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 Antig. 853-S57, 
 
 ILontron 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 IS87 
 
 All rights reserved
 
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 £j THE FOLLOWING PAGES, 
 
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 ARE DEDICATED TO 
 
 MY SISTER 
 
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 ^oth January 1887.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 THE HOUSE OF TRELINGHAM 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 A Journey towards the Sunset i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Sibylline Music . . . . . .11 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 O Richest Fortune sourly crost ! . . , .22 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Face of an Immortal . . . . 32 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 But thou to me art more than all ! . . -42
 
 \iii NTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER V] 
 
 I'Ai.l' 
 
 There gloom the dark broad Seas . . . -5' 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 In a Vain Shadow . . . . . .61 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 An EnCHAN 1 ED [SLAND . . . . -74 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Animum Pictura Pascit Inani .... 94 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Companioned by Diviner Hopes . . . .116 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Chase not the Rainbow . . • '3° 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 Speciosa Miracula . . . • • '45 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 Sweetest Eyes were ever seen . . . • ! 59 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 In Fairyland . . • • • • '75
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 PART II 
 A MOCK SUN 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 The Meeting of Fair Ladies . 
 
 • • 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Tableaux Vivants 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 Was not this Love indeed? . 
 
 PAGE 
 191 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 La Belle Fille Heureuse, Effaree et Sauvage . . 205 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 Eavesdropping ....... 216 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 The Celtic King Arthur 
 
 239 
 
 251 
 
 2 73
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART II 
 
 Continued 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 PARE 
 
 The Ordinances of the Gods . . . . i 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Eating the Lotus day by day . . . 19 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 Go not, Happy Day ! . . . . . -33 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Manibus Date Lilia Plenis . . . .40 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 Nec Diversa Tamen, Qualem Decet esse Sororum . 59 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 If Love be Free . . . -79
 
 w CONTENTS 
 
 PART III 
 ARE THE (;ODS AWAKE? 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 v\c.v. 
 
 The Deeps of Hell . . ... -97 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 Wrecked! . . . . . . . 117 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 Like Madness in the Brain . . . .134 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 Inter Mortuos Liher . . . . . .150 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 Anarchy in Purple . . . . . • K r < 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 Light or Lightning ? ...... 205 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 The Valley of Perpetual Dream .... 22, 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 Hymen, <» Hymen/ei ! . . ... 240
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Cry from off the Waters .... 257 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 The Furies Appeased ...... 278 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIi 
 Not Death but Love ...... 294
 
 I • 
 
 _• " "1 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE HOUSE OF TRELINGHAM 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A JOURNEY TOWARDS THE SUNSET 
 
 The train had been rushing westward for hours, and the 
 genius of the steam-kettle who drove it along was plainly 
 intent neither on the landscapes that in momentary glimpses 
 might be seen from the carriage-windows, nor on the 
 babble of conversation which, in fitful gusts, rose and fell 
 among the company it was- bearing to their several desti- 
 nies. All that the scientific, yet not time-keeping, demon 
 cared for was to reach his last station by the shortest route. 
 Nevertheless, glimpses of scenery caught in this way from 
 the train have an extraordinary fascination, sometimes giving 
 a whole country-side in one vivid sheet of lightning, where 
 every line is fixed as in a daguerreotype and can never be 
 forgotten. And what confessional or ear of Dionysius can 
 gather up such confidences as may be heard among chance 
 people in railway travelling ? It would seem that the silent 
 Briton, fenced round about with reserve as with Arctic ice- 
 bergs, fancies himself stranded on a desert island with the 
 companion who has got into his compartment at Basingstoke 
 or Rugby. Certain it is that he is apt, after exhibiting the 
 most profound indifference for his vis-a-vis, to unbosom 
 himself under such circumstances, as Robinson Crusoe 
 • vol. i. J5 b
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE i- \ u r 1 
 
 would have done to the first Englishman landing on Juan 
 Fernandez. .V it fell out, the spirit of the steam, or 
 
 any other, might have witnessed a scene of this kind, had 
 rept into a certain first-class carriage and lain snug in a 
 corner thereof watching until a couple of young men who 
 were its occUpants should from their slumbers. 
 
 Each .had taken his iic.ket.at tht same ticket-office ; each 
 had made, for tb'e-Sqmc-c- nei^t, and had established 
 
 himself in a corner diagonally as regarded the other. 1 
 had veiled his features behind a newspaper, and tried his 
 best to imagine that the impudent fellow who shared his 
 solitude did not exist. And each hoped to see the other 
 take himself off when the train stopped. But in vain ; it 
 was not to be. One station after another was left behind ; 
 the country grew more countrified ; the towns became of 
 less account ; the clouds began to move slowly towards the 
 . as though summoned to attend the last moments of a 
 dying king who would shroud his head in their splendours ; 
 the hours drew out to twice their length, as they will do 
 in travelling, and still no sign appeared of these unwilling 
 companions parting from one another. When they had 
 studied their fill of the daily wisdom purchased at the 
 London bookstall, each glared out of his window, noted 
 what seemed notable along the line, fixed his eyes steadily 
 — upon nothing, and at last, drawing back his head, fell into 
 uneasy sleep. And the train rushed on. Its genius might 
 have fallen asleep too, and have been travelling in his 
 dreams, for all the tokens of life in this compartment. 
 Then the sun's light came more slanting, and the train 
 seemed to be moving ever more and more into its pathway, 
 as if in time it would leave the solid earth behind and on 
 its wings of white vapour float into the sunset and be there 
 transfigured among the cloud-splendours. And as the 
 filled their compartment, both young men woke up. 
 That one of them who had been sitting by the dark win- 
 of the carriage, away from the sun. changed his 
 corner, and came and sat opposite the other. He was 
 desirous, apparently, of catching a glimpse of the sea, which 
 for more than an hour the train had been nearing, as the 
 dull thunder of waves on a shingly beach, somewhere below,
 
 chap, i A JOURNEY TOWARDS THE SUNSET 3 
 
 had testified. Being in such close neighbourhood, with 
 only a foot or so of space between them, it would have 
 been incumbent on any except British railway-travellers to 
 exchange some civil speeches. Perhaps that may have 
 been the reason why one of them, who did not look entirely 
 English, at last, after some hesitation, opened his lips and 
 said (but still with the haughty indifference which young 
 Englishmen assume towards those to whom they have not 
 been introduced), ' Is the next station Yalden?' 
 
 ' No ; the next but one,' answered his vis-a-vis, sinking 
 thereupon into stony or, as a Greek might express it, ada- 
 mantine silence. 
 
 The next station appeared, paused a moment, vanished, and 
 a reach of wild country came flying at the carriage-windows. 
 The first speaker looked at his watch, and began again. 
 ' The train is due at Yalden now,' he said ; ' we are late.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the other, ' nearly half an hour late ; trains 
 always are on this part of the line.' 
 
 The ice was broken, or rather, part of the iceberg gave 
 way. A remark about Bradshaw, another to the effect that 
 the tide was coming in, a third suggesting that it would be 
 a stormy night to judge by the clouds, led to the first 
 speaker's asking, as he looked once more out of the carriage- 
 window, ' Do you know whether Trelingham Court is far 
 from Yalden ? ' Now was the time for any hidden, curiosity- 
 loving sprite in the down train to prick up his ears and 
 listen. 
 
 ' Trelingham Court?' said the other in an inquiring tone. 
 1 Why, about six miles if one is a stranger ; under six, a 
 good deal, taking the short cut by St. Mirian.' 
 
 And as he looked across at his companion with more 
 attention than before an idea seemed to strike him as 
 possible, which in a moment or two must have grown from 
 possible to probable, for he said : 
 
 ' Excuse me, sir, perhaps you are going to Trelingham.' 
 
 ' Yes,' answered the other ; ' that is my journey's end.' 
 
