhaustedly. "My burden is too heavy for me," she murmurs, faintly.

"Then why not let me help you to bear it?"

"If it will comfort you, Teddy"—brokenly—"I will give in so far as to promise to write to you in six months. I ask you to wait till then. Is it too long? If so, remember you are free—believe me it will be better so—and I perhaps shall be happier in the thought——" And here incontinently she breaks down.

"Don't," says Luttrell, hurriedly, whose heart grows faint within him at the sight of her distress. "Molly, I give in. I am satisfied with your last promise. I shall wait forever, if that will please you. Who am I, that I should add one tear to the many you have already shed? Forgive me, my own love."

"Yes, but do not say anything more to me to-day; I am tired," says Molly, submitting to his caresses, though still a little sore at heart.

"Only one thing more," says this insatiable young man, who evidently holds in high esteem the maxim to "strike while the iron is hot." "You agree to a renewal of our engagement?"

"I suppose so. Although I know it is an act of selfishness on my part. Nothing can possibly come of it."

"And if it is selfishness in you, what is it in me?" asks he, humbly. "You know as well as I do I am no match for you, who, with your face, your voice" (Molly winces perceptibly), "your manner, might marry whom you choose. Yet I do ask you to wait"—eagerly—"until something comes to our aid, to be true to me, no matter what happens, until I can claim you."

"I will wait; I will be true to you," she answers, with dewy eyes uplifted to his, and a serene, earnest face. As she gives her promise a little sigh escapes her, more full of content, I think, than any regret.

After coming to this conclusion they talk more rationally for an hour or so (a lover's hour, dear reader, is not as other hours; it never drags; it is not full of yawns; it does not make us curse the day we were born); and then Luttrell, by some unlucky chance, discovers he must tear himself away.

As Molly rises to bid him good-bye, she catches her breath, and presses her hand to her side.

"I have such a pain here," she says.

"You don't go out," says her lover, severely; "you want air. I shall speak to Letitia if you won't take more care of yourself."

"I have not been out of the house for so long, I quite dread going."

"Then go to-morrow. If you will walk to the wood nearest you,—where you will see no one,—I will meet you there."

"Very well," says Molly, obediently; and when they have said good-bye for the fifth time, he really takes his departure.

How to reveal her weighty secret to Letitia troubles Molly much,—an intimate acquaintance with her sister-in-law's character causing her to know its disclosure will be received not only with discouragement, but with actual disapproval. And yet—disclose it she must.

But how to break it happily. Having thought of many ways and means, and rejected them all, she decides, with a sigh, that plain speaking will be best.

"Letitia," she says, this very evening,—Luttrell having been gone some hours,—"do you know Signor Marigny's address?"

She is leaning her elbows on the writing-table, and has let her rounded chin sink into her palms' embrace; while her eyes fix themselves steadily upon the pen, the paper, anything but Letitia.

"Signor Marigny! Your old singing-master? No. Why do you ask, dear?"

"Because I want to write to him."

"Do you? And what——? No, I have not got his address; I don't believe I ever had it. How shall you manage?"

"I dare say I have it somewhere myself; don't trouble," says Molly, knowing guiltily it lies just beneath her hand within the table-drawer. She is glad of a respite, Letitia having forborne to press the question.

Not for long, however; human nature can stand a good many things, but curiosity conquers most.

"Why are you writing to Signor Marigny?" Letitia asks, in a gentle tone of indifference, after a full five minutes' pause, during which she has been devoured with a desire to know.

"Because I believe he will help me," says Molly, slowly. "I have been thinking, Letty,—thinking very seriously,—and I have decided upon making my fortune—our fortune—out of my voice."

"Molly!"

"Well, dear, and why not? Do not dishearten me, Letty; you know we must live, and what other plan can you suggest?"

"In London I thought perhaps we might get something to do,"—mournfully,—"and there no one would hear of us. I have rather a fancy for millinery, and one of those large establishments might take me, while you could go as a daily governess," regarding her sister doubtfully.

"Governess! oh, no! The insipidity, the drudgery of it, would kill me. I should lose sight of the fact that I was my own mistress in such genteel slavery. Besides, as a concert singer (and I can sing), I should earn as much in one night, probably, as I should otherwise in a year."

"Oh, Molly!"—clasping her hands—"I cannot bear to think of it. It is horrible; the publicity,—the dreadful ordeal. And you of all others,—my pretty Molly——"

"It is well I am pretty," says Molly, with a supreme effort at calmness; "they say a pretty woman with a voice takes better."

"Every word you say only convinces me more and more how cruel a task it would be. And Molly, darling, I know he would not wish it."

"I think he would wish me to do my duty," says Molly, gazing with great tearless eyes through the window into space, while her slender fingers meet and twine together nervously. "Letitia, why cannot you be thankful, as I am, that I have a voice,—a sure and certain provision?—because I know I can sing as very few can. (I say this gratefully, and without any vanity.) Why, without it we might starve."

"And what will Tedcastle say? For, in spite of all your arguments, Molly, I am sure he is devoted to you still."

"That must not matter. Our engagement, to all intents and purposes, is at an end, because"—sighing—"we shall never marry. He is too poor, and I am too poor, and, besides"—telling her lie bravely,—"I do not wish to marry him."

"I find it hard to believe you," says Letitia, examining the girl's face critically. "Do you mean to tell me you have ceased to care for him?"

"How do I know?"—pettishly, her very restlessness betraying the truth. "At times I am not sure myself. At all events, everything is at an end between us, which is the principal thing, as he cannot now interfere with my decision."

"Do not think you can deceive me," says Letitia, in a trembling tone. "Ah, how cruel it all is! Death when it visits most homes, leaves at least hope behind, but here there is none. Other women lose fortune, or perhaps position, or it may be love; but I have lost all; while you—with all your young life before you—would sacrifice yourself for us. I am not wholly selfish, Molly; I refuse to accept your offer. I refuse to take your happiness at your hands."

"My happiness is yours," returns Molly, tenderly; "refuse to let me help you, and the little shred of comfort that still remains to me vanishes with the rest. Letitia, you are my home now: do not reject me."

Two sad little tears run down her pale cheeks unchecked. Letitia, unable to bear the sight, turns away; and presently two kindred drops steal down her face, and fall with a faint splashing sound upon her heavy crape.

"It would be such a hateful life for you," she says, with a sigh.

"I don't think so. I like singing; and the knowledge that by it I was actually helping you—who all my life have been my true and loving sister—would make my task sweet. What shall I say to Signor Marigny, Letty?" with a sudden air of business. "He has a great deal to do with concerts and that; and I know he will assist me in every way."

"Tell him you are about to sacrifice your love, your happiness, everything that makes life good, for your family," says Letitia, who has begun to cry bitterly, "and ask him what will compensate you for it; ask him if gold, or fame, or praise, will fill the void that already you have begun to feel."

"Nonsense, my dear! he would justly consider me a lunatic, were I to write to him in such a strain. I shall simply tell him that I wish to make use of the talent that has been given me, and ask him for his advice how best to proceed. Don't you think something like that would answer? Come now, Letty," cheerfully and coaxingly, kneeling down before Mrs. Massereene, "say you are pleased with my plan, and all will be well."

"What would become of me without you?" says Letitia, irrelevantly, kissing her; and Molly, taking this for consent, enters into a long and animated discussion of the subject of her intended début as a public singer.

CHAPTER XXX.

"Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,

Can neither feel nor pity pain."

—Byron.

True to her promise, the next day Molly wraps herself up warmly and takes her way toward the wood that adjoins but does not belong to Brooklyn.

At first, from overmuch inactivity and spiritless brooding, a sort of languor—a trembling of the limbs—oppresses her; but presently, as the cold, crisp air creeps into her young blood, she quickens her steps, and is soon walking with a brisk and healthy motion toward the desired spot.

Often her eyes fill with unbidden tears, as many a well-remembered place is passed, and she thinks of a kindly word or a gay jest uttered here by lips now cold and mute.

There is a sadness in the wood itself that harmonizes with her thoughts. The bare trees, the fast-decaying leaves beneath her feet, all speak of death and change. Swinburne's exquisite lines rise involuntarily to her mind:

"Lo, the summer is dead, the sun is faded,

Even like as a leaf the year is withered.

All the fruit of the day from all her branches

Gathered, neither is any left to gather.

All the flowers are dead, the tender blossoms,

All are taken away; the season wasted

Like an ember among the fallen ashes."

Seating herself upon a little grassy mound, with her head thrown back against the trunk of a gnarled but kindly beech, she waits her lover's coming. She is very early, almost by her own calculation half an hour must elapse before he can join her. Satisfied that she cannot see him until then, she is rapidly falling into a gentle doze, when footsteps behind her cause her to start into a sitting posture.

"So soon," she says, and, rising, finds herself face to face with—Philip Shadwell.

"You see, I have followed you," he says, slowly.

He does not offer to shake hands with her; he gives her no greeting; he only stands before her, suffering his eyes to drink in hungrily her saddened but always perfect beauty.

"So I see," she answers, quite slowly.

"You have been in trouble. You have grown thin," he says, presently, in the same tone.

"Yes."

She is puzzled, dismayed, at his presence here, feeling an unaccountable repugnance to his society, and a longing for his departure, as she notes his unwonted agitation,—the unknown but evident purpose in his eyes.

"When last we met," says Philip, with a visible effort at calmness, and with his great dark, moody eyes bent upon the ground, "you told me you—hated me."

"Did I? The last time? How long ago it seems!—years—centuries. Ah!"—clasping her hands in a very ecstasy of regret—"how happy I was then! and yet—I thought myself miserable! That day I spoke to you" (gazing at him as one gazes at something outside and beyond the question altogether), "I absolutely believed I knew what unhappiness meant; and now——"

"Yes. You said you hated me," says the young man, still bent upon his own wrongs to the exclusion of all others. He is sorry for her, very sorry; but what is her honest grief for her beloved dead compared with the desperate craving for the unattainable that is consuming him daily,—hourly?

"I hardly remember," Molly says, running her slender fingers across her brow. "Well,"—with a sigh,—"I have fallen into such low estate since then that I think I have no power within me now to hate any one."

"You did not mean it, perhaps?" still painfully calm, although he knows the moments of grace are slipping surely, swiftly, trying vainly to encourage hope. "You said it, perhaps, in an instant of passion? One often does. One exaggerates a small offense. Is it not so?"

"Yes,"—with her thoughts as far from him as the earth is from the heavens,—"it may be so."

"You think so? You did not mean it?" with a sudden gleam of misplaced confidence. "Oh! if you only knew how I have suffered since that fatal word passed your lips!—but you did not mean it. In time—who knows?—you may even bring yourself to care for me a little. Molly,"—seizing her hand,—"speak—speak, and say it will be so."

"No, no," exclaims she, at last, coming back to the present, and understanding him. "Never. Why do you so deceive yourself? Do not think it; do not try to believe it. And"—with a quick shudder—"to speak to me so now,—at this time——"

"Perhaps, had I known you first, you might have loved me," persists he.

"I am sure not," replies she, gently but decidedly. "Your dark looks, your vehemence,—all—frighten me."

"Once assured of your love, I could change all that," he perseveres, unwisely, in a low tone, his passionate, gloomy eyes still fixed upon the ground, his foot uneasily stirring the chilled blades of grass beneath him. "In such a case, what is it I could not do? Molly, will you not take pity on me? Will you not give me a chance?"

"I cannot. Why will you persist? I tell you, if we two were to live forever, you are the very last man I should ever love. It is the kindest thing I can do for you to speak thus plainly."

"Kind!"—bitterly; "can you be kind? With your fair, soft face, and your angel eyes, you are the most bitterly cruel woman I ever met in my life. I curse the day I first saw you! You have ruined my happiness."

"Philip, do not speak like that. You cannot mean it. In a few short months you will forget you have ever uttered such words,—or felt them. See, now,"—laying the tips of her fingers kindly upon his arm,—"put away from you this miserable fancy, and I will be your friend—if you will."

"Friend!" retorts he, roughly. "Who that had seen and loved you could coldly look upon you as a friend? Every thought of my heart, every action of my life, has you mixed up in it. Your face is burned into my brain. I live but in recollection of you, and you speak to me of friendship! I tell you," says Philip, almost reducing himself again to calmness through intensity of emotion, "I am fighting for my very existence. I must and will have you."

"Why will you talk so wildly?"—turning a little pale, and retreating a step: "you know what you propose, to be impossible."

"There is nothing impossible, if you will only try to look upon me more kindly."

"Am I to tell you again," she says, still gently, but with some natural indignation, "that if I knew you for ever and ever, I could not feel for you even the faintest spark of affection of the kind you mean! I would not marry you for all the bribes you could offer. It is not your fault that it is so, nor is it mine. You say 'try' to love you. Can love be forced? Did ever any one grow to love another through trying? You know better. The more one would have to try, the less likely would one be to succeed. Love is free, and yet a very tyrant. Oh, Philip, forget such vain thoughts. Do not waste your life hoping for what can never be."

"It shall be," cries he, vehemently, suddenly, with an unexpected movement catching her in his arms. "Molly, if I cannot buy your love, let me at least buy yourself. Remember how you are now situated. You do not yet know the horrors of poverty—real poverty; and I—at least I have prospects. Herst will be mine beyond all doubt (who can be preferred before me?), and that old man cannot live forever. Think of your sister and all her children; I swear I will provide for all; not one but shall be to me as my own, for your sake. You shall do what you like with me. Body and soul I am yours for good or evil. Let it be for good."

"How dare you speak to me like this?" says Molly, who has tried vainly to escape from his detested embrace during the short time it has taken him to pour forth his last words. "Let me go instantly. Do you hear me, Philip?—release me."

Her blue eyes have turned almost black with a little fear and unlimited anger, her lips are white but firm, her very indignation only making her more fair.

"I will, when you have given me some ground for hope. Promise you will consider my words."

"Not for a single instant. When a few moments ago I hinted how abhorrent you are to me, I spoke truly; I only lied when I tried to soften my words. I would rather ten thousand times be dead than your wife. Now I hope you understand. Your very touch makes me shudder."

She ceases, more from want of breath than words, and a deep silence falls between them. Even through the bare and melancholy trees the wind has forgotten to shiver. Above, the clouds, rain-filled, scud hurriedly. A storm is in the air. Upon Philip's face a deadlier storm is gathering.

"Have you anything more to say?" he asks, an evil look coming into his eyes. Not for a second has he relaxed his hold.

Molly's heart sinks a little lower. Oh! if Tedcastle would only come! yet with a certain bravery she compels herself to return without flinching the gaze of the dark passionate face bent above hers. She knows every limb in her body is trembling, that a deadly sickness is creeping over her, yet by a supreme effort she maintains her calmness.

"Nothing," she answers, quietly, with just a touch of scorn. "I should have thought I had said enough to convince any man. Now will you let me go home? You cannot want to keep me here after what I have said."

"I wonder you are not afraid of me," says Shadwell, who is absolutely beside himself with anger. "Do not put unlimited faith in my forbearance. A worm, you know, will turn. Do you think you can goad a man to desperation and leave him as cool as when you began? I confess I am not made of such stuff. Do you know you are in my power? What is to prevent my killing you here, now, this moment?"

He speaks slowly, as though his breath comes with difficulty, so much has anger overmastered him; yet her eyes have never fallen before his, and he knows, in spite of his words, he has not the smallest mastery over her, he has gained no triumph.

"I wish you were dead," he goes on, in a compressed tone, "and myself too. To be sure, that if you were not mine you would never be another's, has in it a sweetness that tempts me. They say extremes meet. I hardly know, now, where my love for you ends, or where my hatred begins."

His violence terrifies Molly.

"Philip, be generous," she says, laying her hand against his chest with a vain attempt to break from him; "and—and—try to be calm. Your eyes have madness in them. Even if you were to kill me, what good would it do you? And think of the afterward. Oh, what have I ever done to you that you should seek to—to—unnerve me like this?"