 'And mine,' said his questioner. 'How very odd!' 
 He added, after a pause, and with considerable diffidence, 
 ' I am very likely going to ask an absurd question, but I 
 happened to see a portrait in this year's Academy of which
 
 i TB \NT1G01 i'akt i 
 
 you strongly remind me, and my cousin pointed it out 
 
 as ' 
 
 The first speaker interrupted him courteously. 'My 
 name,' he said, 'is Rupert Glanville, and a portrait of me 
 there certainly was, hung rather too near the sky-line, on 
 those much-enduring walls. But you must have observed it 
 closely to see a likeness between it and a chance traveller 
 on the railv, 
 
 ' I was about to remark,' said the other, ' that my cousin 
 pointed it out as that of the artist who was coming down to 
 Trelingham to paint the Great Hall. Else, I know so little 
 of art matters that I should hardly have remembered it.' 
 
 • Your cousin said so, did he ? ' asked Mr. Glanville 
 with an accent of surprise. ' I thought no one ' 
 
 ' It was not he,' said the other, laughing ; ' it was she. 
 Not my cousin, Lord Trelingham, but his daughter, Lady 
 May, who was inspecting the pictures that afternoon with 
 other young ladies, and made some of us fellows walk in 
 her train.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Mr. Glanville, ' I have never met Lady May 
 Davenant ; and I thought, I imagined, that only Lord 
 Trelingham knew what was proposed. Until I have seen 
 the Great Hall, and heard his plans more in detail, I cannot 
 tell whether anything will come of it, so far as I am con- 
 cerned. That is why I am now on my way to Trelingham 
 Court.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said the Earl's cousin, or Lady May's cousin, — 
 but I think Lady May's cousin sounds the prettier, the 
 more sentimental, as introducing this young gentleman (he 
 seemed about twenty), who should of course, were mine 
 not a story of real life, be our first or second lover, and 
 devoted to the Earl's daughter, — ' my cousin made no 
 secret of it, and I suppose her father made none. And 
 though I am such an ignoramus that I don't know one 
 style of painting from another, I remembered your portrait 
 all the more because a great deal was said about your 
 manner — isn't that the word? If I understood Lady May, 
 it is quite unlike what they SU] I Lord Trelingham 
 
 would have chosen. They were all loud in its praise ; but 
 they seemed to agree, or all except Lady May, that you, —
 
 chap, i A JOURNEY TOWARDS THE SUNSET 5 
 
 that, in short, there was a deal of Paganism in your 
 pictures. Is that so ? ' 
 
 ' Quite, I should fancy,' said Mr. Glanville, much 
 amused at the courteous bluntness, or blunt courtesy, of this 
 young man, to whom painting was clearly a far-off mystery, 
 like Chinese chess. ' Paganism would be the word for it 
 in the Earl's entourage. For he himself is by no means a 
 pagan.' 
 
 ' I should think not," said the other emphatically ; ' not 
 at all a Pagan, unless Ritualists are Pagans. But that was 
 the wonder. For, of course, he will not want paintings all 
 round him in which he cannot believe.' 
 
 ' That is just it,' replied Mr. Glanville ; ' you have hit 
 the nail on the head. Lord Trelingham does not want 
 pictures in which he cannot believe. He is no artist ; but 
 of all the men I have come across he has the finest sense 
 of what is genuine art and what is mere make-up and pre- 
 tence. He went to certain well-known masters and asked 
 them how they would paint the Epic of King Arthur ; 
 and they designed, every man of them, an impossible 
 boudoir idyll, a medieval dream, in the style of Tenny- 
 son. He looked round for some one that professed, at 
 all events, to paint realities ; and I know how astonished 
 he was on finding the " Paganism " of my canvases more 
 real than the " dim rich " Christianity of Launcelot and 
 Guinevere in the Laureate's blank verse. So we are going 
 to make trial whether I can paint the Arthurian history as 
 it must have happened, if it happened at all.' 
 
 To this learned speech the Earl's cousin made no 
 reply, perhaps because he did not understand it. About 
 epics, classical or medieval, Homeric or Arthurian, he never 
 had troubled himself since he left school ; and there he 
 cared only for the fighting in the Iliad, in which he would 
 have liked to join. Poetry meant less to him even than 
 painting ; but he did not lack brains, and he said by and 
 by : 
 
 ' Lord Trelingham is fond of art, but I always fancied 
 he mixed it up with religion. He is ever so High Church, 
 and such a Tory that I heard him say once there were 
 none left but himself and Lord Hallamshire. Shall you
 
 6 THE NEW ANTIGONE pari i 
 
 l>nt all that into your King Arthur? For unless you do, he 
 will not km ay what t< of it.' 
 
 'I in . ! Mr. Glanvillej 'who knows?' And he 
 
 laughed as if the suggestion had roused his fancy. ' King 
 Arthur \ rtainly High Church, and the Round Table 
 
 a brotherhood of Tory knights. But Lord Trelingham is 
 many things besides a Ritualist. He is an excellent art- 
 critic ; and when he came to my studio he talked much 
 of colouring and gradation of tone, without a syllable of 
 religion.' 
 
 1 He is certainly, as you remark,' said the other, ' not 
 one man, but several — half a dozen, perhaps. For in- 
 stance, when you see him at home, you will take him by his 
 dress for — what do you think ? ' Mr. Glanville could not 
 say. 
 
 ' Xo, of course, no one could guess. But with his long 
 velvet coat reaching below his knees, his skull-cap, and flow- 
 ing white beard, he might very well pass in a play for 
 some sort of astrologer. And the curious thing, as you will 
 find, is that he has been given that way, and practises now 
 occasionally.' 
 
 'Astrology and Ritualism, — a strange mixture !' said Mr. 
 ( llanville ; ' how does he reconcile them ? ' 
 
 ' Beyond me to say,' replied the Earl's cousin ; ' but he 
 does. He will probably draw your horoscope if you can 
 tell him the day, hour, and minute when you were born, 
 and whether the room in which you first saw the light, as 
 lie calls it, looked east or west' 
 
 Mr. Glanville's lip curled scornfully. 'He will not 
 draw my horoscope,' he said ; ' has he drawn yours ? ' 
 
 ' I believe so,' answered the other ; ' but what is to 
 befall the unlucky Tom Davenant nobody knows, for it 
 is apparently sonv too terrible, and my cousin has 
 
 locked up the prediction and never speaks of it.' 
 
 A pity if anything should befall him, let me tell the 
 reader, for Tom Davenant, as he sat there with the fun 
 breaking out at the corners of his mouth, was a marvel- 
 lously good-looking fellow, well-made in ever}- limb, tall and 
 broad-shouldered, with a face so clear and open that to see 
 him was to like him. The artist, since their conversation
 
 CHAP. i A JOURNEY TOWARDS THE SUNSET 7 
 
 began, had been scanning with his practised eye the almost 
 too delicate features of this young English Apollo, meaning 
 hereafter to translate him into his own realm of paganism, 
 putting a little more mind into the great blue eyes (there- 
 was enough in the mobile lips), and surrounding him with 
 the graceful Hellenic forms to which, in spite of his 
 modern garb, he was manifestly akin. 
 
 ' An Apollo,' said Mr. Glanville to himself, ' much 
 exercised at the silver bow — that is to say, in slaying birds 
 and beasts, fox-hunting and hare-hunting, but destitute of 
 lute and learning, and very shy of the Muses.' And he 
 went on with his mental portraiture. 
 
 I wonder what Tom Davenant would have made of 
 these reflections had his companion uttered them. He 
 was not conscious in the least of the beauty Nature had 
 given him, and thought fishing, hunting, and boating were 
 the only business a man had in life, with smoking for 
 a relaxation. He was a perfectly beautiful, healthy, guile- 
 less, and good-tempered youth, fond of every beast he did 
 not kill. But as for Apollo and his lute, he preferred a 
 good fowling-piece to all the lutes in the world. And he 
 was not exactly shy of the Muses, if Mr. Glanville meant 
 thereby feminine society; but he thought them uninteresting. 
 Whether he cared for Lady May the uneven tenor of this 
 chronicle must show. 
 
 The train was stopping at Yalden, a steep, scrambling, 
 irregular village that came stumbling down the red sand- 
 stone cliff as though it had meant, in a frenzied or 
 heroic mood, to plunge straight into the sea, but had been 
 pulled up at the last moment and was now unable to get 
 back again. But the sea dealt kindly with it, not suffering 
 trees to grow indeed, and often sending great sheets of 
 spray high up into its face, yet tempering the air and 
 encouraging the fuchsias and rhododendrons to flourish 
 plenteously in the open, so that when our travellers arrived 
 the village was all colour, fragrance, and freshness, its houses 
 embowered in the exquisite long creeping plants which knew 
 how to shield themselves from the sea-wind, and the red sand- 
 stone glowing, as the rays of sunset kindled it, like a heavy 
 purple cloak flung carelessly on the ground. The waters were
 
 8 VTIGONL pa] 
 
 restless under a freshening breeze, thin lines of foam Btretch- 
 ing themselves along and curling back as they touched the 
 sands, which at this point make a shelly, narrow, and un- 
 dulating beach. A litl ond the vi • the 
 sandstone yielded to some harder and more primitive rock, 
 might be seen a tiny creek hemmed in by huge cliffs, under 
 which, brawling and defiant, rushed one of those short, 
 swift rivers that delight in quarrelling with every stone they 
 meet and fall into the sea all foam and trouble. It was 
 the Yale, from which Yalden takes its name ; and its brief 
 journey began on the moor above. There, too, the railway 
 paused, shareholders not being in love with steep gradients 
 and preferring to economise their resources, while the one 
 or two small inns of Yalden added to theirs by sending 
 flys to meet passengers on alighting. 
 
 Mr. Tom Davenant had telegraphed that he might be 
 looked for by such a train, and as he and Mr. Glanville 
 leaped on the platform they saw the Earl's brougham 
 awaiting them. With windows down and the carriage- 
 going at a good pace over the moor, it was a pleasant 
 evening drive ; though Tom Davenant would have pre- 
 ferred riding, which was to him, as to an Usbeg Tartar, 
 the natural way of getting from one place to another. He 
 had talked a great deal for him, being of a silent and self- 
 contained disposition, in the last half-hour of their journey; 
 and he was not sorry that Mr. Glanville left him to his 
 thoughts as they drove along. The artist, indeed, was no 
 more inclined to speak than the hunting-man by his side. 
 He was all eye, gazing out upon the rolling moor which 
 unfolded itself before them, now up, now down, seemingly 
 boundless, except in one direction where the sky bent over 
 it to the western waters, fringing it in this light with a 
 golden line that never wavered, while on the wide waste- 
 there lay a stillness, intensified by the dying murmur of the 
 sea they were leaving behind. And here again the red 
 sandstone glowed purple, the heather looked glorious as 
 the rain of sunshine fell upon it, the clouds grew more 
 solemn and appeared to be drawing together, trailing after 
 them fiery streamers, and leaving wide spaces of tender 
 pale green vapour, which would melt later on into the dark
 
 chap, i A JOURNEY TOWARDS THE SUNSET 9 
 
 blue of the evening sky and make room for the stars. 
 Strange, too, it was to see the lonely boulders, each like a 
 ghost standing in his place on the moor, brought thither in 
 the long past time when a river of ice travelled over it, one 
 knows not how, one cannot reckon when, grinding its slow 
 way onward till it slipped into the ocean, leaving these 
 tokens that once it had been. There were dips full of 
 verdure and flowering shrubs, reaches of bare sand, and, as 
 the road bent down and away from the sea, a dark copse 
 or two, sheltered, as on a lee shore, by the higher ground, 
 to whose sides they clung timorously. As the carriage 
 turned a steep corner and began to ascend again, Glanville 
 perceived that they were entering a narrow valley, which 
 widened as it went up to the moor by easy steps, and was 
 clothed to the right with underwood which the sun had 
 now ceased to illuminate, while to the left all was heath and 
 furze. They were entering the Park. They passed one 
 gate and then another ; above the trees, which here found 
 no difficulty in growing, came out the turrets of a great 
 house. A few more minutes brought the carriage to the 
 broad gravel sweep of a terrace facing south-west, along 
 which ran the massive undecorated front of Trelingham 
 Court ; and the Earl himself, who was walking to and fro 
 as if in expectation of his guests, came forward to meet 
 them. He gave each a hand, and bade the artist wel- 
 come. 
 
 Lord Trelingham certainly bore out his cousin's half- 
 mocking description of him as 'an astrologer in a play'; 
 neither white beard, nor velvet gown, nor skull-cap was 
 wanting. He wore on his little finger an amethyst in- 
 scribed with Solomon's seal ; and his wrinkled, tawny face, 
 dim eyes, and lean, tremulous figure heightened the effect, 
 making him altogether like a man who had stepped down 
 out of a picture and was taking his evening walk, regardless 
 of the fact that he had been buried and his portrait counted 
 among the family heirlooms for a couple of centuries. He 
 was not so tall as his young cousin, but had an air of 
 dignity which softened to the utmost good-nature when the 
 shyness or embarrassment of others called it forth. As he 
 stood on the terrace, enjoying the prospect and pointing
 
 ro THE NEW ANTIGONE paut i 
 
 out the way they had come to Glanville, the art it could 
 not help admiring the beautiful old man, and asking him- 
 self whether immense wealth and high rank always did 
 
 til human goodness, as is commonly said. Here was an 
 unspoiled rich man, one of the great ones of the earth, yet 
 so gentle and unaffected that to live with him would imply 
 neither time-serving nor ceremonious posture-making. It 
 might, however, involve superstitious practices, if the Earl 
 were bent on winning disciples to astrology. And Glanville, 
 who had a lively fancy, began to smile at a Burke's Peerage 
 recorded in the stars. 
 
 They went in, passing through the Great Hall which was 
 to be the scene of Glanville's achievements. It was a 
 magnificent room, opening straight on the terrace, and de- 
 signed for the solemn banquets of former days, when a man 
 feasted his tenants and neighbours at the same tables and 
 counted his guests by the hundred. It was lighted from 
 above, but at the farther end an immense window reach- 
 ing from floor to ceiling gave a view of the inner court, 
 with its lawn and fountain now in shadow, and a screen 
 of dark foliage, the beginning of an extensive plantation. 
 Trelingham Court was built in collegiate fashion, sheltering 
 its woods from the sea, and sheltered by them in turn 
 from the north-east. ' In half an hour,' said the Earl, 'we 
 shall dine, but in a less formal dining-room ;' and he left 
 Glanville in the butler's charge. That stately gentleman, it 
 is needless to observe, was, though perfectly well-bred, much 
 more ceremonious than his master. He perpetuated in a 
 lower sphere what one has heard of the manners of la 
 vieille cour, that Versailles the graces of which must have 
 been hopelessly lost during the French Revolution but for 
 such fortunate survivals. In this dignified way Glanville 
 was shown to an apartment overlooking the front terrace, 
 and giving views of the broken and rock -strewn line of 
 coast, beyond which the waters spread out in a golden 
 sheet. The sun was sinking, clear and ruddy, on their extreme 
 edge. It was an hour to muse or write verses rather than 
 to dine. But the great British evening sacrifice called for 
 its votary, and Glanville proceeded to attire himself in the 
 garb of blackness appropriate thereto.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SIBYLLINE MUSIC 
 
 On entering the drawing-room he found some ten or twelve 
 persons, of whom he knew none but his host, standing 
 about in the mournful way which seems to have been 
 prescribed by a Plutonian master of ceremonies for the 
 minutes preceding dinner. Every one was hungry, and 
 even the ladies looked pensive or distracted, for the hour 
 was late. Glanville had no gift of taking in a company at 
 a glance ; he was led forward blindly, introduced to Lady 
 May Davenant, who presided over her father's household 
 (for the Earl was a widower), and whose face, as she was 
 standing with her back to the light, he could scarcely see, 
 — bowed submissively to another lady whose name he did 
 not catch, but to whom he offered his arm with the readi- 
 ness required of him, dinner being that instant announced ; 
 and moved on to the dining-room not unwillingly, for all 
 the romantic scene of lights upon the sea which curtains 
 now shut out and the flowers and subdued lamps of a 
 dinner-table replaced. 
 