"'What have you done?' Shall I tell you? You have murdered me surely as though your knife had entered my heart. You have killed every good thought in me, every desire that might perhaps have had some element of nobleness in it. I was bad enough before I met you, I dare say; but you have made me ten times worse."

"It is all false. I will not listen to you,"—covering her ears with her hands. But he takes them down again, gently but determinedly, and compels her to hear him.

"When you first came to Herst for your own amusement, to pass away the hours that perhaps hung a little heavily upon your hands, or to rouse a feeling of jealousy in the heart of Luttrell, or to prove the power you have over all men by the right of your fatal beauty, you played off upon me all the pretty airs and graces, all the sweet looks and tender words, that come so easy to you, never caring what torment I might have to endure when your dainty pastime had palled upon you. Day by day I was led to believe that I was more to you than those others who also waited on your words."

"That is false,—false. Your own vanity misled you."

"I was the one singled out to escort you here, to bear your messages there. Now and again you threw me flowers, not half so honeyed as your smiles. And when you had rendered me half mad—nay, I think wholly so—for love of you, and I asked you to be my wife, you asked me in return 'what I meant,' pretending an innocent ignorance of having done anything to encourage me."

"I do not think I have done all this," says Molly, with a little gasping sigh; "but if I have I regret it. I repent it. I pray your forgiveness."

"And I will grant it on one condition. Swear you will be my wife."

She does not answer. He is so vehement that she fears to provoke him further; yet nothing but a decided refusal can be given. She raises her head and regards him with a carefully-concealed shudder, and as she does so Luttrell's fair, beautiful face—even more true than beautiful, his eyes so blue and earnest, his firm but tender mouth—rises before her. She thinks of his devotion, his deep, honest love, and without thinking any further she says, "No," with much more decided emphasis than prudence would have permitted.

"'No!'" repeats he, furiously. "Do you still defy me? Are you then so faithful to the memory of the man who cast you off? Have you, perhaps, renewed your engagement with him? If I thought that,—if I was sure of that—— Speak, and say if it be so."

The strain is too great. Molly's brave heart fails her. She gives a little gasping cry, and with it her courage disappears. Raising her face in mute appeal to the bare trees, to the rushing, comfortless wind, to the murky sky, she bursts into a storm of tears.

"Oh, if my brother were but alive," cries she, in passionate protest, "you would not dare treat me like this! Oh, John, John, where are you? It is I, your Molly Bawn. Why are you silent?"

Her sobs fall upon the chilly air. Her tears drop through her fingers down upon the brown-tinged grass, upon a foolish frozen daisy that has outlived its fellows,—upon her companion's heart!

With a groan he comes to his senses, releases her, and, moving away, covers his face with his hands.

"Don't do that," he says. "Stop crying. What a brute I am! Molly, Molly, be silent, I desire you. I am punished enough already."

Hardly daring to believe herself free, and dreading a relapse on Philip's part, and being still a good deal over-strung and frightened, Miss Massereene sobs on very successfully, while even at this moment secretly reproaching herself in that she did not pocket her pride half an hour ago, and give way to the tears that have had such a fortunate effect.

Just at this juncture, Luttrell, clearing a stile that separates him from them, appears upon the scene. His dismay on seeing Molly in tears almost obliterates the displeased amazement with which he regards Philip's unexpected appearance.

"Molly," he calls out to her, even from the distance, some undefined instinct telling him she will be glad of his presence. And Molly, hearing him, raises her head, and without a word or cry runs to him, and flings herself into the fond shelter of his arms.

As he holds her closely in his young, strong, ardent embrace, a great peace—a joy that is almost pain—comes to her. Had she still any lingering doubts of her love for him, this moment, in which he stands by her as a guardian, a protector, a true lover, would forever dispel them.

"You here," says Luttrell, addressing Philip with a frown, while his face flames, and then grows white as Shadwell's own, "and Miss Massereene in tears! Explain——"

"Better leave explanation to another time," interrupts Philip, with insolent hauteur, his repentant mood having vanished with Luttrell's arrival, "and take Miss Massereene home. She is tired."

So saying, he turns coolly on his heel, and walks away.

Luttrell makes an angry movement as though to follow him; but Molly with her arms restrains him.

"Do not leave me," she says, preparing to cry again directly if he shows any determination to have it out with Shadwell. "Stay with me. I feel so nervous and—and faint."

"Do you, darling?" Regarding her anxiously. "You do look pale. What was Shadwell saying to you? Why were you crying? If I thought he——"

"No, no,"—laying five hasty, convincing little fingers on his arm,—"nothing of the kind. Won't you believe me? He only reminded me of past days, and I was foolish, and—that was all."

"But what brought him at all?"

"To see me," says Molly, longing yet fearing to tell him of Philip's unpardonable behavior. "But do not let us talk of him. I cannot bear him. He makes me positively nervous. He is so dark, so vehement, so—uncanny!"

"The fellow isn't much of a fellow, certainly," says Luttrell, with charming explicitness.

For the mile that lies between them and home, they scarcely speak,—walking together, as children might, hand in hand, but in a silence unknown to our household pests.

"How quiet you are!" Molly says, at length awakening to the fact of her lover's dumbness. "What are you thinking about?"

"You, of course," he answers, with a rather joyless smile. "I have received my marching orders. I must join my regiment in Dublin next Saturday."

"And this is Tuesday!" Aghast at the terrible news. "Oh, Teddy! Could they not have left us together for the few last days that remain to us?"

"It appears they could not," replies he, with a prolonged and audible sigh.

"I always said your colonel was a bear," says Miss Massereene, vindictively.

"Well, but you see, he doesn't know how matters stand; he never heard of you," replies Luttrell, apologetically.

"Well, he ought to know; and even if he did, he would do it all the more. Oh, Teddy! dear Teddy!"—with a sudden change of tone, thoroughly appreciated by one individual at least,—"what shall I do without you?"

CHAPTER XXXI.

"When we two parted in silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted, to sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek, and cold, colder thy kiss."

—Byron.

They have wandered down once more by the river-side where first he told her how he loved her. To-night, again the moon is shining brightly, again the stream runs rippling by, but not, as then, with a joyous love-song; now it sounds sad as death, and "wild with all regret," as though mourning for the flowers—the sweet fond forget-me-nots—that used to grace its banks.

Their hands are clasped, his arm is round her; her head drooping, dejected (unlike the gay capricious Molly of a few months back), is leaning on his breast.

Large tears are falling silently, without a sob, down her white cheeks, because to-night they say their last farewell. It is one of those bitter partings, such as "press the life from out young hearts" and makes them doubt the good that this world conceals even in the very core of its disappointments.

"I feel as though I were losing all," says Molly, in a despairing tone. "First John, and now—you. Oh, how difficult a thing is life! how hard, how cruel!" Yet only a month before she was singing its praises with all the self-confidence of foolish ignorant youth.

"While I am alive you do not lose me," he answers, pressing his lips to her soft hair and brow. "But I am unhappy about you, my own: at the risk of letting you think me importunate, I would ask you again to reconsider your decision, and let me know how it is you propose fighting this cold world."

Unable to refuse him audibly, and still determined to adhere to her resolution to let nothing interfere with her self-imposed task, she maintains a painful silence, merely turning her head from side to side upon his chest uneasily.

"You still refuse me? Do you not think, Molly,"—reproachfully,—"your conduct toward me is a little cold and unfeeling?"

"No, no. Do not misjudge me: indeed I am acting for the best. See,"—placing two bare white arms around his neck, that gleam with snowy softness in the moonlight against the mournful draperies that fall away from them,—"if I were cold and unfeeling would I do this?" pressing her tender lips to his. "Would I? You know I would not. I am a coward too, and fear you would not look upon my plan as favorably as I do. Darling, forgive and trust me."

"Are you going on the stage?" asks he, after a pause, and with evident hesitation.

"Why?" with a forlorn little smile. "If I were, would you renounce me?"

"Need I answer that? But you are so young, so pretty,—I am afraid, my darling, it—it would be unpleasant for you."

"Be satisfied: I am not thinking of the stage. But do not question me, Teddy. I shall write to you, as I have promised, in six months,—if I succeed."

"And if you fail?"

"I suppose then—I shall write to you too," she answers, with a sigh and a faint smile. "But I shall not fail. After all, success will bring me no nearer to you: I shall always have the children to provide for," she says, despondingly.

"We can at least live and hope."

He draws her shawl, which has slipped to the ground, close round her, and mutely, gloomily, they stand listening to the murmuring of the sympathetic stream.

"I always think of this spot as the dearest on earth," he says, after a pause. "Here I picture you to myself with your hands full of forget-me-nots. I have a large bunch of them yet, the same you gathered; faded, it is true, to others, but never so to me. They will always be as fresh in my eyes as on the evening I took them from you. 'My sweet love's flowers.' Darling, darling," pressing her to his heart in a very agony of regret, "when shall we two stand here again together?"

"Never," she whispers back, in a prophetic tone, and with a trembling, sobbing sigh more sad than any tears.

"Give me something to remember you by,—something to remind me of to-night."

"Shall you need it?" asks she, and then raising her hands she loosens all her pretty hair, letting it fall in a bright shower around her. "You shall have one little lock all to yourself," she says. "Choose, and cut it where you will."

Tenderly he selects a shining tress,—a very small one, so loath is he, even for his own benefit, to lessen the glory of her hair,—and, severing it, consigns it to the back case of his watch.

"That is a good place to keep it," she says, with an upward glance that permits him to see the love that lives for him in her dewy eyes. "At least every night when you wind your watch you must think of me."

"I shall think of you morning, noon, and night, for that matter."

"And I,—when shall I think of you? And yet of what avail?" cries she, in despair; "all our thought will be of no use. It will not bring us together. We must be always separate,—always apart. Not all our longing will bring us one day nearer to each other. Our lives are broken asunder."

"Do not let us waste our last moments talking folly," replies he, calmly; "nothing earthly shall separate us."

"Yet time, they say, kills all things. It may perhaps—kill—even your love."

"You wrong me, Molly, in even supposing it. 'They sin, who tell us love can die,'" quotes he, softly, in a tender, solemn tone. "My love for you is deathless. Beloved, be assured of this, were we two to live until old age crept on us, I should still carry to my grave my love for you."

He is so earnest that in spite of herself a little unacknowledged comfort comes into her heart. She feels it is no flimsy passion of an hour he is giving her, but a true affection that will endure forever.

"How changed you are!" he says presently; "you, who used to be so self-reliant, have now lost all your courage. Try to be brave, Molly, for both our sakes. And—as I must soon go—tell me, what is your parting injunction to me?"

"The kindest thing I can say to you is—forget me."

"Then say something unkind. Do you imagine I shall take two such hateful words as a farewell?"

"Then don't forget me; be sure you don't," cries she, bursting into tears.

The minutes are flying: surely never have they flown with such cruel haste.

"Come, let us go in-doors," she says, when she has recovered herself. "I suppose it is growing late."

"I shall not go in again; I have said good-bye to Mrs. Massereene. It only remains to part from you."

They kiss each other tenderly.

"I shall walk as far as the gate with you," says Molly; and, with a last lingering glance at their beloved nook, they go silently away.

When they reach the gate they pause and look at each other in speechless sorrow. Like all partings, it seems at the moment final, and plants within their hearts the germs of an unutterable regret.

"Good-bye, my life, my darling," he whispers, brokenly, straining her to him as though he never means again to let her go: then, almost pushing her away, he turns and leaves her.

But she cannot part from him yet. When he has gone a hundred yards or more, she runs after him along the quiet moonlit road and throws herself once more into his arms.

"Teddy, Teddy," she cries, "do not go yet," and falls to weeping as though her heart would break. "It is the bitterness of death," she says, "and it is death. I know we shall never meet again."

"Do not speak like that," he entreats, in deep agitation. "I know—I believe—we shall indeed meet again, and under happier circumstances."

"Ah, you can find comfort!" Reproachfully. "You are not half sorry to part from me."

"Oh, Molly, be reasonable."

"If you can find any consolation at this moment, you are not. And—if you meet any one—anywhere—and—like her better than me—you will kill me: remember that."

"Now, where," argues he, in perfect sincerity, "could I meet any one to be compared with you?"

"But how shall I know it—not hearing from you for so many months?" She says this as though he, not she, had forbidden the correspondence.

"Then why not take something from those wretched six months?" he says, craftily.

"I don't know. Yes,"—doubtfully,—"it is too long a time. In four months, then, I shall write,—yes, in four months. Now I do not feel quite so bad. Sixteen weeks will not be so long going by."

"One would be shorter still."

"No, no." Smiling. "Would you have me break through all my resolution? Be faithful to me, Teddy, and I will be faithful to you. Here,"—lifting her hands to her neck,—"I am not half satisfied with that stupid lock of hair: it may fall out, or you may lose it some way. Take this little chain"—loosening it from round her throat and giving it to him—"and wear it next your heart until we meet again,—if indeed"—sighing—"we ever do meet again. Does not all this sound like the sentiment of a hundred years ago? But do not laugh at me: I mean it."

"I will do as you bid me," replies he, kissing the slender chain as though it were some sacred relic,—and as such, indeed, he regards it,—while ready tears spring to his eyes. "It and I shall never part."

"Well, good-bye really now," she says, with quivering lips. "I feel more cheerful, more hopeful. I don't feel as if—I were going to cry—another tear." With this she breaks into a perfect storm of tears, and tearing herself from his embrace, runs away from him down the avenue out of sight of his longing eyes.

CHAPTER XXXII.

"Why, look you, how you storm!

I would be friends with you, and have your love."

—Merchant of Venice.

"She is indeed perfection."

—Othello.

The fourth day before that fixed upon for leaving Brooklyn, Molly, coming down to breakfast, finds upon her plate a large envelope directed in her grandfather's own writing,—a rather shaky writing now, it is true, but with all the remains of what must once have been bold and determined calligraphy.

"Who can it be from?" says Molly, regarding the elaborate seal and crest with amazement,—both so scarlet, both so huge.

"Open it, dear, and you will see," replies Letitia, who is merely curious, and would not be accused of triteness for the world.

Breaking the alarming seal, Molly reads in silence; while Letitia, unable to bear suspense, rises and reads it also over her sister's shoulder.

It consists of a very few lines, and merely expresses a desire—that is plainly a command—that Molly will come the following day to Herst, as her grandfather has something of importance to say to her.

"What can it be?" says Molly, glancing over her shoulder at Mrs. Massereene, who has taken the letter to re-read it.

"Something good, perhaps." Wistfully. "There may be some luck in store for you."

"Hardly. I have ceased to believe in my own good luck," says Molly, bitterly. "At all events, I suppose I had better go. Afterward I might reproach myself for having been inattentive to his wishes."

"Go, by all means," says Letitia; and so it is arranged.

Feeling tired and nervous, she arrives the next day at Herst, and is met in the hall by her friend the housekeeper in subdued spirits and the unfailing silk gown, who receives her in a good old motherly fashion and bestows upon her a warm though deferential kiss.

"You have come, my dear, and I am glad of it," she says in a mysterious tone. "He has been asking for you incessant. Miss Amherst, she is away from home." This in a pleased, confidential tone, Miss Amherst being distinctly unpopular among the domestics, small and great. "Mr. Amherst he sent her to the Latouches' for a week,—against her will, I must say. And the captain, he has gone abroad."

"Has he?" Surprised.

"Yes, quite suddent like, and no one the wiser why. When last he come home, after being away a whole day, he seemed to me daft like,—quite," says Mrs. Nesbitt, raising her eyes and hands, whose cozy plumpness almost conceals the well-worn ring that for twenty years of widowhood has rested there alone, "quite as though he had took leave of his senses."

"Yes?" says Molly, in a faltering tone, feeling decidedly guilty.

"Ah, indeed, Miss Massereene, and so 'twas. But you are tired, my dear, no doubt, and a'most faint for a glass of wine. Come and take off your things and rest yourself a bit, while I tell Mr. Amherst of your arrival."

In half an hour, refreshed and feeling somewhat bolder, Molly descends, and, gaining the library door, where her grandfather awaits her, she opens it and enters.

As, pale, slender, black-robed, she advances to his side, Mr. Amherst looks up.

"You have come," he says, holding out his hand to her, but not rising. There is a most unusual nervousness and hesitancy about his manner.

"Yes. You wrote for me, and I came," she answers simply, stooping, as in duty bound, to press her lips to his cheek.

"Are you well?" he asks, scrutinizingly, struck by the difference in her appearance since last he saw her.

"Yes, thank you, quite well."

"I am sorry to see you in such trouble." There is a callousness about the way in which these words are uttered that jars upon Molly. She remembers on the instant all his narrow spleen toward the one now gone.

"I am,—in sore trouble," she answers, coldly.

A pause. Mr. Amherst, although apparently full of purpose, clearly finds some difficulty about proceeding. Molly is waiting in impatient silence.

"You wished to speak to me, grandpapa?" she says, at length.

"Yes,—yes. Only three days ago I heard you had been left—badly provided for. Is this so?"

"It is."

"And that"—speaking slowly—"you had made up your mind to earn your own living. Have I still heard correctly?"

"Quite correctly. Mr. Buscarlet would be sure to give you a true version of the case."

"The news has upset me." For the first time he turns his head and regards her with a steady gaze. "I particularly object to your doing anything of the kind. It would be a disgrace, a blot upon our name forever. None of our family has ever been forced to work for daily bread. And I would have you remember you are an Amherst."

"Pardon me, I am a Massereene."

"You are an Amherst." With some excitement and considerable irritation. "Your mother must count in some way, and you—you bear a strong resemblance to every second portrait of our ancestors in the gallery upstairs. I wrote, therefore, to bring you here that I might personally desire you to give up your scheme of self-support and come to live at Herst as its mistress."

"'Its mistress'!" repeats Molly, in utter amazement. "And how about Marcia?"

"She shall be amply portioned,—if you consent to my proposal."

She is quite silent for a moment or two, pondering slowly; then, in a low, curious tone, she says:

"And what is to become of my sister?"

"Your step-sister-in-law, you mean." Contemptuously. "I dare say she will manage to live without your assistance."

Molly's blue eyes here show signs of coming fight; so do her hands. Although they hang open and motionless at her sides, there is a certain tension about the fingers that in a quick, warm temperament betokens passion.

"And my dead brother's children?"

"They too can live, no doubt. They are no whit worse off than if you had never been among them."

"But I have been among them," cries she, with sudden uncontrollable anger that can no longer be suppressed. "For all the years of my life they have been my only friends. When I was thrown upon the world without father or mother, my brother took me and gave me a father's care. I was left to him a baby, and he gave me a mother's love. He fed me, clothed me, guarded me, educated me, did all that man could do for me; and now shall I desert those dear to him? They are his children, therefore mine. As long as I can remember, he was my true and loving friend, while you—you—what are you to me? A stranger—a mere——"

She stops abruptly, fearing to give her passion further scope, and, casting her eyes upon the ground, folds one hand tightly over the other.

"You are talking sentimental folly," replies he, coolly. "Listen. You shall hear the truth. I ill-treated your mother, as you know. I flung her off. I refused her prayer for help, although I knew that for months before your birth she was enduring absolute want. Your father was in embarrassed circumstances at that time. Now I would make reparation to her, through her child. I tell you"—vindictively—"if you will consent to give up the family of the man who stole my Eleanor from me I will make you my heiress. All the property is unentailed. You shall have Herst and twenty thousand pounds a year at my death."

"Oh! hush, hush!"

"Think it over, girl. Give it your fullest consideration. Twenty thousand pounds a year! It will not fall to your lot every day."

"You strangely forget yourself," says Molly, with chilling hauteur, drawing herself up to her full height. "Has all your vaunted Amherst blood failed to teach you what honor means? You bribe me with your gold to sell myself, my better feelings, all that is good in me! Oh, shame! Although I am but a Massereene, and poor, I would scorn to offer any one money to forego their principles and betray those who loved and trusted in them!"

"You refuse me?" asks he, in tones that tremble with rage and disappointment.

"I do."

"Then go," cries he, pointing to the door with uplifted fingers that shake perceptibly. "Leave me, and never darken my doors again. Go, earn your bread. Starve for those beggarly brats. Work until your young blood turns to gall and all the youth and freshness of your life has gone from you."

"I hope I shall manage to live without all you predict coming to pass," the girl replies, faintly though bravely, her face as white as death. Is it a curse he is calling down upon her?

"May I ask how you intend doing so?" goes on this terrible old man. "Few honest paths lie open to a woman. You have not yet counted the cost of your refusal. Is the stage to be the scene of your future triumphs?"

She thinks of Luttrell, and of how differently he had put the very same question. Oh, that she had him near her now to comfort and support her! She is cold and trembling.

"You must pardon me," she says, with dignity, "if I refuse to tell you any of my plans."

"You are right in refusing. It is no business of mine. From henceforth I have no interest whatsoever in you or your affairs. Go,—go. Why do you linger, bandying words with me, when I bid you begone?"

In a very frenzy of mortification and anger he turns his back upon her, and sinking down into the chair from which in his rage he has arisen, he lets his head fall forward into his hands.

A great and sudden sadness falls on Molly. She forgets all the cruel words that have been said, while a terrible compassion for the loneliness, the utter barrenness of his drear old age, grows within her.

Crossing the room with light and noiseless footsteps, treading as though in the presence of one sick unto death, she comes up to him, lays her hands upon his shoulders, and stooping, presses her fresh young lips to his worn and wrinkled forehead.

"Good-bye, grandpapa," she says, softly, kindly. Then, silently, and without another farewell, she leaves him—forever.

She hardly remembers how she makes the return journey; how she took her ticket; how cavalierly she received the attentions of the exceedingly nice young man with flaxen hair suggestive of champagne who would tuck his railway rug around her, heroically unmindful of the cold that penetrated his own bones. Such trifling details escaped her then and afterward, leaving not so much as the smallest track upon her memory. Yet that yellow-haired young man dreamt of her for a week afterward, and would not be comforted, although all that could be done by a managing mother with two marriageable daughters was done to please him and bring him to see the error of his ways.

All the way home she ponders anxiously as to whether she shall or shall not reveal to Letitia all that has taken place. To tell her will be beyond doubt to grieve her; yet not to tell her,—how impossible that will be! The very intensity of her indignation and scorn creates in her an imperative desire to open her heart to somebody. And who so sympathetic as Letitia? And, after all, even if she hides it now, will not Letitia discover the truth sooner or later? Still——

She has not yet decided on her line of action when Brooklyn is reached. She is still wavering, even when Letitia, drawing, her into the parlor, closes the door, and, having kissed her, very naturally says, "Well?"

And Molly says "Well" also, but in a different tone; and then she turns pale, and then red,—and then she makes up her mind to tell the whole story.

"What did he want with you?" asks Letitia, while she is still wondering how she shall begin.

"Very little." Bitterly. "A mere trifle. He only wanted to buy me. He asked me to sell myself body and soul to him,—putting me at a high valuation, too, for he offered me Herst in exchange if I would renounce you and the children."

"Molly!"

"Yes. Just that. Oh, Letty! only a month ago I thought how sweet and fair and good a thing was life, and now—and now—that old man, tottering into his grave, has taught me the vileness of it."

"He offered you Herst? He offered you twenty thousand pounds a year?"

"He did, indeed. Was it not noble? Does it not show how highly he esteems me? I was to be sole mistress of the place; and Marcia was to be portioned off and—I saw by his eyes—banished."

"And you—refused?"

"Letty! How can you ask me such a question? Besides refusing, I had the small satisfaction of telling him exactly what I thought of him and his proposal. I do not think he will make such overtures to me again. Are you disappointed, Letty, that you look so strangely? Did you think, dear, I should bring you home some good news, instead of this disgraceful story?"

"No." In a low tone, and with a gesture of impatience. "I am not thinking of myself. Last week, Molly, you relinquished your love—for us; to-day you have resigned fortune. Will you never repent? In the days to come, how will you forgive us? Before it is too late, think it over and——"

"Letitia," says Molly, laying her hand upon her sister's lips, "if you ever speak to me like that again I shall—kill you."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

"Mute and amazed was Alden; and listen'd and look'd at Priscilla,

Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine in her beauty."

—Longfellow.

It is the 2d of March—four months later (barely four months, for some days must still elapse before that time is fully up)—and a raw evening,—very raw, and cold even for the time of year,—when the train, stopping at the Victoria Station, suffers a young man to alight from it.

He is a tall young man, slight and upright, clad in one of the comfortable long coats of the period, with an aristocratic face and sweet, keen blue eyes. His moustache, fair and lengthy, is drooping sadly through dampness and the general inclemency of the weather.

Pushing his way through the other passengers, with a discontented expression upon his genial face that rather misbecomes it, he emerges into the open air, to find that a smart drizzle, unworthy the name of rain, is falling inhospitably upon him.

There is a fog,—not as thick as it might be, but a decided fog,—and everything is gloomy to the last degree.

Stumbling up against another tall young man, dressed almost to a tie the same as himself, he smothers the uncivil ejaculation that rises so naturally to his lips, and after a second glance changes it to one of greeting.

"Ah, Fenning, is it you?" he says. "This beastly fog prevented my recognizing you at first. How are you? It is ages since last we met."

"Is it indeed you, Luttrell?" says the new-comer, stopping short and altering his sour look to one of pleased astonishment. "You in the flesh? Let us look at you?" Drawing Luttrell into the neighborhood of an unhappy lamp that tries against its conscience to think it is showing light and grows every minute fainter and more depressed in its struggle against truth. "All the way from Paddyland, where he has spent four long months," says Mr. Fenning, "and he is still alive! It is inconceivable. Let me examine you. Sound, I protest,—sound in wind and limb; not a defacing mark! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I am awful glad to see you, old boy. What are you going to do with yourself this evening?"

"I wish I knew. I am absolutely thrown upon the world. You will take me somewhere with you, if you have any charity about you."

"I'm engaged for this evening." With a groan. "Ain't I unlucky? Hang it all, something told me to refuse old Wiggins's emblazoned card, but I wouldn't be warned. Now, what can I do for you?"

"You can at least advise me how best to kill time to-night."

"The Alhambra has a good thing on," says young Fenning, brightening; "and the Argyll——"

"I'm used up, morally and physically," interrupts Luttrell, rather impatiently. "Suggest something calmer—musical, or that."

"Oh, musical! That is mild. I have been educated in the belief that a sojourn in Ireland renders one savage for the remainder of his days. I blush for my ignorance. If it is first-class music you want, go to hear Wynter sing. She does sing this evening, happily for you, and anything more delicious, both in face and voice, has not aroused London to madness for a considerable time. Go, hear her, but leave your heart at your hotel before going. The Grosvenor, is it, or the Langham? The Langham. Ah, I shall call to-morrow. By-bye, old man. Go and see Wynter, and you will be richly rewarded. She is tremendously lovely."

"I will," says Luttrell; and having dined and dressed himself, he goes and does it.

Feeling listless, and not in the slightest degree interested in the coming performance, he enters the concert room, to find himself decidedly late. Some one has evidently just finished singing, and the applause that followed the effort has not yet quite died away.

With all the air of a man who wonders vaguely within himself what in the world has brought him here, Luttrell makes his way to a vacant chair and seats himself beside an elderly, pleasant-faced man, too darkly-skinned and too bright-eyed to belong to this country.

"You are late,—late," says this stranger, in perfect English, and, with all the geniality of most foreigners, making room for him. "She has just sung."

"Has she?" Faintly amused. "Who?"

"Miss—Wynter. Ah! you have sustained a loss."

"I am unlucky," says Luttrell, feeling some slight disappointment,—very slight. Good singers can be heard again. "I came expressly to hear her. I have been told she sings well."

"Well—well!" Disdainfully. "Your informant was careful not to overstep the truth. It is marvelous—exquisite—her voice," says the Italian, with such unrepressed enthusiasm as makes Luttrell smile. "These antediluvian attachments," thinks he, "are always severe."

"You make me more regretful every minute," he says, politely. "I feel as though I had lost something."

"So you have. But be consoled. She will sing again later on."

Leaning back, Luttrell takes a survey of the room. It is crowded to excess, and brilliant as lights and gay apparel can make it. Fans are flashing, so are jewels, so are gems of greater value still,—black eyes, blue and gray. Pretty dresses are melting into other pretty dresses, and there is a great deal of beauty everywhere for those who choose to look for it.

After a while his gaze, slowly traveling, falls on Cecil Stafford. She is showing even more than usually bonny and winsome in some chef-d'œuvre of Worth's, and is making herself very agreeable to a tall, lanky, eighteenth century sort of man who sits beside her, and is kindly allowing himself to be amused.

An intense desire to go to her and put the fifty questions that in an instant rise to his lips seizes Luttrell; but she is unhappily so situated that he cannot get at her. Unless he were to summon up fortitude to crush past three grim dowagers, two elaborately-attired girls, and one sour old spinster, it cannot be done; and Tedcastle, at least, has not the sort of pluck necessary to carry him through with it.

Cecil, seeing him, starts and colors, and then nods and smiles gayly at him in pleased surprise. A moment afterward her expression changes, and something so like dismay as to cause Luttrell astonishment covers her face.

Then the business of the evening proceeds, and she turns her attention to the singers, and he has no more time to wonder at her sudden change of countenance.

A very small young lady, hidden away in countless yards of pink silk, delights them with one of the ballads of the day. Her voice is far the biggest part of her, and awakens in one's mind a curious craving to know where it comes from.

Then a wonderfully ugly man, with a delightful face, plays on the violin something that reminds one of all the sweetest birds that sing, and is sufficiently ravishing to call forth at intervals the exclamation, "Good, good!" from Luttrell's neighbor.

Then a very large woman warbles a French chansonnette in the tiniest, most flute-like of voices; and then——

Who is it that comes with such grave and simple dignity across the boards, with her small head proudly but gracefully upheld, her large eyes calm and sweet and steady?

For a moment Luttrell disbelieves his senses. Then a mist rises before him, a choking sensation comes into his throat. Laying his hand upon the back of the chair nearest him, he fortunately manages to retain his composure, while heart, and mind, and eyes, are centred on Molly Bawn.

An instantaneous hush falls upon the assembly; the very fans drop silently into their owners' laps; not a whisper can be heard. The opening chords are played by some one, and then Molly begins to sing.

It is some new, exquisite rendering of Kingsley's exquisite words she has chosen:

"Oh, that we two were maying!—"

and she sings it with all the pathos, the genius, of which she is capable.

She has no thought for all the gay crowd that stays entranced upon her tones. She looks far above them, her serene face—pale, but full of gentle self-possession—more sweet than any poem. She is singing with all her heart for her beloved,—for Letitia, and Lovat, and the children, and John in heaven.

A passionate longing to be near her—to touch her—to speak—to be answered back again—seizes Luttrell. He takes in hungrily all the minutiæ of her clothing, her manner, her expression. He sees the soft, gleaming bunches of snow-drops at her bosom and in her hair. Her hands, lightly crossed before her, are innocent of rings. Her simple black gown of some clinging, transparent material—barely opened at the neck—makes even more fair the milk-white of her throat (that is scarcely less white than the snowy flowers).

Her hair is drawn back into its old loose knot behind, in the simple style that suits her. She has a tiny band of black velvet round her neck. How fair she is,—how sweet, yet full of a tender melancholy! He is glad in his heart for that little pensive shade, and thinks, though more fragile, she never looked so lovely in her life.