 Dazzled though he often was on coming into a room, 
 Glanville had quick eyes and ears. When, in Homeric 
 phrase, his mind was getting the better of its desire of meat 
 and drink, — in other words, when an excellent soup and a 
 glass of old sherry left him philosophically calm and capable 
 of observation, — he looked across the ferns and surveyed 
 the assembled guests at his leisure. Mr. Tom Davenant, 
 who had followed him into the drawing-room, was now 
 sitting opposite by the side of a clerical-looking lady whose 
 partner in life was not far to seek ; for the only clergyman
 
 THE NEW ./-• pam i 
 
 present (lie had said , but of < Glanville did 
 
 not hear him) at that m w all eyes by remarkii 
 
 in a cheerful voice to the Earl that his two volumes of 
 the life of King Arthur would be out to-morrow. Glan- 
 ville, a little alarmed at the announcement, earnestly scruti- 
 nised the speaker's countenance. It was a bright, good- 
 humoured face, betokening no malice, and made venerable 
 by the crown of white hair which set off a noble-looking 
 head. Lord Trelingham, however, replied that Mr. Trus- 
 combe's work could not have appeared at a better time ; it 
 would no doubt help Mr. Glanville to more vividly repro- 
 duce the local colouring which their frescoes in the Gr< 
 Hall would demand. Mr. Truscombe was the clergyman 
 of the parish, expressly invited to meet the artist on the 
 ground of his being learned beyond all others in British 
 antiquities, and already famous by his great book on the 
 holy wells of Cornwall and Cumbria. Glanville received 
 this piece of news with a polite air, but inwardly began to 
 chafe at the appearance of King Arthur and British anti- 
 quities during dinner. No one could be more sensitive, or 
 less given to the jargon of his trade than he. So sensitive, 
 indeed, was the man, that he had not yet overcome his 
 vexation on hearing from Tom Davenant that the Earl had 
 spoken of him as ' the artist who was to paint the Great 
 Hall.' He did not know that he should paint it. One 
 thing was certain : if he undertook the design he must be 
 left to his own inspirations, or it would be a failure. He 
 had hoped to come down as an invited guest with no pre- 
 liminary flourish of trumpets, to meditate upon the work 
 in solitude, alone with Art, his unseen mistress ; and 
 here was a whole dinner-table ready perhaps to ask him, 
 'What were his ideas?' or, worse still, to bring out their 
 own by way of suggestion. Glanville was a fiery, shy, un- 
 manageable spirit, quite beyond Lord Trelingham's compre- 
 hension. The Earl could not have dreamt what thoughts 
 were passing through his mind at the mention of Mr. 
 Truscombe's King Arthur and the short discussion to 
 which it gave rise. For an instant the design which 
 had brought Glanville from London was in danger. He 
 had more than once started at the shadow of interference
 
 chap, ii SIBYLLINE MUSIC 13 
 
 and flung his work aside. Could he but have done so 
 now ! Innocent Mr. Truscombe would then have proved 
 himself the Dens ex machina, the divine agency that cuts 
 an otherwise insoluble knot and gives the tragic story a 
 happy ending, — or rather, in this case, the tragedy would 
 never have begun. But no, the personages of the play, 
 on the very point of falling asunder and going out by their 
 several exits, were drawn once more by invisible threads 
 into a fated group. Glanville mastered, though not without 
 an effort, the spasm of rage that had seized upon him. At 
 clever evasions he was skilful ; and, while he took care that 
 there should be no talk of King Arthur that evening, so 
 far as he was concerned, only a very keen observer would 
 have known how angry the allusion had made him. It 
 was an evil omen. Instead of the ' auspicious bird ' with 
 which he had hoped to begin, he felt as if a raven or 
 other ill-boding visitant were flapping its wings over 
 the painted scene in which already his imagination was 
 roving. 
 
 Conversation at the Earl's end of the table floated to a 
 fresh topic. Another voice struck in, that of Lord Hallam- 
 shire, one of his oldest friends, and, like himself, devoted 
 to the interests of the catholicising party in the Church 
 of England. Lord Hallamshire presided at meetings in- 
 numerable for the adoption, defence, or further strengthen- 
 ing of the eastward position ; visited the confessors of the 
 faith in prison 3 subscribed handsomely to missionary efforts 
 for explaining to the natives of the Andaman and neigh- 
 bouring islands the exact difference between a cope and a 
 chasuble ; and was a large, good, dull man, with heavy 
 brows and an immovable countenance. His enormous 
 nose, as I have often observed in persons of Lord Hallam- 
 shire's type, indicated solidity rather than sagacity, and a 
 firm grasp of the prosaic side of things. He was now, after 
 some floundering about, holding straight on in an account 
 of what had been accomplished by the Guild of St. Austell 
 to get the orders of the English Church fully recognised by 
 their Eastern brethren. Their success with the Catholicus 
 of Babylon, so far, had been all they could wish. 
 
 'The Catholicus of Babylon !' said Glanville, who had
 
 U THE NEW ANTIGONE PABt i 
 
 ■ 1 his good-humour j 'is that the same as the Pope 
 of Rome?' 
 
 Tom Davenant looked at the Earl and broke into a 
 very pleasant smile. But Lord Trelingham, who had no 
 
 sense of the ludicrous, replied with much gravity, 'The 
 same as the Pope of Rome ! Oh dear, no ! I see your 
 ike, which was quite natural. It is true that St. Peter 
 dates an epistle from Babylon which our brethren of the 
 Western Obedience interpret as Rome. But the Catholicus 
 is independent of Rome, like our own archbishop. He 
 sits in the place of St. ' He hesitated, trying to re- 
 member the name. 
 
 'St. Daniel?' inquired Tom Davenant, to the Earl's 
 consternation, who became yet more confused and quite 
 at a loss. The young man continued innocently, ' I know 
 I learnt some poetry at school about Babylon where Daniel 
 comes in as a sort of bishop. It began — 
 
 1 " Belshazzar gave a feast at Babylon in his hall." ' 
 
 'Be quiet, Tom,' said Lady May, from the end of the 
 table. 'You might at least quote accurately. You have 
 spoilt the rhythm of the verse.' Then, turning to her father, 
 ' St. Paphnutius is the name,' she said. 
 
 Glanville, who had not observed Lady May hitherto, 
 looked at her in amazement. It was rude, but how could 
 he help it ? Was she an embodied dictionary of ecclesi- 
 astical worthies, — a blue-stocking, thus to hand her father 
 a name like Paphnutius as unconcerned and gracefully as 
 though it were a cup of tea? What was her age? She 
 seemed six or seven-and-twenty ; yes, it was the period 
 when ladies began to do these things. He disliked learned 
 women ; they seemed to him unfeminine, the most beauti- 
 ful thing in the world spoilt. And so he looked too stead- 
 fastly at Lady May. She might have noticed, had not 
 the younger lady whom Glanville had taken into dinner, 
 and who had been hitherto very quiet, added to the bizarre 
 effect of Daniel and Belshazzar by remarking, 'My dear 
 May, I met this very Catholicus of Babylon, who has said 
 such civil things of your church, last week in Paris, at 
 Madame de Mont-Bazcillc's. An extraordinarily handsome
 
 chap. II SIBYLLINE MUSIC 15 
 
 man, of about thirty-six. He has a face like a statue, and 
 the darkest of dark eyes. But his beard was not so long as 
 I expected. His costume was splendid, — a kind of Oriental 
 satin, of which even Worth does not know the name, for I 
 asked him. And charmingly made up with a ruche, you 
 know, of strange old lace. I daresay it cost a fortune. 
 Monseigneur Sidarlik they called him.' 
 
 'That is the name,' said Lord Hallamshire; 'it is odd 
 you should have met him in Paris. His letter to the Guild 
 was dated Constantinople.' 
 
 ' Oh, he came on account of the slave-trade,' said the 
 lady. ' I heard why, but it has gone out of my head.' 
 
 ' Doubtless,' said Lord Trelingham in his gentle voice, 
 ' it was to ask the French Government whether they could 
 not stop the importation of slaves into Syria. I hope he 
 succeeded in his benevolent mission.' 
 