She has commenced the last verse:

"Oh, that we two lay sleeping

In our nest in the church-yard sod,

With our limbs at rest

On the quiet earth's breast,

And our souls at home with God!"

She is almost safely through it. There is such a deadly silence as ever presages a storm, when by some luckless chance her eyes, that seldom wander, fall full on Luttrell's upturned, agitated face.

His fascinated, burning gaze compels her to return it. Oh, that he should see her here, singing before all these people! For the first time a terrible sense of shame overpowers her; a longing to escape the eyes that from all parts of the hall appear to stare at her and criticise her voice—herself!

She turns a little faint, wavers slightly, and then breaks down.

Covering her face with her hands, and with a gesture of passion and regret, she falls hurriedly into the background and is gone.

Immediately kindly applause bursts forth. What has happened to the favorite? Is she ill, or faint, or has some lost dead chord of her life suddenly sounded again? Every one is at a loss, and every one is curious. It is interesting,—perhaps the most interesting part of the whole performance,—and to-morrow will tell them all about it.

Tedcastle starts to his feet, half mad with agitation, his face ashen white. There is no knowing what he might not have done in this moment of excitement had not his foreign neighbor, laying hands upon him, gently forced him back again into his seat.

"My friend, consider her," he whispers, in a firm but soft voice. Then, after a moment's pause, "Come with me," he says, and, leading the way, beckons to Luttrell, who rises mechanically and follows him.

Into a small private apartment that opens off the hall the Italian takes him, and, pushing toward him a chair, sinks into another himself.

"She is the woman you love?" he asks, presently, in such a kindly tone as carries away all suspicion of impertinence.

"Yes," answers Luttrell, simply.

"Well, and I love her too,—as a pupil,—a beloved pupil," says the elder man, with a smile, removing his spectacles. "My name is Marigny."

Tedcastle bows involuntarily to the great teacher and master of music.

"How often she has spoken of you!" he says warmly, feeling already a friendship for this gentle preceptor.

"Yes, yes; mine was the happiness to give to the world this glorious voice," he says, enthusiastically. "And what a gift it is! Rare,—wonderful. But you, sir,—you are engaged to her?"

"We were—we are engaged," says Luttrell, his eyes dark with emotion. "But it is months since we have met. I came to London to seek her; but did not dream that here—here—— Misfortune has separated us; but if I lived for a hundred years I should never cease—to——"

He stops, and, getting up abruptly, paces the room in silent impatience.

"You have spoiled her song," says the Italian, regretfully. "And she was in such voice to-night! Hark!" Raising his hand as the clapping and applause still reach him through the door. "Hark! how they appreciate even her failures!"

"Can I see her?"

"I doubt it. She is so prudent. She will speak to no one. And then madame her sister is always with her. I trust you, sir,—your face is not to be disbelieved; but I cannot give you her address. I have sworn to her not to reveal it to any one, and I must not release myself from my word without her consent."

"The fates are against me," says Luttrell, drearily.

Then he bids good-night to the Signor, and, going out into the night, paces up and down in a fever of longing and disappointment.

At length the concert is over, and every one is departing. Tedcastle, making his way to the private entrance, watches anxiously, though with little hope for what may come.

But others are watching also to catch a glimpse of the admired singer, and the crowd round the door is immense.

Insensibly, in spite of his efforts, he finds himself less near the entrance than when first he took up his stand there; and just as he is trying, with small regard to courtesy, to retrieve his position, there is a slight murmur among those assembled, and a second later some one, slender, black-robed, emerges, heavily cloaked, and with some light, fleecy thing thrown over her head, so as even to conceal her face, and quickly enters the cab that awaits her.

As she places her foot upon the step of the vehicle a portion of the white woolen shawl that hides her features falls back, and for one instant Luttrell catches sight of the pale, beautiful face that, waking and sleeping, has haunted him all these past months, and will haunt him till he dies.

She is followed by a tall woman, with a full posée figure also draped in black, whom even at that distance he recognizes as Mrs. Massereene.

He makes one more vigorous effort to reach them, but too late. Almost as his hand touches the cab the driver receives his orders, whips up his emaciated charger, and disappears down the street.

They are gone. With a muttered exclamation, that savors not of thanksgiving, Luttrell turns aside, and, calling a hansom, drives straight to Cecil Stafford's.

Whether Molly slept or did not sleep that night remains a mystery. The following morning tells no tales. There are fresh, faint roses in her cheeks, a brightness in her eyes that for months has been absent from them. If a little quiet and preoccupied in manner, she is gayer and happier in voice and speech once her attention is gained.

Sitting in her small drawing-room, with her whole being in a very tumult of expectation, she listens feverishly to every knock.

It is not yet quite four months since she and Luttrell parted. The prescribed period has not altogether expired; and during their separation she has indeed verified her own predictions,—she has proved an undeniable success. Under the assumed name of Wynter she has sought and obtained the universal applause of the London world.

She has also kept her word. Not once during all these trying months has she written to her lover; only once has she received a line from him.

Last Valentine's morning Cecil Stafford, dropping in, brought her a small packet closely sealed and directed simply to "Molly Bawn." The mere writing made poor Molly's heart beat and her pulses throb to pain, as in one second it recalled to mind all her past joys, all the good days she had dreamed through, unknowing of the bitter wakening.

Opening the little packet, she found inside it a gold bracelet, embracing a tiny bunch of dead forget-me-nots, with this inscription folded round them:

"There shall not be one minute in an hour

Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love's flower."

Except this one token of remembrance, she has had nothing to make her know whether indeed she still lives in his memory or has been forgotten,—perhaps superseded, until last night. Then, as she met his eyes, that told a story more convincing than any words, and marking the passionate delight and longing on his face, she dared to assure herself of his constancy.

Now, as she sits restlessly awaiting what time may bring her, she thinks, with a smile, that, sad as her life may be and is, she is surely blessed as few are in a possession of which none can rob her, the tender, faithful affection of one heart.

She is still smiling, and breathing a little glad sigh over this thought, when the door opens and Lady Stafford comes in. She is radiant, a very sunbeam, in spite of the fact that Sir Penthony is again an absentee from his native land, having bidden adieu to English shores three months ago in a fit of pique, brought on by Cecil's perversity.

Some small dissension, some trivial disagreement, anger on his part, seeming indifference on hers, and the deed was done. He left her indignant, enraged, but probably more in love with her than ever; while she—— But who shall fathom a woman's heart?

"You saw him last night?" asks Molly, rising, with a brilliant blush, to receive her visitor. "Cecil, did you know he was coming? You might have told me." For her there is but one "he."

"So I should, my dear, directly; but the fact is, I didn't know. The stupid boy never wrote me a line on the subject. It appears he got a fortnight's leave, and came posthaste to London to find you. Such a lover as he makes. And where should he go by the merest chance, the very first evening, but into your actual presence? It is a romance," says her ladyship, much delighted; "positively it is a shame to let it sink into oblivion. Some one should recommend it to the Laureate as a theme for his next production."

"Well?" says Molly, who at this moment is guilty of irreverence in her thoughts toward the great poet.

"Well, now, of course he wants to know when he may see you."

"You didn't give him my address?" With an amount of disappointment in her tone impossible to suppress.

"I always notice," says Cecil, in despair, "that whenever (which is seldom) I do the right thing it turns out afterward to be the wrong thing. You swore me in to keep your secret four months ago, and I have done so religiously. To-day, sorely against my will, I honestly confess, I still remained faithful to my promise, and see the result. You could almost beat me,—don't deny it, Molly; I see it in your eyes. If we were both South Sea Islanders I should be black and blue this instant. It is the fear of scandal alone restrains you."

"You were quite right." Warmly. "I admire you for it; only——"

"Yes, just so. It was all I could do to refuse the poor dear fellow, he pressed me so hard; but for the first (and now I shall make it the last) time in my life, I was firm. I'm sure I wish I hadn't been. I earned both your displeasure and his."

"Not mine, dearest."

"Besides, another motive for my determination was this: both he and I doubted if you would receive him until the four months were verily up,—you are such a Roman matron in the way of sternness."

"My sternness, as you call it, is a thing of the past. Yes, I will see him whenever he may choose to come."

"Which will be in about two hours precisely; that is, the moment he sees me and learns his fate. I told him to call again about one o'clock, when I supposed I should have news for him. It is almost that now." With a hasty glance at her watch. "I must fly. But first, give me a line for him, Molly, to convince him of your fallibility."

"Have you heard anything of Sir Penthony?" asks Molly, when she has scribbled a tiny note and given it to her friend.

"Yes; I hear he either is in London or was yesterday, or will be to-morrow,—I am not clear which." With affected indifference. "I told you he was sure to turn up again all right, like a bad halfpenny; so I was not uneasy about him. I only hope he will reappear in better temper than when he left."

"Now, confess you are delighted at the idea of so soon seeing him again," says Molly, laughing.

"Well, I'm not in such radiant spirits as somebody I could mention." Mischievously. "And as to confessing, I never do that. I should make a bad Catholic. I should be in perpetual hot water with my spiritual adviser. But if he comes back penitent, and shows himself less exigeant, I shan't refuse his overtures of peace. Now, don't make me keep your Teddy waiting any longer. He is shut up in my boudoir enduring grinding torments all this time, and without a companion or the chance of one, as I left word that I should be at home to no one but him this morning. Good-bye, darling. Give my love to Letitia and the wee scraps. And—these bonbons—I had almost forgotten them."

"Oh, by the bye, did you hear what Daisy said the other day apropos of your china?"

"No."

"When we had left your house and walked for some time in a silence most unusual where she is, she said, in her small, solemn way, 'Molly, why does Lady Stafford have her kitchen in her drawing-room?' Now, was it not a capital bit of china-mania? I thought it very severe on the times."

"It was cruel. I shall instantly send my plates and jugs, and that delicious old Worcester tureen down-stairs to their proper place," says Cecil, laughing. "There is no criticism so cutting as a child's."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

"Ask me no more; thy fate and mine are sealed.

I strove against the stream, and all in vain.

Let the great river take me to the main.

No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;

Ask me no more."

—The Princess.

Almost as Cecil steps into her carriage, Sir Penthony Stafford is standing on her steps, holding sweet converse with her footman at her own hall-door.

"Lady Stafford at home?" asks he of the brilliant but supercilious personage who condescends to answer to his knock.

"No, sir." Being a new acquisition of Cecil's, he is blissfully ignorant of Sir Penthony's name and status. "My lady is hout."

"When will she be home?" Feeling a good deal of surprise at her early wanderings, and, in fact, not believing a word of it.

"My lady won't be at home all this morning, sir."

"Then I shall wait till the afternoon," says Sir Penthony, faintly amused, although exasperated at what he has decided is a heinous lie.

"Lady Stafford gave strict horders that no one was to be admitted before two," says flunkey, indignant at the stranger's persistence, who has come into the hall and calmly divested himself of his overcoat.

"She will admit me, I don't doubt," says Sir Penthony, calmly. "I am Sir Penthony Stafford."

"Oh, indeed! Sir Penthony, I beg your pardon. Of course, Sir Penthony, if you wish to wait——"

Here Sir Penthony, who has slowly been mounting the stairs all this time, with Chawles, much exercised in his mind, at his heels—(for Cecil's commands are not to be disputed, and the situation is a good one, and she has distinctly declared no one is to be received)—Sir Penthony pauses on the landing and lays his hand on the boudoir door.

"Not there, Sir Penthony," says the man, interposing hurriedly, and throwing open the drawing-room door, which is next to it. "If you will wait here I don't think my lady will be long, as she said she should be 'ome at one to keep an appointment."

"That will do." Sternly. "Go!—I dare say," thinks Stafford, angrily, as the drawing-room door is closed on him, "if I make a point of it, she will dismiss that fellow. Insolent and noisy as a parrot. A well-bred footman never gets beyond 'Yes' or 'No' unless required, and even then only under heavy pressure. But what appointment can she have? And who is secreted in her room? Pshaw! Her dressmaker, no doubt."

But, for all that, he can't quite reconcile himself to the dressmaker theory, and, but that honor forbids, would have marched straight, without any warning, into "my lady's chamber."

Getting inside the heavy hanging curtains, he employs his time watching through the window the people passing to and fro, all intent upon the great business of life,—the making and spending of money.

After a little while a carriage stops beneath him, and he sees Cecil alight from it and go with eager haste up the steps. He hears her enter, run up the stairs, pause upon the landing, and then, going into the boudoir, close the door carefully behind her.

He stifles an angry exclamation, and resolves, with all the airs of a Spartan, to be calm. Nevertheless, he is not calm, and quite doubles the amount of minutes that really elapse before the drawing-room door is thrown open and Cecil, followed by Luttrell, comes in.

"Luttrell, of all men!" thinks Sir Penthony, as though he would have said, "Et tu, Brute?" forgetting to come forward,—forgetting everything,—so entirely has a wild, unreasoning jealousy mastered him. The curtains effectually conceal him, so his close proximity remains a secret.

Luttrell is evidently in high spirits. His blue eyes are bright, his whole air triumphant. Altogether, he is as unlike the moony young man who left the Victoria Station last evening as one can well imagine.

"Oh, Cecil! what should I do without you?" he says, in a most heartfelt manner, gazing at her as though (thinks Sir Penthony) he would much like to embrace her there and then. "How happy you have made me! And just as I was on the point of despairing! I owe you all,—everything,—the best of my life."

"I am glad you rate what I have done for you so highly. But you know, Tedcastle, you were always rather a favorite of mine. Have you forgiven me my stony refusal of last night? I would have spoken willingly, but you know I was forbidden."

"What is it I would not forgive you?" exclaims Luttrell, gratefully.

("Last night; and again this morning: probably he will dine this evening," thinks Sir Penthony, who by this time is black with rage and cold with an unnamed fear.)

Cecil is evidently as interested in her topic as her companion. Their heads are very near together,—as near as they can well be without kissing. She has placed her hand upon his arm, and is speaking in a low, earnest tone,—so low that Stafford cannot hear distinctly, the room being lengthy and the noise from the street confusing. How handsome Luttrell is looking! With what undisguised eagerness he is drinking in her every word!

Suddenly, with a little movement as though of sudden remembrance, Cecil puts her hand in her pocket and draws from it a tiny note, which she squeezes with much empressement into Tedcastle's hand. Then follow a few more words, and then she pushes him gently in the direction of the door.

"Now go," she says, "and remember all I have said to you. Are the conditions so hard?" With her old charming, bewitching smile.

"How shall I thank you?" says the young man, fervently, his whole face transformed. He seizes her hands and presses his lips to them in what seems to the looker-on at the other end of the room an impassioned manner. "You have managed that we shall meet,—and alone?"

"Yes, alone. I have made sure of that. I really think, considering all I have done for you, Tedcastle, you owe me something."

"Name anything," says Luttrell, with considerable fervor. "I owe you, as I have said, everything. You are my good angel!"

"Well, that is as it may be. All women are angels,—at one time or other. But you must not speak to me in that strain, or I shall mention some one who would perhaps be angry." ("That's me, I presume," thinks Sir Penthony, grimly.) "I suppose"—archly—"I need not tell you to be in time? To be late under such circumstances, with me, would mean dismissal. Good-bye, dear boy: go, and my good wishes will follow you."

As the door closes upon Luttrell, Sir Penthony, cold, and with an alarming amount of dignity about him, comes slowly forward.

"Sir Penthony! you!" cries Cecil, coloring certainly, but whether from guilt, or pleasure, or surprise, he finds it hard to say. He inclines, however, toward the guilt. "Why, I thought you safe in Algiers." (This is not strictly true.)

"No doubt. I thought you safe in London—or anywhere else. I find myself mistaken!"

"I am, dear, perfectly safe." Sweetly. "Don't alarm yourself unnecessarily. But may I ask what all this means, and why you were hiding behind my curtains as though you were a burglar or a Bashi-Bazouk? But that the pantomime season is over, I should say you were practicing for the Harlequin's window trick."

"You can be as frivolous as you please." Sternly. "Frivolity suits you best, no doubt. I came in here a half an hour ago, having first almost come to blows with your servant before being admitted,—showing me plainly the man had received orders to allow no one in but the one expected."

"That is an invaluable man, that Charles," murmurs her ladyship, sotto voce. "I shall raise his wages. There is nothing like obedience in a servant."

"I was standing there at that window, awaiting your arrival, when you came, hurried to your boudoir, spent an intolerable time there with Luttrell, and finally wound up your interview here by giving him a billet, and permitting him to kiss your hands until you ought to have been ashamed of yourself and him."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, lying perdu in the curtains and listening to what wasn't meant for you." Maliciously. "You ought also to have been a detective. You have wasted your talents frightfully. Did Teddy kiss my hands?" Examining the little white members with careful admiration. "Poor Ted! he might be tired of doing so by this. Well,—yes; and—you were saying——"

"I insist," says Sir Penthony, wrathfully, "on knowing what Luttrell was saying to you."

"I thought you heard."

"And why he is admitted when others are denied."

"My dear Sir Penthony, he is my cousin. Why should he not visit me if he likes?"

"Cousins be hanged!" says Sir Penthony, with considerable more force than elegance.

"No, no," says Cecil, smoothing a little wrinkle off the front of her gown, "not always; and I'm sure I hope Tedcastle won't be. To my way of thinking, he is quite the nicest young man I know. It would make me positively wretched if I thought Marwood would ever have him in his clutches. You,"—reflectively—"are my cousin too."

"I am,—and something more. You seem to forget that. Do you mean to answer my question?"

"Certainly,—if I can. But do sit down, Sir Penthony. I am sure you must be tired, you are so dreadfully out of breath. Have you come just now, this moment, straight from Algiers? See, that little chair over there is so comfortable. All my gentlemen visitors adore that little chair. No? You won't sit down? Well——"

"Are you in the habit of receiving men so early?"

"I assure you," says Cecil, raising her brows with a gentle air of martyrdom, and making a very melancholy gesture with one hand, "I hardly know the hour I don't receive them. I am absolutely persecuted by my friends. They will come. No matter how disagreeable it may be to me, they arrive just at any hour that best suits them. And I am so good-natured I cannot bring myself to say 'Not at home.'"

"You brought yourself to say it this morning."

"Ah, yes. But that was because I was engaged on very particular business."

"What business?"

"I am sorry I cannot tell you."

"You shall, Cecil. I will not leave this house until I get an answer. I am your husband. I have the right to demand it."

"You forget our little arrangement. I acknowledge no husband," says Cecil, with just one flash from her violet eyes.

"Do you refuse to answer me?"

"I do," replies she, emphatically.

"Then I shall stay here until you alter your mind," says Sir Penthony, with an air of determination, settling himself with what in a low class of men would have been a bang, in the largest arm-chair the room contains.

With an unmoved countenance Lady Stafford rises and rings the bell.

Dead silence.

Then the door opens, and a rather elderly servant appears upon the threshold.

"Martin, Sir Penthony will lunch here," says Cecil, calmly. "And—stay, Martin. Do you think it likely you will dine, Sir Penthony?"

"I do think it likely," replies he, with as much grimness as etiquette will permit before the servant.

"Sir Penthony thinks it likely he will dine, Martin. Let cook know. And—can I order you anything you would specially prefer?"

"Thank you, nothing. Pray give yourself no trouble on my account."

"It would be a pleasure,—the more so that it is so rare. Stay yet a moment, Martin. May I order you a bed, Sir Penthony?"

"I am not sure. I will let you know later on," replies Stafford, who, to his rage and disgust, finds himself inwardly convulsed with laughter.

"That will do, Martin," says her ladyship, with the utmost bonhommie. And Martin retires.

As the door closes, the combatants regard each other steadily for a full minute, and then they both roar.

"You are the greatest little wretch," says Sir Penthony, going over to her and taking both her hands, "it has ever been my misfortune to meet with. I am laughing now against my will,—remember that. I am in a frantic rage. Will you tell me what all that scene between you and Luttrell was about? If you don't I shall go straight and ask him."

"What! And leave me here to work my wicked will? Reflect—reflect. I thought you were going to mount guard here all day. Think on all the sins I shall be committing in your absence."

She has left her hands in his all this time, and is regarding him with a gay smile, under which she hardly hides a good deal of offended pride.

"Don't be rash, I pray you," she says, with a gleam of malice.

"The man who said pretty women were at heart the kindest lied," says Sir Penthony, standing over her, tall, and young, and very nearly handsome. "You know I am in misery all this time, and that a word from you would relieve me,—yet you will not speak it."

"Would you"—very gravely—"credit the word of such a sinner as you would make me out to be?"

"A sinner! Surely I have never called you that."

"You would call me anything when you get into one of those horrid passions. Come, are you sorry?"

"I am more than sorry. I confess myself a brute if I ever even hinted at such a word,—which I doubt. The most I feared was your imprudence."

"From all I can gather, that means quite the same thing when said of a woman."

"Well, I don't mean it as the same. And, to prove my words, if you will only grant me forgiveness, I will not even mention Tedcastle's name again."

"But I insist on telling you every word he said to me, and all about it."

"If you had insisted on that half an hour ago you would have saved thirty minutes," says Stafford, laughing.

"Then I would not gratify you; now—Tedcastle came here, poor fellow, in a wretched state about Molly Massereene, whose secret he has at length discovered. About eleven o'clock last night he rushed in here almost distracted to get her address; so I went to Molly early this morning, obtained leave to give it,—and a love-letter as well, which you saw me deliver,—and all his raptures and tender epithets were meant for her, and not for me. Is it not a humiliating confession? Even when he kissed my hands it was only in gratitude, and his heart was full of Molly all the time."

"Then it was not you he was to meet alone?"—eagerly.

"What! Still suspicious? No, sir, it was not your wife he was to meet 'alone,' Now, are you properly abashed? Are you satisfied?"

"I am, and deeply contrite. Yet, Cecil, you must know what it is causes me such intolerable jealousy, and, knowing, you should pardon. My love for you only increases day by day. Tell me again I am forgiven."

"Yes, quite forgiven."

"And"—stealing his arm gently round her—"are you in the smallest degree glad to see me again?"

"In a degree,—yes." Raising to his, two eyes, full of something more than common gladness.

"Really?"

"Really."

He looks at her, but she refuses to understand his appealing expression, and regards him calmly in return.

"Cecil, how cold you are!" he says, reproachfully. "Think how long I have been away from you, and what a journey I have come."

"True; you must be hungry." With willful ignorance of his meaning.

"I am not." Indignantly. "But I think you might—after three weary months, that to me, at least, were twelve—you might——"

"You want me to—kiss you?" says Cecil, promptly, but with a rising blush. "Well, I will, then."

Lifting her head, she presses her lips to his with a fervor that takes him utterly by surprise.

"Cecil," whispers he, growing a little pale, "do you mean it?"

"Mean what?" Coloring crimson now, but laughing also. "I mean this: if we don't go down-stairs soon luncheon will be cold. And, remember, I hold you to your engagement. You dine with me to-day. Is not that so?"

"You know how glad I shall be."

"Well, I hope now," says Cecil, "you intend to reform, and give up traveling aimlessly all over the unknown world at stated intervals. I hope for the future you mean staying at home like a respectable Christian."

"If I had a home. You can't call one's club a home, can you? I would stay anywhere,—with you."

"I could not possibly undertake such a responsibility. Still, I should like you to remain in London, where I could look after you a little bit now and then, and keep you in order. I adore keeping people in order. I am thrown away," says Cecil, shaking her flaxen head sadly. "I know I was born to rule."

"You do a great deal of it even in your own limited sphere, don't you?" says her husband, laughing. "I know at least one unfortunate individual who is completely under your control."

"No. I am dreadfully cramped. But come; in spite of all the joy I naturally feel at your safe return, I find my appetite unimpaired. Luncheon is ready. Follow me, my friend. I pine for a cutlet."

They eat their cutlets tête-à-tête, and with evident appreciation of their merits; the servants regarding the performance with intense though silent admiration. In their opinion (and who shall dispute the accuracy of a servant's opinion?), this is the beginning of the end.

When luncheon is over, Lady Stafford rises.

"I am going for my drive," she says. "But what is to become of you until dinner-hour?"

"I shall accompany you." Audaciously.

"You! What! To have all London laughing at me?"

"Let them. A laugh will do them good, and you no harm. How can it matter to you?"

"True. It cannot. And after all to be laughed at one must be talked about. And to be talked about means to create a sensation. And I should like to create a sensation before I die. Yes, Sir Penthony,"—with a determined air,—"you shall have a seat in my carriage to-day."

"And how about to-morrow?"

"To-morrow probably some other fair lady will take pity on you. It would be much too slow,"—mischievously—"to expect you to go driving with your wife every day."

"I don't think I can see it in that light. Cecil,"—coming to her side, and with a sudden though gentle boldness, taking her in his arms,—"when are you going to forgive me and take me to your heart?"

"What is it you want, you tiresome man?" asks Cecil, with a miserable attempt at a frown.

"Your love," replies he, kissing the weak-minded little pucker off her forehead and the pretended pout from her lips, without this time saying, "by your leave," or "with your leave."

"And when you have it, what then?"

"I shall be the happiest man alive."

"Then be the happiest man alive," murmurs she, with tears in her eyes, although the smile still lingers round her lips.

It is thus she gives in.

"And when," asks Stafford, half an hour later, all the retrospective confessions and disclosures having taken some time to get through,—"when shall I install a mistress in the capacious but exceedingly gloomy abode my ancestors so unkindly left to me?"

"Do not even think of such a thing for ever so long. Perhaps next summer I may——"

"Oh, nonsense! Why not say this time ten years?"

"But at present my thoughts are full of my dear Molly. Ah! when shall I see her as happy as—as—I am?"

Here Sir Penthony, moved by a sense of duty and a knowledge of the fitness of things, instantly kisses her again.

He has barely performed this necessary act when the redoubtable Charles puts his head in at the door and says:

"The carriage is waiting, my lady."

"Very good," returns Lady Stafford, who, according to Charles's version of the affair, a few hours later, is as "red as a peony." "You will stay here, Penthony,"—murmuring his name with a grace and a sweet hesitation quite irresistible,—"while I go and make ready for our drive."

CHAPTER XXXV.

"When I arose and saw the dawn,

I sigh'd for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,

And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,

And the weary day turn'd to his rest,

Lingering like an unloved guest,

I sighed for thee."

—Shelley.

In her own small chamber, with all her pretty hair falling loosely round her, stands Molly before her glass, a smile upon her lips. For is not her lover to be with her in two short hours? Already, perhaps, he is on his way to her, as anxious, as eager to fold her in his arms as she will be to fly to them.

A sweet agitation possesses her. Her every thought is fraught with joy; and if at times a misgiving, a suspicion of the hopelessness of it all, comes as a shadow between her and the sun of her content (for is not her marriage with Luttrell a thing as remote now as when they parted?), she puts it from her and refuses to acknowledge a single flaw in this one day's happiness.

She brushes out her long hair, rolling it into its usual soft knot behind, and weaves a kiss or two and a few tender words into each rich coil. She dons her prettiest gown, and puts on all the bravery she possesses, to make herself more fair in the eyes of her beloved, lest by any means he should think her less worthy of regard than when last he saw her.

With a final, almost dissatisfied, glance at the mirror she goes down-stairs to await his coming, all her heart one glad song.

She tries to work to while away the time, but her usually clever fingers refuse their task, and the canvas falls unheeded to the floor.

She tries to read; but, alas! all the words grow together and form themselves into one short sentence: "He is coming—coming—coming."

Insensibly Tennyson's words come to her, and, closing her eyes, she repeats them softly to herself:

"O days and hours, your work is this,

To hold me from my proper place
A little while from his embrace,

For fuller gain of after-bliss.

"That out of distance might ensue

Desire of nearness doubly sweet,
And unto meeting, when we meet,

Delight a hundredfold accrue!"

At length the well-known step is heard upon the stairs, the well-known voice, that sends a very pang of joy through every pulse in her body, sounds eagerly through the house. His hand is on the door.

With a sudden trembling she says to herself:

"I will be calm. He must not know how dearly he is loved."

And then the door opens. He is before her. A host of recollections, sweet and bitter, rise with his presence; and, forgetful of her determination to be calm and dignified as well for his sake as her own, she lets the woman triumph, and, with a little cry, sad from the longing and despair of it, she runs forward and throws herself, with a sob, into his expectant arms.

At first they do not speak. He does not even kiss her, only holds her closely in his embrace, as one holds some precious thing, some priceless possession that, once lost, has been regained.

Then they do kiss each other, gravely, tenderly, with a gentle lingering.

"It is indeed you," she says, at last, regarding him wistfully with a certain pride of possession, he looks so tall, and strong, and handsome in her eyes. She examines him critically, and yet finds nothing wanting. He is to her perfection, as, indeed (unhappily), a man always is to the woman who loves him. Could she at this moment concentrate her thoughts, I think she would apply to him all the charms contained in the following lines:

"A mouth for mastery and manful work;

A certain brooding sweetness in the eyes;

A brow the harbor of fair thought, and hair

Saxon in hue."

"You are just the same as ever," she says, presently, "only taller, I really think, and broader and bigger altogether." Then, in a little soft whisper, "My dear,—my darling."

"And you," he says, taking the sweet face he has so hungered for between his hands, the better to mark each change time may have wrought, "you have grown thinner. You are paler. Darling,"—a heavy shadow falling across his face,—"you are well,—quite well?"

"Perfectly," she answers, lightly, pleased at his uneasiness. "Town life—the city air—has whitened me; that is all."

"But these hollows?" Touching gently her soft cheeks with a dissatisfied air. They are a little sunk. She is altogether thinner, frailer than of yore. Her very fingers as they lie in his look slenderer, more fragile.

"Perhaps a little fretting has done it," she answers, with a smile and a half-suppressed sigh.

He echoes the sigh; and it may be a few tears for all the long hours spent apart gather in their eyes, "in thinking of the days that are no more."

Presently, when they are calmer, more forgetful of their separation, they seat themselves upon a sofa and fall into a happy silence. His arm is round her; her hand rests in his.

"Of what are you thinking, sweetheart?" he asks, after a while, stooping to meet her gaze.

"A happy thought," she answers. "I am realizing how good a thing it is 'to feel the arms of my true love round me once again.'"

"And yet it was of your own free will they were ever loosened."

"Of my free will?" Reproachfully. "No; no." Then, turning away from him, she says, in a low tone, "What did you think when you saw me singing last night?"

"That I had never seen you look so lovely in my life."

"I don't mean that, Teddy. What did you think when you saw me singing—so?"

"I wished I was a millionaire, that I might on the instant rescue you from such a life," replies he, with much emotion.

"Ah! you felt like that? I, too, was unhappy. For the first time since I began my new life it occurred to me to be ashamed. To know that you saw me reminded me that others saw me too, and the knowledge brought a flush to my cheek. I am singing again on Tuesday; but you must not come to hear me. I could not sing before you again."

"Of course I will not, if it distresses you. May I meet you outside and accompany you home?"

"Better not. People talk so much; and—there is always such a crowd outside that door."

"The nights you sing. Have you had any lovers, Molly?" asks he, abruptly, with a visible effort.

"Several,"—smiling at his perturbation,—"and two bona fide proposals. I might have been the blushing bride of a baronet now had I so chosen."

"Was he—rich?"

"Fabulously so, I was told. And I am sure he was comfortably provided for, though I never heard the exact amount of his rent-roll."