 ' I remember now,' said the young lady ; ' no, it was very 
 amusing. Monseigneur Sidarlik came to consult a great 
 firm in Paris which gives young girls a dot, — what are 
 they called? Ah, yes, the Prix Montyon de F Orient ; they 
 send them to the East, and by way of Armenia to Russia, 
 where they marry into the households of our great nobles. 
 The Catholicus is their agent in his part of the world ; and 
 the number exported had fallen off, and he came to make 
 fresh arrangements. We were all so much amused at the 
 idea of going to Asia for a husband.' 
 
 Lord Trelingham looked aghast. ' My dear Countess,' 
 he said, ' you must be mistaken. This is dreadful. The 
 Catholicus would never engage in such proceedings ; he is 
 perfectly orthodox. You must have heard the wrong 
 story.' 
 
 Lord Hallamshire thought so too. The Countess 
 shrugged her shoulders and did not argue the point ; but 
 she held her own opinion. Whether, indeed, she were 
 maligning a blameless prelate, or casting a powerful side- 
 light on the manners and customs of Babylonian Christians, 
 in any case, the subject became too difficult to dwell 
 upon. Lady May inquired of Tom Davenant what he had 
 been doing. He bethought himself of the remarkable 
 meeting with Glanville, and drew the artist into the conver-
 
 [6 Til ' ANTIGV PABT I 
 
 sation ; and the Earl's daughter, though her sentences were 
 brief, and she guided their talk rather than shared in it, 
 kept them oft* the dangerous themes of painting and re 
 i. Her expression, while she thus fulfilled the duties 
 of her place, was somewhat fatigued. She wore an air of 
 listlessness. But her lips were proud and firm ; and Glan- 
 ville found himself comparing her voice to the sound of a 
 harp. It was a rich contralto, full of depth and resonance, 
 which gave the commonest words a feeling. What she 
 spoke was not trivial, but it could not be intimate, uttered 
 across a dining-table ; yet there was something, — there was 
 a story to make out, Glanville fancied, though he could not 
 have said why. If she were a blue-stocking, then blue- 
 stockings might be wonderfully impressive. Lady May 
 rose, and the gentlemen fell into politics when they were 
 left to themselves. But Glanville sat considering. He 
 was haunted by the look and still more by the voice of his 
 hostess. 
 
 She was not exactly beautiful — or was she ? The 
 features were regular, the eyes dark and full ; cheek and 
 throat of a ruddy brown, and hair as black as night. There 
 was intelligence in the forehead, and a proud decision in 
 her movements. Yet in those dark eyes was a far-off look, 
 uncertain, questioning, in the closed lips a habit of self- 
 repression. Could it be that she was unhappy ? Passion- 
 ate she seemed by temperament, inclining to despise those 
 about her. And the voice again, — ' fire and sweetness,' 
 he said to himself. ' Am I falling in love?' he concluded, 
 with an inward smile. But he was glad when the I 
 invited them to join the ladies. He wanted to hear the 
 harp-like tones, to study the character a little more. 
 
 He was fortunate. The windows of the drawing-room 
 opened on the terrace; and a mild evening, with the D 
 making daylight all over the land and shimmering softly 
 out at sea, drew them into the open air. It was not a 
 formal party. Except Glanville, they were all old acquaint- 
 ance ; and Mr. and Mrs. Truscombe were, that night, stay- 
 ing like the rest at Trelingham. Tom Davenant went 
 away to smoke with the clergyman ; the others fell into 
 little groups ; and Lady May, in her quality of hostess,
 
 chap, ii SIBYLLINE MUSIC 17 
 
 came to Mr. Glanville where he stood with the Earl, and 
 inquired whether he found his room comfortable. Her 
 father turned to her, ' Thank you so much, my dear,' he 
 said, ' for helping me to the name of St. Paphnutius. 
 What a wonderful memory you have ! I cannot re- 
 member names at all, and it gets one into such difficulties 
 when one has to make a speech. But you never forget 
 them.' 
 
 ' It is easier,' said Lady May gently, ' to remember a 
 name for you, papa, even if it is so out of the way as 
 Paphnutius, than to see you in trouble over it.' 
 
 ' So,' thought Glanville, ' she is not a church dictionary 
 after all ; she is only an affectionate daughter. I am glad 
 of it.' 
 
 Just then Lord Trelingham was called away. The 
 artist found himself alone with the lady, and was not a 
 little surprised when, after a pause of a moment or two, she 
 began, ' I fear Mr. Truscombe's new book will not be so 
 agreeable to you as to the good man himself. It is a pity 
 the publication should occur just when you are designing 
 your plans for the Great Hall.' 
 
 Glanville could only say in some confusion, ' Really, I 
 don't know. Why do you think so ? Perhaps I did not 
 show sufficient interest in the Life of King Arthur. I hope 
 I was not in any way rude to Mr. Truscombe ?' 
 
 ' Oh no,' said Lady May ; 'but there was something you 
 did not like. My father is the most considerate of men, 
 and admires art and artists. But he does not quite, I 
 think, enter into the nature of their work ; he does not 
 know that inspiration is easily checked. He would fancy 
 that you and Mr. Truscombe might, to some extent, com- 
 bine your gifts in the decoration on which he has set his 
 heart. But if I understand — perhaps I do not — the quality 
 of your painting, I should think it impossible for you to do 
 so. And I saw you were annoyed.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Glanville, half ashamed of himself, ' I was. 
 I may not have any inspiration to boast of; and no doubt 
 Mr. Truscombe could teach me about the local colour. 
 But I have always worked alone, and a partner would be 
 unendurable to me. At least,' he continued, with a sort of 
 vol. 1. c
 
 PART 1 
 
 laugh, 'there is only one from whom I ask advice, and I 
 seldom take it thi 
 
 • He must be a man ofgeni I Lady May, not sar- 
 
 ally, but as ii Uy thought s<>, ' for your painting 
 
 so much that is pe< uliar. I cannot imagine two minds, 
 much less two pairs of hands, engaged in it.' 
 
 The artist felt astonished ; had this lady studied his 
 works closely? And why was her admiration so un- 
 reserved? He answer 
 
 ' My friend does not paint, but he knows all that has 
 been done in painting, and everything else, I think. His 
 advice, like that of the demon of Socrates, is chiefly nega- 
 tive. But it is the severest criticism ; it takes down the 
 studio walls and lets in the sun.' 
 
 'How very interesting!" cried Lady May ; 'and is he 
 known ? Has he written anything ? ' 
 
 ' Not a line. He is quite unknown, and will never be 
 famous.' 
 
 They fell into silence. The Earl did not return. His 
 daughter, as if absorbed in thought, looked out over the 
 moor towards the distant sparkle of the waves. At last she 
 said again, ' I wonder by what secret association it is that 
 one thinks of r in and storm on such an evening as this? 
 There is not a cloud to be seen.' 
 
 ' And are you thinking of rain and storm ?' .-.aid the artist. 
 Iy imagination, I suppose I must call it, has been 
 whispering to me of rain since we came on the terrace. 
 Rain, coming down soft and steady, without a moment's 
 pause ; and the wind sighing through it, yet not blowing it 
 away. It is strange that fancy should play these tricks. 
 What is the association with a still landscape and radiant 
 moon ? ' 
 
 'Contrast,' said Glanville ; 'if we only knew why con- 
 trasts suggest each other, or why extremes meet. It is too 
 deep a philosophy. But,' he went on slowly, ' there is 
 something in your description of dark rain and wind that 
 reminds me of I know not what musician ; of some one who 
 has put into his composition the voice of a long-continued, 
 hopeless, weeping tempest, which sobs as though it would 
 fain hush itself to sleep and could not'
 
 chap, u SIBYLLINE MUSIC 19 
 
 ' Oh,' said Lady May, looking pleased, ' have you 
 those feeling when you hear music ? Do you translate it 
 into figures of people moving, scenery, a sense that you are 
 journeying on and on into unknown lands ? I am con- 
 stantly doing so.' 
 
 ' And I, too,' replied he ; ' but in my fanciful accompani- 
 ment there are always battles, mighty conflicts upon which 
 the fate of the world seems to hang. Yes, it was a 
 movement of Chopin's that you described, the very spirit 
 of the rain moaning to itself secretly. Do you play ? You 
 may have the music' 
 
 'Yes, I play,' said the lady, 'and there are many of 
 Chopin's works in the drawing-room.' She turned and 
 looked towards it. No lights were visible. The moon 
 made a great square of silver where it shone in at the long 
 windows opening to the ground. 
 
 ' Then,' said Glanville, ' let me ask you to lay the rain- 
 spirit with Chopin's nocturne. Let it weep itself to death 
 on the piano.' 
 
 They walked towards the entrance ; and as they were 
 going in the Countess joined them. ' May,' she said, ' are 
 you going to play ? I want you to choose something that 
 will take the moonlignt out of my eyes. It has made me 
 quite sleepy; and you must wake me up.' And she threw 
 herself with the look of a tired child on a sofa near the 
 open window. 
 
 'No, Karina,' replied Lady May; 'I shall send you to 
 sleep now. You can wake up afterwards.' Glanville lit 
 the wax candles in a pair of antique sconces which adorned 
 the piano. Their feeble light left a deep shadow in the 
 centre of the room. The moon looked in at the window ; 
 on the terrace outside nothing stirred. It was a lovely 
 scene, hushed in silence ; a world all fresh, calm, and 
 beautiful, lifted up into night and poesy. The music, 
 found as soon as looked for, was opened ; Glanville stood 
 by, to turn over the leaves ; and Lady May, seating herself, 
 struck the opening chords. 
 
 A few bars of sad, slow meditation, passing into lament, 
 into longing, expectancy, disappointment ; and then the 
 sighing music seemed to gather the winds out of heaven,
 
 20 THE NEW ANTIGL. i-aiu i 
 
 and breathe all its sorrow into them and send them wander- 
 ing abroad ; and by and by, as the listener fancied, the 
 skies had turned to rain, and all round were the falling 
 showers, soft, steady, unbroken, as they had been pictured 
 to him, every moment more sombre, blotting out the light. 
 He seemed to hear the thunderous harmonies with their 
 muffled, threatening roll ; and fire came into the rain 
 and struck through it ; and the music grew shrill and 
 weird, only to sink down again into faint monotonous 
 sobbing. All at once, as it seemed coming to an end, 
 there rose up as from the heart of the spent storm a human 
 voice. With not unlike cadence and alternation of feel- 
 ing, now proudly defiant, now self-accusing and full of 
 regret, now fainting to utter weariness, it in some way 
 repeated and intensified the passionate throbbings of 
 Chopin's nocturne. Glanville started from his reverie. 
 It was Lady May, improvising as in subtle reminiscence of 
 the notes before her a chant in some southern tongue, that 
 recalled the phases of the strange composition and put 
 upon them a definite and heart-shaking meaning. The 
 words were foreign to Glanville's ear ; the accents of grief 
 were not ; and he stood motionless and embarrassed, like- 
 one who witnesses an outbreak of unsuspected wildness 
 where all has hitherto been self-control. Lady May took 
 no heed of him ; she had forgotten his existence it seemed, 
 and she went on shaping, as he could not doubt, her words 
 to the music, until in the gentlest whisperings of resigna- 
 tion they became softer and softer, and at last went out in 
 silence. It was like seeing the curtain fall on a tragedy. 
 
 ' Oh, May,' cried the Countess, starting up, ' do you 
 call that playing me to sleep? I am trembling all over. 
 Where did you find that horrible piece of music? It was 
 enough to curdle the blood in one's veins. Do you not 
 think,' she said to the artist, ' that my cousin ought to be 
 ashamed of frightening us so? I always say she has the 
 voice of a Medea, or a stage-murderess. Don't you agree 
 with me ? ' 
 
 Glanville muttered dissent or acquiescence, it would be 
 impossible to say which, and could not take his eyes off 
 Lady May. What sort of temperament was it that broke
 
 chap. II SIBYLLINE MUSIC 21 
 
 loose in such perilous fashion ? Was it only the genius of 
 an actress, metamorphosed by fate into an earl's daughter, 
 yet unable to subdue its natural longings and in this way 
 satisfying them ? A Medea ! There could be no question 
 of it. Were that untamable disposition to be roused, it 
 would, while the frenzy lasted, be as little capable of pity 
 as the tigress. And yet how tender had some passages of 
 the improvisation sounded ! He was at a loss ; he could 
 not tell what to think, except that in this high-born, delicately- 
 nurtured lady, there were unknown possibilities of good 
 and evil. 
 
 She met his glance, and said, with a shade of diffidence, 
 ' I learned to improvise when I was a child in Italy ; and 
 the pleasure of attempting it is sometimes irresistible. I 
 hope you were not frightened, like my cousin Karina. She 
 is terrified at everything.' 
 
 'Indeed, I am not,' said Karina petulantly; 'but I 
 never could endure your grand style of singing — you 
 know I adore you when you are quiet — since the day it 
 made me fall off the steps at Genoa with surprise.' 
 
 'You were a silly child,' said Lady May, ' and you fell 
 because you would look back and make faces at me, instead 
 of seeing where you were going.' And they both laughed 
 at the remembrance. 
 
 The rest of the party now came in ; tea was handed by 
 the orthodox ministers that accompanied the urn ; Lady 
 May did all that could be required at the hands of an 
 attentive daughter and hostess; and Glanville struggled 
 with an eerie feeling, as if he had seen her in the form 
 of panther or tigress vanishing in the twilight, which had 
 now succeeded on the moon's going down. When he re- 
 tired to his room the feeling was still upon him, uncanny, 
 disagreeable. He was not equal to much railway travelling, 
 and fatigue soon sent him to sleep ; but in the dim caverns 
 of unconsciousness he seemed again and again to hear the 
 falling rain, drip, drip, drip, and the murmurs, fierce or 
 tender, of unassuaged passion, its endless long-drawn sigh- 
 ings, till he sank into depths of slumber where no voice 
 came.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 O RICHEST FORTUNE SOURLY CROST ! 
 
 When Glanville awoke, rather late next morning, and 
 glanced out of his window, he found that his dream had 
 not been all a dream. The early hours must have been 
 stormy, for the air had a moist fragrance, and the foliage 
 on every side seemed to be glistening with rain-drops. It 
 would be an uncertain, changing day, rather dark than 
 light, and not favourable for painting had he intended it. 
 But the painting of the Great Hall was a long way off. He 
 did not know whether his designs would meet with ap- 
 proval now that a professed (and probably ridiculous) anti- 
 quarian had come on the scene, to vex him with pedantic 
 theories. He knew that Lord Trelingham had in these 
 matters sound sense and judgment, however little of either 
 he might display where the ritual of his creed was con- 
 cerned. But he wanted no Mr. Truscombe to meddle ; 
 and he was resolved to keep him at arm's length. Whilst 
 girding himself up with these and the like fierce thoughts 
 of combat, he heard the breakfast-bell. It was, for a 
 wonder, sweet-toned and musical; and, as he hurried down, 
 he asked himself whether Lady May shared his intense dis- 
 like of gongs and other such barbaric instruments, and 
 whether it was by her doing that the first morning-sounds 
 were made pleasant to waking ears. 
 
 ' You see,' he said, on wishing her good-morning, ' it 
 was your prophetic sense that made you think of rain. It 
 seems to have come in good earnest. Last night you must 
 have heard it creeping over the sea.' 
 
 'Then I am a prophetess of evil,' said Lady May, 'for
 
 chap, in RICHEST FORTUNE SOURLY CROST ! 23 
 
 there has not been such a storm this long while. I could 
 not sleep for the uproar it made.' 
 
 'No,' said Tom Davenant, coming in, 'you are too 
 nervous. But have you seen what has happened in the 
 picture-gallery ? ' 
 
 The Earl followed him in haste. ' Oh, my dear May,' 
 he said, ' such a misfortune ! One of the windows in the 
 picture-gallery blew in during the storm, and has been 
 shattered to pieces. And the portrait of Lady Elizabeth is 
 ruined — utterly ruined.' 
 