"Why did you refuse him?" asks Luttrell, moodily, his eyes fixed upon the ground.

"I shall leave you to answer that question," replies she, with all her old archness. "I cannot. Perhaps because I didn't care for him. Not but what he was a nice old gentleman, and wonderfully preserved. I met him at one of Cecil's 'at homes,' and he professed himself deeply enamored of me. I might also have been the wife of a very young gentleman in the Foreign Office, with a most promising moustache; but I thought of you,"—laughing, and giving his hand a little squeeze,—"and I bestowed upon him such an emphatic 'No' as turned his love to loathing."

"To-morrow or next day you may have a marquis at your feet, or some other tremendous swell—and——"

"Or one of our own princes. I see nothing to prevent it," says Molly, still laughing. "Nonsense, Teddy; don't be an old goose. You should know by this time how it is with me."

"I am a selfish fellow, am I not?" says Luttrell, wistfully. "The very thought that any one wants to take you from me renders me perfectly miserable. And yet I know I ought to give you up,—to—to encourage you to accept an offer that would place you in a position I shall never be able to give you. But I cannot. Molly, I have come all this way to ask you again to marry me, and——"

"Hush, Teddy. You know it is impossible."

"Why is it impossible? Other people have lived and been happy on five hundred pounds a year. And after a while something might turn up to enable us to help Letitia and the children."

"You are a little selfish now," she says, with gentle reproach. "I could not let Letitia be without my help for even a short time. And would you like your wife to sing in public, for money? Look at it in that light, and answer me truly."

"No," without hesitation. "Not that your singing in public lowers you in the faintest degree in any one's estimation; but I would not let my wife support herself. I could not endure the thought. But might not I——"

"You might not,"—raising her eyes,—"nor would I let you. I work for those I love, and in that no one can help me."

"Are both our lives, then, to be sacrificed?"

"I will not call it a sacrifice on my part," says the girl, bravely, although tears are heavy in her voice and eyes. "I am only doing some little thing for him who did all for me. There is a joy that is almost sacred in the thought. It has taken from me the terrible sting of his death. To know I can still please him, can work for him, brings him back to me from the other world. At times I lose the sense of farness, and can feel him almost near."

"You are too good for me," says the young man, humbly, taking her hands and kissing them twice.

"I am not. You must not say so," says Molly, hastily, the touch of his lips weakening her.

Two large tears that have been slowly gathering roll down her cheeks.

"Oh, Teddy!" cries she, suddenly, covering her face with her hands, "at times, when I see certain flowers or hear some music connected with the olden days, my heart dies within me,—I lose all hope; and then I miss you sorely,—sorely."

Her head is on his breast by this time; his strong young arms are round her, holding her as though they would forever shield her from the pains and griefs of this world.

"I have felt just like you," he says, simply. "But after all, whatever comes, we have each other. There should be comfort in that. Had death robbed us—you of me or me of you—then we might indeed mourn. But as it is there is always hope. Can you not try to find consolation in the thought that, no matter where I may be, however far away, I am your lover forever?"

"I know it," says Molly, inexpressibly comforted.

Their trust is of the sweetest and fullest. No cruel coldness has crept in to defile their perfect love. Living as they are on a mere shadow, a faint streak of hope, that may never break into a fuller gleam, they still are almost happy. He loves her. Her heart is all his own. These are their crumbs of comfort,—sweet fragments that never fail them.

Now he leads her away from the luckless subject of their engagement altogether, and presently she is laughing over some nonsensical tale he is telling her connected with the old life. She is asking him questions, and he is telling her all he knows.

Philip has been abroad—no one knows where—for months; but suddenly, and just as mysteriously as he departed, he turned up a few days ago at Herst, where the old man is slowly fading. The winter has been a severe one, and they think his days are numbered.

The Darleys have at last come to an open rupture, and a friendly separation is being arranged.

"And what of my dear friend, Mr. Potts?" asks Molly.

"Oh, Potts! I left him behind me in Dublin. He is uncommonly well, and has been all the winter pottering—by the bye, that is an appropriate word, isn't it?—reminds one of one of his own jokes—after a girl who rather fancies him, in spite of his crimson locks, or perhaps because of them. That particular shade is, happily, rare. She has a little money, too,—at least enough to make her an heiress in Ireland."

"Poor Ireland!" says Molly. "Some day perhaps I shall go there, and judge of its eccentricities myself."

"By the bye, Molly," says Luttrell, with an impromptu air, "did you ever see the Tower?"

"Never, I am ashamed to say."

"I share your sentiments. Never have I planted my foot upon so much as the lowest step of its interminable stairs. I feel keenly the disgrace of such an acknowledgment. Shall we let another hour pass without retrieving our false position? A thousand times 'no.' Go and put your bonnet on, Molly, and we will make a day of it."

And they do make a day of it, and are as foolishly, thoughtlessly, unutterably happy as youth and love combined can be in the very face of life's disappointments.

The first flush of her joy on meeting Luttrell being over, Molly grows once more depressed and melancholy.

Misfortune has so far subdued her that now she looks upon her future, not with the glad and hopeful eyes of old, but through a tearful mist, while dwelling with a sad uncertainty upon its probable results.

When in the presence of her lover she rises out of herself, and for the time being forgets, or appears to forget, her troubles; but when away from him she grows moody and unhappy.

Could she see but a chance of ever being able to alter her present mode of life—before youth and hope are over—she would perhaps take her courage by both hands and compel it to remain. But no such chance presents itself.

To forsake Letitia is to leave her and the children to starve. For how could Luttrell support them all on a miserable pittance of five hundred pounds a year? The idea is preposterous. It is the same old story over again; the same now as it was four months ago, without alteration or improvement; and, as she tells herself, will be the same four years hence.

Whatever Luttrell himself may think upon the subject he keeps within his breast, and for the first week of his stay is apparently supremely happy.

Occasionally he speaks as though their marriage is a thing that sooner or later must be consummated, and will not see that when he does so Molly maintains either a dead silence or makes some disheartening remark.

At last she can bear it no longer; and one day toward the close of his "leave," when his sentiments appear to be particularly sanguine, she makes up her mind to compel him to accept a release from what must be an interminable waiting.

"How can we go on like this," she says, bursting into tears, "you forever entreating, I forever denying? It breaks my heart, and is unfair to you. Our engagement must end. It is for your sake I speak."

"You are too kind. Will you not let me judge what is best for my own happiness?"

"No; because you are mad on this one matter."

"You wish to release me from my promise?"

"I do. For your own good."

"Then I will not be released. Because freedom would not lead to the desired result."

"It would. It must. It is useless our going on so. I can never marry. You see yourself I cannot. If you were rich, or if I were rich, why, then——"

"If you were I would not marry you, in all probability."

"And why? Should I not be the same Molly then?" With a wan little smile. "Well, if you were rich I would marry you gladly, because I know your love for me is so great you would not feel my dear ones a burden. But as it is—yes—yes—we must part."

"You can speak of it with admirable coolness," says he, rather savagely. "After all, at the best of times your love for me was lukewarm."

"Was it?" she says, and turns away from him hurt and offended.

"Is my love the thing of an hour," he goes on, angry with her and with himself in that he has displeased her, "that you should talk of the good to be derived from the sundering of our engagement? I wish to know what it is you mean. Do you want to leave yourself free to marry a richer man?"

"How you misjudge me?" she says, shrinking as if from a blow. "I shall never marry. All I want to do is to leave you free to"—with a sob—"to—choose whom you may."

"Very good. If it pleases you to think I am free, as you call it, be it so. Our engagement is at an end. I may marry my mother's cook to-morrow morning, if it so pleases me, without a dishonorable feeling. Is that what you want? Are you satisfied now?"

"Yes." But she is crying bitterly as she says it.

"And do you think, my sweet," whispers he, folding her in his arms, "that all this nonsense can take your image from my heart, or blot out the remembrance of all your gentle ways? For my part, I doubt it. Come, why don't you smile? You have everything your own way now; you should, therefore, be in exuberant spirits. You may be on the lookout for an elderly merchant prince; I for the dusky heiress of a Southern planter. But I warn you, Molly, you shan't insist upon my marrying her, unless I like her better than you."

"You accept the words, but not the spirit, of my proposition," she says, sadly.

"Because it is a spiritless proposition altogether, without grace or meaning. Come, now, don't martyr yourself any more. I am free, and you are free, and we can go on loving each other all the same. It isn't half a bad arrangement, and so soothing to the conscience! I always had a remorseful feeling that I was keeping you from wedding with a duke, or a city magnate, or an archbishop. In the meantime I suppose I may be allowed to visit your Highness (in anticipation) daily, as usual?"

"I suppose so." With hesitation.

"I wonder you didn't say no, you hard-hearted child. Not that it would have made the slightest difference, as I should have come whether you liked it or not. And now come out—do; the sun is shining, and will melt away this severe attack of the blues. Let us go into the Park and watch for our future prey,—you for your palsied millionaire, I for my swarthy West Indian."

CHAPTER XXXVI.

"Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud."

—Idylls of the King.

The very next morning brings Molly the news of her grandfather's death. He had died quietly in his chair the day before without a sign, and without one near him. As he had lived, so had he died—alone.

The news conveyed by Mr. Buscarlet shocks Molly greatly, and causes her, if not actual sorrow, at least a keen regret. To have him die thus, without reconciliation or one word of forgiveness,—to have him go from this world to the next, hard of heart and unrelenting, saddens her for his soul's sake.

The funeral is to be on Thursday, and this is Tuesday. So Mr. Buscarlet writes, and adds that, by express desire of Mr. Amherst, the will is to be opened and read immediately after the funeral before all those who spent last autumn in his house. "Your presence," writes the attorney, "is particularly desired."

In the afternoon Lady Stafford drops in, laden, as usual, with golden grain (like the Argosy), in the shape of cakes and sweetmeats for the children, who look upon her with much reverence in the light of a modern and much-improved Santa Claus.

"I see you have heard of your grandfather's death by your face," she says, gravely. "Here, children,"—throwing them their several packages,—"take your property and run away while I have a chat with mamma and Auntie Molly."

"Teddy brought us such nice sugar cigars yesterday," says Renee, who, in her black frock and white pinafore and golden locks, looks perfectly angelic: "only I was sorry they weren't real; the fire at the end didn't burn one bit."

"How do you know?"

"Because"—with an enchanting smile—"I put it on Daisy's hand, to see if it would, and it wouldn't; and wasn't it a pity?"

"It was, indeed. I am sure Daisy sympathizes with your grief. There, go away, you blood-thirsty child; we are very busy."

While the children, in some remote corner of the house, are growing gradually happier and stickier, their elders discuss the last new topic.

"I received a letter this morning," Cecil says, "summoning me to Herst, to hear the will read. You, too, I suppose?"

"Yes; though why I don't know."

"I am sure he has left you something. You are his grandchild. It would be unkind of him and most unjust to leave you out altogether, once having acknowledged you."

"You forget our estrangement."

"Nevertheless, something tells me there is a legacy in store for you. I shall go down to-morrow night, and you had better come with me."

"Very well," says Molly, indifferently.

At Herst, in spite of howling winds and drenching showers, Nature is spreading abroad in haste its countless charms. Earth, struggling disdainfully with its worn-out garb, is striving to change its brown garment for one of dazzling green. Violets, primroses, all the myriad joys of spring, are sweetening the air with a thousand perfumes.

Within the house everything is subdued and hushed, as must be when the master lies low. The servants walk on tiptoe; the common smile is checked; conversation dwindles into compressed whispers, as though they fear by ordinary noise to bring to life again the unloved departed. All is gloom and insincere melancholy.

Cecil and Molly, traveling down together, find Mrs. Darley, minus her husband, has arrived before them. She is as delicately afflicted, as properly distressed, as might be expected; indeed, so faithfully, and with such perfect belief in her own powers, does she perform the pensive rôle, that she fails not to create real admiration in the hearts of her beholders. Molly is especially struck, and knows some natural regret that it is beyond her either to feel or look the part.

Marcia, thinking it wisdom to keep herself invisible, maintains a strict seclusion. The hour of her triumph approaches; she hardly dares let others see the irrepressible exultation that her own heart knows.

Philip has been absent since the morning; so Molly and Lady Stafford dine in the latter's old sitting-room alone, and, confessing as the hours grow late to an unmistakable dread of the "uncanny," sleep together, with a view to self-support.

About one o'clock next day all is over. Mr. Amherst has been consigned to his last resting-place,—a tomb unstained by any tears. At three the will is to be read.

Coming out of her room in the early part of the afternoon, Cecil meets unexpectedly with Mr. Potts, who is meandering in a depressed and aimless fashion all over the house.

"You here, Plantagenet! Why, I thought you married to some fascinating damsel in the Emerald Isle," she cannot help saying in a low voice, giving him her hand. She is glad to see his ugly, good-humored, comical face in the gloomy house, although it is surmounted by his offending hair.

"So I was,—very near it," replies he, modestly, in the same suppressed whisper. "You never knew such a narrow escape as I had: they were determined to marry me——"

"'They'! You terrify me. How many of them? I had no idea they were so bad as that,—even in Ireland."

"Oh, I mean the girl and her father. It was as near a thing as possible; in fact, it took me all I knew to get out of it."

"I'm not surprised at that," says Cecil, with a short but comprehensive glance at her companion's cheerful but rather indistinct features.

"I don't exactly mean it was my personal appearance was the attraction," he returns, feeling a strong inclination to explode with laughter, as is his habit on all occasions, but quickly suppressing the desire, as being wicked under the circumstances. The horror of death has not yet vanished from among them. "It was my family they were after,—birth, you know,—and that. Fact is, she wasn't up to the mark,—wasn't good enough. Not but that she was a nice-looking girl, and had a lovely brogue. She had money too—and she had a—father! Such a father! I think I could have stood the brogue, but I could not stand the father."

"But why? Was he a lunatic? Or perhaps a Home-ruler?"

"No,"—simply,—"he was a tailor. When first I met Miss O'Rourke she told me her paternal relative had some appointment in the Castle. So he had. In his youthful days he had been appointed tailor to his Excellency. It wasn't a bad appointment, I dare say; but I confess I didn't see it."

"It was a lucky escape. It would take a good deal of money to make me forget the broadcloth. Are you coming down-stairs now? I dare say we ought to be assembling."

"It is rather too early, I am afraid. I wish it was all done with, and I a hundred miles away from the place. The whole affair has made me downright melancholy. I hate funerals: they don't agree with me."

"Nor yet weddings, as it seems. Well, I shall be as glad as you to quit Herst once we have installed Miss Amherst as its mistress."

"Why not Shadwell as its master?"

"If I were a horrible betting-man," says Cecil, "I should put all my money upon Marcia. I do not think Mr. Amherst cared for Philip. However, we shall see. And"—in a yet lower tone—"I hope he has not altogether forgotten Molly."

"I hope not indeed. But he was a strange old man. To forget Miss Massereene——" Here he breathes a profound sigh.

"Don't sigh, Plantagenet: think of Miss O'Rourke," says Cecil, unkindly, leaving him.

One by one, and without so much as an ordinary "How d'ye do?" they have all slipped into the dining-room. The men have assumed a morose air, which they fondly believe to be indicative of melancholy; the women, being by nature more hypocritical, present a more natural and suitable appearance. All are seated in sombre garments and dead silence.

Marcia, in crape and silk of elaborate design, is looking calm but full of decorous grief. Philip—who has grown almost emaciated during these past months—is the only one who wears successfully an impression of the most stolid indifference. He is leaning against one of the windows, gazing out upon the rich lands and wooded fields which so soon will be either all his or nothing to him. After the first swift glance of recognition he has taken no notice of Molly, nor she of him. A shuddering aversion fills her toward him, a distaste bordering on horror. His very pallor, the ill-disguised misery of his whole appearance,—which he seeks but vainly to conceal under a cold and sneering exterior,—only adds to her dislike.