 Lord Trelingham never lost his temper at the worst of 
 times. He would have gone to the scaffold with placidity 
 in a good cause. But he looked exceedingly distressed 
 now. ' Lady Elizabeth's portrait,' he murmured ; ' I should 
 not have cared for any other.' 
 
 'Oh, father, what a pity!' said May in a feeling voice. 
 ' How sorry you will be ! Did it fall, or what was the 
 accident ?' 
 
 His distress instantly called out her sympathy. 
 
 ' Ruined, ruined ! ' her father reiterated. ' It was found 
 this morning by Redwood lying across some chairs ; the 
 canvas not only scratched, but torn in several places, as if 
 it had been paper, and the face of the portrait damaged 
 worse than all the rest.' 
 
 ' It must have been struck bodily from the wall,' said 
 Tom Davenant, ' by the window frame when it was blown 
 in. You never saw such confusion. Glass, woodwork, 
 and canvas all in a heap together. But can nothing be 
 done ? Here is Mr. Glanville,' he went on, turning to the 
 artist ; ' he can tell us better than any one whether the harm 
 can be put right.' 
 
 ' I am at Lord Trelingham's service,' replied Glanville ; 
 ' shall I go at once and examine the picture ? ' 
 
 ' You are very kind,' said the Earl, ' but you must not 
 stir till you have breakfasted. There is no haste. The 
 workmen have boarded up the window, and laid the picture 
 in a safe place.' 
 
 There was a pause, during which, with subdued mien, 
 the others addressed themselves to the duty of breakfasting. 
 But the Earl could scarcely eat. ' We shall feel the loss
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE paw i 
 
 .' he said to his daughter in a husky voice. 'You 
 will feel it.' 
 
 'Never mind me,' she answered; 'if nothing can be 
 done 1 shall know how to hear it. But till Mr. Glanville 
 has said restoration is impossible we ought to hope.' 
 
 'I have always thought the history was not concluded 
 yet.' he murmured as if to himself. 
 
 I ,a dy May caught the words. ' No history ever is,' she said. 
 
 The meal ended they moved to the picture-gallery, a 
 long, narrow apartment on the first floor, running half the 
 length of the terrace and with an entrance from the Great 
 Hall. There were portraits on one side and windows on 
 the other, with one in addition, that which had blown in 
 during the storm, at the end. Exclamations broke from the 
 lips of all when the havoc met their eyes. Fragments of 
 the casement were lying on the polished floor, and mixed 
 with them were great pieces of the heavy gilt moulding 
 which had been shattered as the picture fell. The canvas, 
 rent in more than one place, was set upright against the 
 wall where the light fell full on it. When Glanville came 
 up the others drew back. He went close to the picture, 
 and his first exclamation was one of intense surprise. ' Why,' 
 he cried, ' it is a Spanish altar-piece.' 
 
 'And a family portrait,' said the Earl. ' I will tell you,' 
 he continued, with some hesitation, ' the history, or what I 
 can of it, in time — but first examine its condition.' 
 
 Glanville stepped back to take a general view. The 
 picture had been, undoubtedly, a masterpiece. He did not 
 recognise the painter. But whoever he may have been, the 
 school to which he belonged was manifest in the splendour 
 of colouring, the bold design, and the deep religious earnest- 
 ness that distinguished his composition. An altar-piece it 
 was, as the Earl said, — an Assumption of the Virgin, but 
 altogether unlike that monotonous repetition which fills our 
 galleries from London to Naples, of a single feminine figure, 
 with a moon beneath her feet shaped to resemble a bent 
 bar of yellow soap, while winged baby-heads float round 
 her on clouds of milliner's gauze. This picture combined 
 the intense realism in the human forms which is character- 
 istic of Spanish painting, with a transparent depth of air, a
 
 chap, in RICHEST FORTUNE SOURLY CROST ! 25 
 
 vastness of prospect, a visionary glory in the distance ; it 
 seemed to draw out on every side as the artist gazed, and to 
 lift him into the serene expanse through which the crowned 
 Madonna rose towards heaven. She did not float on station- 
 ary clouds, as though her journey were ended ; in the up- 
 ward tending of the hands, in the sweeping forward of kingly 
 messengers clad in glittering raiment and borne along upon 
 eagles' wings, as if to herald her coming ; in the whirlwind 
 that seemed to take her waving garments, shot through with 
 gold, as she was rapt away from this lower world, and to 
 have caught up with her the attendant saints — a mighty com- 
 pany, in their pure white and crimson, — the sense of a quick- 
 ening magnetic motion made itself felt, a rushing onward 
 from sphere to sphere, while in the dim and starry distance 
 portals shone half-opened, and round about them an awful 
 faint-toned halo, like a cloud or a rainbow, hiding yet 
 betokening the mystery that should be revealed. A glorious 
 work of genius, but ruined. Yes, it was too true. That 
 which must have been the perfection of the whole, its 
 central glory — the ecstatic countenance of the Virgin — was 
 defaced, was almost beyond recognition. The crown, with 
 its jewelled light, could still be made out ; the Madonna's 
 features were gone. 
 
 ' How very lovely ! ' said Glanville after a long pause. 
 ' And how hopeless, I fear, to restore it ! Even if the 
 canvas could be joined and the colouring touched again, 
 how could the most daring painter reproduce the head of 
 the Virgin ? There is nothing to copy from, and, judging 
 by the rest of the figure, it must have been a peculiarly 
 striking and original face.' 
 
 ' Oh,' replied Lord Trelingham, ' we need be at no loss 
 for an original, if the picture were otherwise capable of 
 being restored. You have only to look at my daughter, 
 Lady May, and you will see the face that has vanished.' 
 
 'Indeed ! What an extraordinary thing !' cried the artist, 
 turning from the picture to the lady, who stood blushing 
 a little and with her eyes averted. ' You were saying that 
 this altar-piece, for such it is, was likewise a family portrait. 
 Did I hear the name of Lady Elizabeth ? And it was like 
 Lady May. Yes, I can just fancy, when I look very
 
 2 6 /■/•' y ANTIGl ''A' 
 
 closely into it, that there is left even now some shadow 
 of resembl But bow comes it, if I may ask? Do 
 
 tell me the story whilst I go on with my examination. 
 
 nnot decide in a moment how this should be treated.' 
 There was a pause. '1 he strangers who were present 
 silently withdrew, leaving Lord Trelingham and his daughter 
 with Mr. Glanville. These three sat down in front of the 
 picture. ' You have a morning's work cut out for you, I 
 should think,' said Tom Davenant. ' I will go round to 
 the stables and come back in an hour or so, in case you 
 want me.' And that unromantic youth, in whose ears the 
 family chronicles had been repeated without their making 
 the slightest impression on his memory, went off in his 
 careless way with his hands in his pockets. His cousin 
 looked after him and smiled a little sarcastically. Then 
 she said, ' Well, papa, Mr. Glanville wants you to begin.' 
 Her father seemed to be hesitating ; and one might have 
 fancied that he did not wish to pursue the subject. He 
 said rather hastily, 'May, my dear, I am not very good 
 at telling a story. I hardly know where to begin. The 
 portrait came into my hands soon after my father's death, 
 during the war of the Spanish succession.' He paused 
 again, and with some agitation turned to the artist and 
 laid his hand on his shoulder—' My dear Mr. Glanville,' 
 he said, ' the associations this picture brings up to me are 
 very painful ; much more so than my daughter has reason 
 to suspect. It is years since I spoke of them to any one. 
 But in the short time of our acquaintance, which, however, 
 should be reckoned since I came to know your paintings 
 rather than from the day when I first called at your studio, 
 I have come to think of you, if you will allow me to 
 say so, as a friend. It is a sad story. I do not know 
 the whole of it, but I will endeavour to repeat the chief 
 incidents.' 
 