A sickening remembrance of their last meeting in the wood at Brooklyn makes her turn away from him with palpable meaning on his entrance, adding thereby one pang the more to the bitterness of his regret. The meeting is to her a trial,—to him an agony harder to endure than he had even imagined.

Feeling strangely out of place and nervous, and saddened by memories of happy days spent in this very room so short a time ago, Molly has taken a seat a little apart from the rest, and sits with loosely-folded hands upon her knees, her head bent slightly downward.

Cecil, seeing the dejection of her attitude, leaves her own place, and, drawing a chair close to hers, takes one of her hands softly between her own.

Then the door opens, and Mr. Buscarlet, with a sufficiently subdued though rather triumphant and consequential air, enters.

He bows obsequiously to Marcia, who barely returns the salute. Detestable little man! She finds some consolation in the thought that at all events his time is nearly over; that probably—nay, surely—he is now about to administer law for the last time at Herst.

He bows in silence to the rest of the company,—with marked deference to Miss Massereene,—and then involuntarily each one stirs in his or her seat and settles down to hear the will read.

A will is a mighty thing, and requires nice handling. Would that I were lawyer enough to give you this particular one in full, with all its many bequests and curious directions. But, alas! ignorance forbids. The sense lingers with me, but all the technicalities and running phrases and idiotic repetitions have escaped me.

To most of those present Mr. Amherst has left bequests; to Lady Stafford five thousand pounds; to Plantagenet Potts two thousand pounds; to Mrs. Darley's son the same; to all the servants handsome sums of money, together with a year's wages; to Mrs. Nesbit, the housekeeper, two hundred pounds a year for her life. And then the attorney pauses and assumes an important air, and every one knows the end is nigh.

All the rest of his property of which he died possessed—all the houses, lands, and moneys—all personal effects—"I give and bequeath to——"

Here Mr. Buscarlet, either purposely or otherwise, stops short to cough and blow a sonorous note upon his nose. All eyes are fixed upon him; some, even more curious or eager than the others, are leaning forward in their chairs. Even Philip has turned from the window and is waiting breathlessly.

"To my beloved grandchild, Eleanor Massereene!"

Not a sound follows this announcement, not a movement. Then Marcia half rises from her seat; and Mr. Buscarlet, putting up his hand, says, hurriedly, "There is a codicil," and every one prepares once more to listen.

But the codicil produces small effect. The old man at the last moment evidently relented so far in his matchless severity as to leave Marcia Amherst ten thousand pounds (and a sealed envelope, which Mr. Buscarlet hands her), on the condition that she lives out of England; and to Philip Shadwell ten thousand pounds more,—and another sealed envelope,—which the attorney also delivers on the spot.

As the reading ceases, another silence, even more profound than the first, falls upon the listeners. No one speaks, no one so much as glances at the other.

Marcia, ghastly, rigid, rises from her seat.

"It is false," she says, in a clear, impassioned tone. "It is the will of an imbecile,—a madman. It shall not be." She has lost all self-restraint, and is trembling with fear and rage and a terrible certainty of defeat.

"Pardon me, Miss Amherst," says Mr. Buscarlet, courteously, "but I fear you will find it unwise to lay any stress on such a thought. To dispute this will would be madness indeed: all the world knows my old friend, your grandfather, died in perfect possession of his senses, and this will was signed three months ago."

"You drew up this will, sir?" she asks in a low tone, only intended for him, drawing closer to him.

"Certainly I did, madam."

"And during all these past months understood thoroughly how matters would be?"

"Certainly, madam."

"And knowing, continued still—with a view to deceive me—to treat me as the future mistress of Herst?"

"I trust, madam, I always treated you with proper respect. You would not surely have had me as rude to you as you invariably were to me? I may not be a gentleman, Miss Amherst, in your acceptation of that term, but I make it a rule never to be—offensive."

"It was a low—a mean revenge," says Marcia, through her teeth, her eyes aflame, her lips colorless; "one worthy of you. I understand you, sir; but do not for an instant think you have crushed me." Raising her head haughtily, she sweeps past him back to her original seat.

Molly has risen to her feet. She is very pale and faint; her eyes, large and terrified, like a fawn's, are fixed, oddly enough, upon Philip. The news has been too sudden, too unexpected, to cause her even the smallest joy as yet. On the contrary, she knows only pity for him who, but a few minutes before, she was reviling in her thoughts. Perhaps the sweetness of her sympathy is the one thing that could have consoled Philip just then.

"'Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness,'" he says, with a little sneering laugh, shrugging his shoulders. Then, rousing himself, he draws a long breath, and goes straight up to Molly.

"Permit me to congratulate you," he says, with wonderful grace, considering all things. He is standing before her, with his handsome head well up, a certain pride of birth about him, strong enough to carry him successfully through this great and lasting disaster. "It is, after all, only natural that of the three you should inherit. Surprise should lie in the fact that never did such a possibility occur to us. We might have known that even our grandfather's worn and stony heart could not be proof against such grace and sweetness as yours."

He bows over her hand courteously, and, turning away, walks back again to the window, standing with his face hidden from them all.

Never has he appeared to such advantage. Never has he been so thoroughly liked as at this moment. Molly moves as though she would go to him; but Cecil, laying her hand upon her arm, wisely restrains her. What can be said to comfort him, who has lost home, and love, and all?

"It is all a mistake; it cannot be true," says Molly, piteously. "It is a mistake." She looks appealingly at Cecil, who, wise woman that she is, only presses her arm again meaningly, and keeps a discreet silence. To express her joy at the turn events have taken at this time would be gross; though not to express it goes hard with Cecil. She contents herself with glancing expressively at Sir Penthony every now and then, who is standing at the other end of the room.

"I also congratulate you," says Luttrell, coming forward, and speaking for the first time. He is not nearly so composed as Shadwell, and his voice has a strange and stilted sound. He speaks so that Molly and Cecil alone can hear him, delicacy forbidding any open expression of pleasure. "With all my heart," he adds; but his tone is strange. The whole speech is evidently a lie. His eyes meet hers with an expression in them she has never seen there before,—so carefully cold it is, so studiously unloving.

Molly is too agitated to speak to him, but she lifts her head, and shows him a face full of the keenest reproach. Her pleading look, however, is thrown away, as he refuses resolutely to meet her gaze. With an abrupt movement he turns away and leaves the room, and, as they afterward discover, the house.

Meantime, Marcia has torn open her envelope, and read its enclosure. A blotted sheet half covered with her own writing,—the very letter begun and lost in the library last October; that, being found, has condemned her. With a half-stifled groan she lets it flutter to the ground, where it lies humbled in the dust, an emblem of all her falsely-cherished hopes.

Philip, too, having examined his packet, has brought to light that fatal letter of last summer that has so fully convicted him of unlawful dealings with Jews. Twice he reads it, slowly, thoughtfully, and then, casting one quick, withering glance at Marcia (under which she cowers), he consigns it to his pocket without a word.

The play is played out. The new mistress of Herst has been carried away by Cecil Stafford to her own room; the others have dispersed. Philip and Marcia Amherst are alone.

Marcia, waking from her reverie, makes a movement as though she, too, would quit the apartment, but Shadwell, coming deliberately up to her, bars her exit. Laying his hand gently but firmly on her wrist, he compels her to both hear and remain.

"You betrayed me?" he says, between his teeth. "You gave this letter"—producing it—"to my grandfather? I trusted you, and you betrayed me."

"I did," she answers, with forced calmness.

"Why?"

"Because—I loved you."

"You!" with a harsh grating laugh. It is with difficulty he restrains his passion. "You to love! And is it by ruining those upon whom you bestow your priceless affection you show the depth of your devotion? Pah! Tell me the truth. Did you want all, and have you been justly punished?"

"I have told you the truth," she answers, vehemently. "I was mad enough to love you even then, when I saw against my will your wild infatuation for that designing——"

"Hush!" he interrupts her, imperiously, in a low, dangerous tone. "If you are speaking of Miss Massereene, I warn you it is unsafe to proceed. Do not mention her. Do not utter her name. I forbid you."

"So be it! Your punishment has been heavier than any I could inflict.—You want to know why I showed that letter to the old man, and I will tell you. I thought, could I but gain all Herst, I might, through it, win you back to my side. I betrayed you for that alone. I debased myself in my own eyes for that sole purpose. I have failed in all things. My humiliation is complete. I do not ask your forgiveness, Philip; I crave only—your forbearance. Grant me that at least, for the old days' sake!"

But he will not. He scarcely heeds her words, so great is the fury that consumes him.

"You would have bought my love!" he says, with a bitter sneer. "Know, then, that with a dozen Hersts at your back, I loathe you too much ever to be more to you than I now am, and that is—nothing."

Quietly but forcibly he puts her from him, and leaves the room. Outside in the hall he encounters Sir Penthony, who has been lingering there with intent to waylay him. However rejoiced Stafford may be at Molly's luck, he is profoundly grieved for Philip.

"I know it is scarcely form to express sympathy on such occasions," he says, with some hesitation, laying his hand on Shadwell's shoulder. "But I must tell you how I regret, for your sake, all that has taken place."

"Thank you, Stafford. You are one of the very few whose sympathy is never oppressive. But do not be uneasy about me," with a short laugh. "I dare say I shall manage to exist. I have five hundred a year of my own, and my grandfather's thoughtfulness has made it a thousand. No doubt I shall keep body and soul together, though there is no disguising the fact that I feel keenly the difference between one thousand and twenty."

"My dear fellow, I am glad to see you take it so well. I don't believe there are a dozen men of my acquaintance who would be capable of showing such pluck as you have done."

"I have always had a fancy for exploring. I shall go abroad and see some life; the sooner the better. I thank you with all my heart, Stafford, for your kindness. I thank you—and"—with a slight break in his voice—"good-bye!"

He presses Stafford's hand warmly, and, before the other can reply, is gone.

Half an hour later, Marcia, sweeping into her room in a torrent of passion impossible to quell, summons her maid by a violent attack on her bell.

"Take off this detested mourning," she says to the astonished girl. "Remove it from my sight. And get me a colored gown and a Bradshaw."

The maid, half frightened, obeys, and that night Marcia Amherst quits her English home forever.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

"Fare thee well! and if forever,

Still forever, fare thee well!"

—Byron.

"Oh, Cecil! now I can marry Tedcastle," says Molly, at the end of a long and exhaustive conversation that has taken place in her own room. She blushes a little as she says it; but it is honestly her first thought, and she gives utterance to it. "Letitia, too, and the children,—I can provide for them. I shall buy back dear old Brooklyn, and give it to them, and they shall be happy once more."

"I agree with Lord Byron," says Cecil, laughing. "'Money makes the man; the want of it, his fellow.' You ought to feel like some princess out of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments."

"I feel much more like an intruder. What right have I to Herst? What shall I do with so much money?"

"Spend it. There is nothing simpler. Believe me, no one was ever in reality embarrassed by her riches, notwithstanding all they say. The whole thing is marvelous. Who could have anticipated such an event? I am sorry I ever said anything disparaging of that dear, delightful, genial, kind-hearted, sociable, generous old gentleman, your grandfather."

"Don't jest," says Molly, who is almost hysterical. "I feel more like crying yet. But I am glad at least to know he forgave me before he died. Poor grandpapa! Cecil, I want so much to see Letitia."

"Of course, dear. Well,"—consulting her watch,—"I believe we may as well be getting ready if we mean to catch the next train. Will not it be a charming surprise for Letitia? I quite envy you the telling of it."

"I want you to tell it. I am so nervous I know I shall never get through it without frightening her out of her wits. Do come with me, Cecil, and break the news yourself."

"Nothing I should like better," says Cecil. "Put on your bonnet and let us be off."

Ringing the bell, she orders round the carriage, and presently she and Molly are wending their way down the stairs.

At the very end of the long, beautiful old hall, stands Philip Shadwell, taking, it may be, a last look from the window, of the place so long regarded as his own.

As they see him, both girls pause, and Molly's lips lose something of their fresh, warm color.

"Go and speak to him now," says Cecil, and, considerately remembering a hypothetical handkerchief, retraces her steps to the room she had just quitted.

"Philip!" says Molly, timidly, going up to him.

He turns with a start, and colors a dark red on seeing her, but neither moves nor offers greeting.

"Oh, Philip! let me do something for you," says Molly impulsively, without preparation, and with tears in her eyes. "I have robbed you, though unwittingly. Let me make amends. Out of all I have let me give you——"

"The only thing I would take from you it is out of your power to give," he interrupts her, gently.

"Do not say so," she pleads, in trembling tones. "I do not want all the money. I cannot spend it. I do not care for it. Do take some of it, Philip. Let me share——"

"Impossible, child!" with a faint smile. "You don't know what you are saying." Then, with an effort, "You are going to marry Luttrell?"

"Yes,"—blushing, until she looks like a pale, sweet rose with a drooping head.

"How rich to overflowing are some, whilst others starve!" he says, bitterly, gazing at her miserably, filling his heart, his senses, for the last time, with a view of her soft and perfect loveliness. Then, in a kinder tone, "I hope you will be happy, and"—slowly—"he too, though that is a foregone conclusion." He pales a little here, and stops as though half choking. "Yes, he has my best wishes,—for your sake," he goes on, unsteadily. "Tell him so from me, though we have not been good friends of late."

"I will surely tell him."

"Good-bye!" he says, taking her hand. Something in his expression makes her exclaim, anxiously:

"For the present?"

"No; forever. Herst and England have grown hateful to me. I leave them as soon as possible. Good-bye, my beloved!" he whispers, in deep agitation. "I only ask you not to quite forget me, though I hope—I hope—I shall never look upon your sweet face again."

So he goes, leaving his heart behind him, carrying with him evermore, by land and sea, this only,—the vision of her he loves as last he sees her, weeping sad and bitter tears for him.

A quarter of an hour later, as Molly and Cecil are stepping into the carriage meant to convey them to the station, one of the servants, running up hurriedly, hands Miss Massereene a letter.

"Another?" says Cecil, jestingly, as the carriage starts. "Sealed envelopes, like private bomb-shells, seem to be the order of the day. I do hope this one does not emanate from your grandfather, desiring you to refund everything."

"It is from Tedcastle," says Molly, surprised. Then she opens it, and reads as follows:

"Taking into consideration the enormous change that has occurred in your fortunes since this morning, I feel it only just to you and myself to write and absolve you from all ties by which you may fancy yourself still connected with me. You will remember that in our last conversation together in London you yourself voluntarily decided on severing our engagement. Let your decision now stand. Begin your new life without hampering regrets, without remorseful thoughts of me. To you I hope this money may bring happiness; to me, through you, it has brought lasting pain; and when, a few minutes ago, I said I congratulated you from my heart, I spoke falsely. I say this only to justify my last act in your eyes. I will not tell you what it costs me to write you this; you know me well enough to understand. I shall exchange with a friend of mine, and sail for India in a week or two, or at least as soon as I can; but wherever I am, or whatever further misfortunes may be in store for me, be assured your memory will always be my greatest—possibly my only—treasure."

"What can he mean?" says Molly, looking up. She does not appear grieved; she is simply indignant. An angry crimson flames on her fair cheeks.

"Quixotism!" says Cecil, when she, too, has read the letter. "Was there ever such a silly boy?"

"Oh! it is worse than anything,—so cold, so terse, so stupid. And not an affectionate word all through, or a single regret."

"My dear child, that is its only redeeming point. He is evidently sincere in his desire for martyrdom. Had he gone into heroics I should myself have gone to Ireland (where I suppose he soon must be) to chastise him. But as it is—— Poor Tedcastle! He looks upon it as a point of honor."

"It is unbearable," says Molly, angrily. "Does he think such a paltry thing as money could interfere with my affection for him?"

"Molly, beware! You are bordering on the heroics now. Money is not a paltry thing; it is about the best thing going. I can sympathize with Tedcastle if you cannot. He felt he had no right to claim the promise of such a transcendently beautiful being as you, now you have added to your other charms twenty thousand a year. He thinks of your future; he acknowledges you a bride worthy any duke in the land (men in love"—maliciously—"will dote, you know); he thinks of the world and its opinion, and how fond they are of applying the word 'fortune-hunter' when they get the chance, and it is not a pretty sobriquet."

"He should have thought of nothing but me. Had he come into a fortune," says Molly, severely, "I should have been delighted, and I should have married him instantly."

"Quite so. But who ever heard the opprobrious term 'fortune-hunter' given to a woman? It is the legitimate thing for us to sell ourselves as dearly as we can."

"But, Cecil,"—forlornly,—"what am I to do now?"

"If you will take my advice, nothing,—for two or three weeks. He cannot sail for India before then, and do his best. Preserve an offended silence. Then obtain an interview with him by fair means, or, if not, by foul."

"You unscrupulous creature!" Molly says, smiling; but after a little reflection she determines to abide by her friend's counsel. "Horrible, hateful letter," she says, tearing it up and throwing it out of the window. "I wish I had never read you. I am happier now you are gone."

"So am I. It was villainously worded and very badly written."

"I don't know that," begins Molly, warmly; and then she stops short, and they both laugh. "And you, Cecil—what of you? Am I mistaken in thinking you and Sir Penthony are—are——"

"Yes, we are," says Cecil, smiling and coloring brilliantly. "As you so graphically express it, we actually—are. At present, like you, we are formally engaged."

"Really?"—delighted. "I always knew you loved him. And so you have given in at last?"

"Through sheer exhaustion, and merely with a view to stop further persecution. When a man comes to you day after day, asking you whether you love him yet, ten to one you say yes in the end, whether it be the truth or not. We all know what patience and perseverance can do. But I desire you, Molly, never to lose sight of the fact that I am consenting to be his only to escape his importunities."

"I quite understand. But, dear Cecil, I am so rejoiced."

"Are you, dear?"—provokingly. "And why?—I thought to have a second marriage, if only for the appearance of the thing; but it seems I cannot. So we are going to Kamtschatka, or Bath, or Timbuctoo, or Hong-Kong, or Halifax, for our wedding tour, I really don't know which, and I would not presume to dictate. That is, if I do not change my mind between that and this."

"And when is that?"

"The seventeenth of next month. He wanted to make it the first of April; but I said I was committing folly enough without reminding all the world of it. So he succumbed. I wish, Molly, you could be married on the same day."

"What am I to do with a lover who refuses to take me?" says Molly, with a rueful laugh. "I dare say I shall be an old maid after all."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

"Why shouldn't I love my love?

Why shouldn't he love me?

Why shouldn't I love my love,

Since love to all is free?"

Three full weeks that, so far as Molly is concerned, have been terribly, wearisomely long, have dragged to their close. Not that they have been spent in idleness; much business has been transacted, many plans fulfilled; but they have been barren of news of her lover.

"In the spring a young man's fancies lightly turn to thoughts of love;" but his thoughts seem far removed from such tender dalliance.

She knows, through Cecil, of his being in Ireland with his regiment for the first two of those interminable weeks, and of his appearance in London during the third, where he was seeking an exchange into some regiment ordered on foreign service; but whether he has or has not been successful in his search she is supremely ignorant.

Brooklyn, her dear old home, having been discovered on her grandfather's death to be still in the market, has been bought back for her by Mr. Buscarlet, and here Letitia—with her children and Molly—feels happier and more contented than she could ever have believed to be again possible.

Seated at breakfast, watched over by the faithful Sarah, without apparent cause for uneasiness, there is, nevertheless, an air of uncertainty and expectation about Mrs. Massereene and her sister that makes itself known even to their attendant on this particular morning in early April of which I write.

In vain does Sarah, with a suppressed attempt at coaxing, place the various dishes under Miss Massereene's eyes. They are accepted, lingeringly, daintily, but are not eaten. The children, indeed, voracious as their kind, come nobly to the rescue, and by a kindly barter of their plates for Molly's, which leaves them an undivided profit, contrive to clear the table.

Presently, Molly having refused languidly some delicate steaming cakes of Sarah's own making, that damsel leaves the room in high dudgeon, and Molly leans back in her chair.

"Tell me again, Letty, what you wrote to him," she says, letting her eyes wander through the window, all down the avenue, up which the postman must come, "word for word."

"Just exactly what you desired me, dear," replies Letitia, seriously. "I said I should like to see him once again for the old days' sake, before he left England, which I heard he was on the point of doing. And I also told him, to please you,"—smiling,—"what was an undeniable lie,—that, but for the children, I was here alone."

"Quite right," says Miss Massereene, unblushingly. Then, with considerable impatience, "Will that postman never come?"

All country posts are irregular, and this one is not a pleasant exception. To-day, to create aggravation, it is at least one good half-hour later than usual. When at length, however, it does come, it brings the expected letter from Luttrell.

"Open it quickly,—quickly, Letty," says her sister, and Letitia hastens and reads it with much solemnity.

It is short and rather reckless in tone. It tells them the writer, having effected the desired exchange, hopes to start for India in two weeks at furthest, and that, as he had never at any time contemplated leaving England without bidding Mrs. Massereene good-bye, he would seize the opportunity—she being now alone (heavily dashed)—to run down to Brooklyn to see her this very day.

"Oh, Letty! to-day!" exclaims Molly, paling and flushing, and paling again. "How I wish it was tomorrow!"

"Could there be any one more inconsistent than you, my dear Molly? You have been praying for three whole weeks to see him, and now your prayer is answered you look absolutely miserable."

"It is so sudden," says poor Molly. "And—he never mentioned my name. What if he refuses to have anything to say to me even now? What shall I do then?"

"Nonsense, my dear! When once he sees you, he will forget all his ridiculous pride, and throw himself, like a sensible man, at your feet."

"I wish I could think so. Letty,"—tearfully, and in a distinctly wheedling tone,—"wouldn't you speak to him?"

"Indeed I would not," says Letitia, indignantly. "What, after writing that lie! No, you must of course see him yourself. And, indeed, my dear child,"—laughing,—"you have only to meet him, wearing the lugubrious expression you at present exhibit, to melt his heart, were it the stoniest one in Europe. See,"—drawing her to a mirror,—"was there ever such a Dolores?"

Seeing her own forlorn visage, Molly instantly laughs, thereby ruining forever the dismal look of it that might have stood her in such good stead.

"I suppose he will dine," says Letitia, thoughtfully. "I must go speak to cook."

"Perhaps he will take the very first train back to London," says Molly, still gloomy.

"Perhaps so. Still, we must be prepared for the worst," wickedly. "Therefore, cook and I must consult. Molly,"—pausing at the door,—"you have exactly four hours in which to make yourself beautiful, as he cannot possibly be here before two. And if in that time you cannot create a costume calculated to reduce him to slavery, I shall lose my good opinion of you. By the bye, Molly,"—earnestly, and with something akin to anxiety,—"do you think he likes meringues?"

"How can you be so foolish?" says Miss Massereene, reprovingly. "Of course if he dines he will be in the humor to like anything I like, and I love meringues. But if not,—if not,"—with a heavy sigh,—"you can eat all the meringues yourself."

"Dear, dear!" says Letitia. "She is really very bad."

Almost as the clock strikes two, Molly enters the orchard, having given strict orders to Sarah to send Mr. Luttrell there when he arrives, in search of Mrs. Massereene.

She has dressed herself with great care, and very becomingly, being one of those people who know instantly, by instinct, the exact shade and style that suits them. Besides which, she has too much good taste and too much good sense to be a slave to that tyrant, Fashion.

Here and there the fruit-trees are throwing out tender buds, that glance half shrinkingly upon the world, and show a desire to nestle again amidst their leaves, full of a regret that they have left so soon their wiser sisters.

There is a wonderful sweetness in the air,—a freshness indescribable,—a rare spring perfume. Myriad violets gleam up at her, white and purple, from the roots of apple-trees, inviting her to gather them. But she heeds them not: they might as well be stinging-nettles, for all the notice she bestows upon them. Or is it that the unutterable hope in her own heart overpowers their sweetness?

All her thoughts are centred on the impending interview. How if she shall fail after all? What then? Her heart sinks within her, her hands grow cold with fear. On the instant the blackness of her life in such a case spreads itself out before her like a map,—the lonely pilgrimage,—the unlovely journey, without companionship, or warmth, or pleasant sunshine.

Then she hears the click of the garden gate, and the firm, quick step of him who comes to her up the hilly path between the strawberry-beds.

Drawing a deep breath, she shrinks within the shelter of a friendly laurel until he is close to her; then, stepping from her hiding-place, she advances toward him.

As she does so, as she meets him face to face, all her nervousness, all her inward trembling, vanishes, and she declares to herself that victory shall lie with her.

He has grown decidedly thinner. Around his beautiful mouth a line of sadness has fallen, not to be concealed even by his drooping moustache. He looks five years older. His blue eyes, too, have lost their laughter, and are full of a settled melancholy. Altogether, he presents such an appearance as should make the woman who loves him rejoice, provided she knows the cause.

When he sees her he stops short and grows extremely pale.

"You here!" he says, in tones of displeased surprise. "I understood from Mrs. Massereene you were at Herst. Had I known the truth, I should not have come."

"I knew that; and the lie was mine,—not Letitia's. I made her write it because I was determined to see you again. How do you do, Teddy?" says Miss Massereene, coming up to him, smiling saucily, although a little tremulously. "Will you not even shake hands with me?"

He takes her hand, presses it coldly, and drops it again almost instantly.

"I am glad to see you looking so well," he says, gravely, perhaps reproachfully.

"I am sorry to see you looking so ill," replies she, softly, and then begins to wonder what on earth she shall say next.

Mr. Luttrell, with his cane, takes the heads off two unoffending crocuses that, most unwisely, have started up within his reach. He is the gentlest-natured fellow alive, but he feels a vicious pleasure in the decapitation of those yellow, harmless flowers. His eyes are on the ground. He is evidently bent on silence. On such occasions what is there that can be matched in stupidity with a man?

"I got your letter," Molly says, awkwardly, when the silence has gone past bearing.

"I know."

"I did not answer it."

"I know that too," with some faint bitterness.

"It was too foolish a letter to answer," returns she, hastily, detecting the drop of acid in his tone. "And, even if I had written then, I should only have said some harsh things that might have hurt you. I think I was wise in keeping silence."

"You were. But I cannot see how you have followed up your wisdom by having me here to-day."

There is a little pause, and, then:

"I wanted so much to see you," murmurs she, in the softest, sweetest of voices.

He winces, and shifts his position uneasily, but steadily refuses to meet her beseeching eyes. He visits two more unhappy crocuses with capital punishment, and something that is almost a sigh escapes him; but he will not look up, and he will not trust himself to answer her.

"Have you grown cruel, Teddy?" goes on Molly, in a carefully modulated tone. "You are killing those poor crocuses that have done you no harm. And you are killing me too, and what harm have I done you? Just as I began to see some chance of happiness before us, you ran away (you a soldier, to show the white feather!), and thereby ruined all the enjoyment I might have known in my good fortune. Was that kind?"

"I meant to be kind, Molly; I am kind," replies he huskily.

"Very cruel kindness, it seems to me."

"Later on you will not think so."

"It strikes me, Teddy," says Miss Massereene, reprovingly, "you are angry because poor grandpapa chose to leave me Herst."

"Angry? Why should I be angry?"

"Well, then, why don't you say you are glad?"

"Because I am not glad."

"And why? For months and months we were almost crying for money, and when, by some most fortunate and unlooked-for chance, it fell to my lot, you behaved as though some overpowering calamity had befallen you. Why should not you be as glad of it as I am?"

"Don't speak like that, Molly," says Luttrell, with a groan. "You know all is over between us. The last time we met in London you yourself broke our engagement, and now do you think I shall suffer you to renew it? I am not so selfish as you imagine. I am no match for you now. You must forget me (it will not be difficult, I dare say), and it would be a downright shame to keep you to—to——"

"Then you condemn me to die an old maid, the one thing I most detest; while you, if you refuse to have me, Teddy, I shall insist on your dying an old bachelor, if only to keep me in countenance."

"Think of what the world would say."

"Who cares what it says? And, besides, it knows we were engaged once."

"And also that we quarreled and parted."

"And that we were once more united in London, where you did not despise the poor concert-singer. Were you not devoted to me then, when I had but few friends? Were you ashamed of me then?"

"Ashamed of you!"

"Once you threw me over," says Molly, with a smile that suits the month, being half tears, half sunshine. "Once I did the same by you. That makes us quits. Now we can begin all over again."

"Think of what all your friends will say," says he, desperately, knowing he is losing ground, but still persisting.

"Indeed I will, because all my friends are yours, and they will think as I do."

Two little tears steal from under her heavily-fringed lids, and run down her cheeks. Going nearer to him, she hesitates, glances at him shyly, hesitates still, and finally lays her head upon his shoulder.

Of course, when the girl you love lays her head upon your shoulder, there is only one thing to be done. Luttrell does that one thing. He instantly encircles her with his arms.

"See, I am asking you to marry me," says Molly, raising dewy eyes to his, and blushing one of her rare, sweet blushes. "I beg you to take me. If, after that, you refuse me, I shall die of shame. Why don't you speak, Teddy? Say, 'Molly, I will marry you.'"

"Oh, Molly!" returns the young man, gazing down on her despairingly, while his strong arms hold her fast, "if you were only poor. If this cursed money——"

"Never mind the money. What do I care whether I am rich or poor? I care only for you. If you go away, I shall be the poorest wretch on earth!"

"My angel! My own darling girl!"

"No!" with a little sob. "Say, 'My own darling wife!'"

"My own darling wife!" replies he, conquered.

"Then why don't you kiss me?" says Miss Massereene, softly, her face dangerously close to his; and Tedcastle, stooping, forges the last link that binds him to her forever.

"Ah!" says Molly, presently, laughing gayly, although the tears still lie wet upon her cheeks, "did you imagine for one instant you could escape me? At first I was so angry I almost determined to let you go,—as punishment; but afterward"—mischievously—"I began to think how unhappy you would be, and I relented."

"Then I suppose I must now buy you another ring for this dear little finger," says he, smiling, and pressing it to his lips.

"No,"—running her hand into her pocket, "at least, not an engagement ring. You may get me any other kind you like, because I am fond of rings; but I shall have no betrothal ring but the first you gave me. Look,"—drawing out a little case, and opening it until he sees within the original diamonds—his first gift to her—lying gleaming in their rich new setting. "These are yours; I saved them from the fire that day you behaved so rudely to them, and have had them reset."

"You rescued them?" he asks, amazed.

"At the risk of burning my fingers: so you may guess how I valued them. Now they are purified, and you must never get into such a naughty temper again. Promise."

"I promise faithfully."

"Now I shall wear it again," says Molly, regarding her ring lovingly, "under happier—oh, how much happier—circumstances. Put it on, Teddy, and say after me, 'Darling Molly, pardon me for having compelled you to ask my hand in marriage!'"

"I will not,"—laughing.

"You must. You are my property now, and must do as I bid you. So you may as well begin at once. Say it, sir, directly!"

He says it.

"Now you know what a horrible hen-pecking there will be for you in the future. I shall rule you with a rod of iron."

"And I shall hug my chains."

"Think what a life I am condemning you to. Are you not frightened? And all because—I cannot do without you. Oh, Teddy," cries Molly Bawn, suddenly, and without a word of warning, bursting into a passion of tears, and flinging herself into his willing arms, "are you not glad—glad—that we belong to each other again?"

"Time will show you how glad," replies he, softly. "I know now I could not have lived without you, my sweet,—my darling!"