 Glanville was touched by the old man's simplicity and 
 kindly tone. A soft light came into his eyes and his 
 swarthy cheek grew ruddier as he murmured, 'You are 
 very good to me, Lord Trelingham; I shall be happy to 
 do all in my power.' And Lady May looked pleased, 
 and eager to hear what was coming.
 
 chap, in RICHEST FORTUNE SOURLY CROST ! 27 
 
 'I know,' she said to Glanville, 'the picture is like my 
 father's sister, who died before I was born, and I am told 
 it is like me. Colonel Valence brought it from Spain. 
 I have often wondered why he gave it to the family when 
 he has never been a friend of ours.' 
 
 ' He was a dear friend of mine once,' replied her father. 
 ' If he was not so later, perhaps I am in a measure to blame. 
 But the past is past, and we can never recall it. Let me 
 tell you the history in a few words, Mr. Glanville.' 
 
 He looked down, as if collecting his thoughts, and began 
 in a low meditative voice, like one who watches the scenes of 
 earlier days emerging into daylight, from the dim recesses 
 where they hide, at his summoning. 
 
 'Edgar Valence and I were boys together; at home, 
 where his father's little estate joined Trelingham Chase, as 
 you may see in your ride this afternoon ; at school, where 
 he was my senior, and I counted it great good fortune that 
 I was allowed to fag for him ; and at Cambridge, where he 
 was so distinguished and I of so little consequence that to 
 be noticed by him was enough to make one proud. I 
 thought him the finest fellow in the world ; I loved and 
 admired him and everything he did, and took him as my 
 pattern hero. When he came down from the University my 
 father welcomed him as much for his sake as for mine, and 
 he was looked upon as one of ourselves. It was a happy 
 time, and I thought it would last for ever. What a charm 
 there was in his company, his bright fanciful talk, his quick 
 reasoning, his decision and boldness of character ! It 
 enchanted us all; and my sister, Lady Alice Davenant, 
 who was then a girl of seventeen, fell in love with him and 
 he with her. They found it out one Long Vacation when 
 he was at home, and they made no secret of it. My 
 father, not unwillingly, gave his consent. Edgar Valence 
 had nothing to call wealth, but he was of ancient descent, 
 great talent, and unblemished reputation. He might be 
 expected to win fame in the world if an opening were 
 afforded him. My sister need not have despaired of being 
 one day a Prime Minister's wife did she marry Edgar 
 Valence. The engagement was not announced. Both the 
 young people felt that a delay of some years was inevitable :
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE 
 
 PART I 
 
 and Valence went back to pursue his studies at Cam- 
 hrid 
 
 'He and I were of the same college, though in very dif- 
 ferent sets, for my tastes led me in the direction of religious 
 and e< i deal subjects — in short, towards the movement 
 
 which, beginning at Oxford, had now affected Cambrid 
 also; whilst his, I am sorry to say, had thrown him into 
 society which, intellectual though it may have called itself, 
 was frivolous and unbelieving. Valence was a young man 
 of the world ; he had never been a fervent Christian, and 
 his studies and associations received that year an unfortu- 
 nate bent, from which they never recovered. He became 
 an open, a violent atheist. He said the most daring things, 
 scoffed at the University authorities, took my own remon- 
 strances by no means in the affectionate spirit which, I trust, 
 dictated them, and saved himself from expulsion only by 
 quitting Cambridge in a fit of passion and taking his name 
 off the books. He returned, a changed and deteriorated 
 man, to his father's house. A ruined man, alas ! for it was 
 well known why he had left the University ; and in those 
 days unbelief roused a universal horror and was visited 
 with social excommunication. It is not so now,' said Lord 
 Trelingham, interrupting himself. 
 
 I No,' said Glanville, his eyes falling as he answered ; ' I 
 suppose people are more used to it. But how did the 
 change affect Lady Alice? Did she also give him up?' 
 
 I I will tell you,' resumed the Earl. ' When my father 
 heard of this extraordinary and painful lapse in one towards 
 whom he cherished the kindliest feelings, he sent for 
 Valence and kept him at Trelingham nearly a week, doing 
 his best by argument and exhortation to bring him into a 
 more suitable frame of mind. Lady Alice, who knew of 
 what had taken place, joined her entreaties to her father's ; 
 and her evident distress might have wrought upon a more 
 decided temper than that of Edgar Valence, had pride for 
 the moment not dulled his affection. It proved all in 
 vain. During their reiterated and, as one may suppose, not 
 very calm discussions, bitter words passed on both sides, 
 and my father could never forgive the harsh, the blas- 
 phemous denial by Valence of all that Christians deem
 
 chap, in O RICHEST FORTUNE SOURLY CROST ! 29 
 
 sacred. My sister was no less horror-stricken ; I cannot, 
 however, think she was much to blame if an affection 
 begun in childhood survived even this rude trial. When 
 my father pointed out to Valence that while he continued 
 an unbeliever his marriage with Lady Alice was out of the 
 question, my sister silently acquiesced. She did not pre- 
 tend that her feelings had altered; though she exhibited 
 much self-control, she could not, in bidding her lover fare- 
 well, but whisper that she trusted the sky would clear again 
 and all be as before. Valence was free, she said, but she had 
 given him her heart and could wait until he was worthy 
 of it. " That will never be," replied my father with some 
 anger. "Valence has no heart himself, and what brain he 
 has will bring him to little good. If he cannot believe in 
 God, you ought never to believe in him. He will only 
 deceive you." Valence said nothing, looked for an instant 
 into Lady Alice's face, bowed haughtily to my father, and 
 turned from the door. Once, and once only, was he fated 
 to cross that threshold again. 
 
 ' The engagement had been secret, and the secret was 
 not told. After a few days spent in moody seclusion under 
 his father's roof, Edgar Valence disappeared ; and when I 
 ran down at the end of term to Trelingham no one could 
 inform me what had become of him. I was more grieved 
 than I cared to show, for my father's anger increased as 
 time went on, and he forgot the pleasant ways of the boy 
 to remember only that they had ended in unbelief and 
 blasphemy. Lady Alice never spoke of Edgar, and I was 
 afraid to touch that quivering string, for I saw that she 
 suffered. Two years passed, and still no tidings came. 
 We had settled down into our accustomed ways, except 
 that my father was now an invalid, and Lady Alice spent 
 most of her time in attending to his comfort. We were 
 not unhappy together. I began to think my sister would 
 never marry, for she went into no society, and declined 
 more than one brilliant proposal of marriage without assign- 
 ing any reason. I asked her one evening whether she 
 thought Edgar Valence might return, whether she hoped 
 it ; and she replied : " I cannot tell ; but when I gave him 
 my promise it was once for all, and I will never break it."
 
 3o THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt i 
 
 I argued that her promise was no longer binding, that 
 Edgar himself had tacitly released her, since he neither 
 came, nor wrote, nor gave sign that he was living. I 
 might have spared mj pains; they were thrown away upon 
 her loyal and passionate nature. Poor Alice!' said the 
 I rl ; 'you often remind me of her, May, with your 
 enthusiasm ai tic outbursts, and the steady look in 
 
 your eyes. There is a wonderful likeness between you and 
 my sister when she was nineteen, in that troubled uncertaii 
 time which elapsed from the day of Edgar's disappearan 
 till we heard of him again.' 
 
 ' Yes,' replied Lad}- May, ' you did hear of him again, 
 to be sure, and in a singular fashion. 1 know that part of 
 the story.' 
 
 ' You know some of it,' said Lord Trelingham. ' I will 
 now tell you the rest, so far as I can unravel this tangled skein. 
 On a certain morning, as we sat at breakfast and the letters 
 were brought in, I noticed that a large one addressed to 
 me seemed quite covered with travel-stains, nnd before 1 
 could think whose writing it was, the post-marks, which 
 were very numerous, caught my attention, and I exclaimed, 
 "A letter from Spain; who can have sent it?" Lady 
 Alice looked up from her own correspondence ; and as I 
 held the letter out, she said with a kind of gasp, " It is 
 from Edgar, and sank fainting to the grouna. Great c< 
 fusion ensued, as was natural ; my sister did not recover at 
 once, and when she did her distress was piteous to see. 
 Joy and grief seemed to be struggling fcr the mastery; she 
 put out her hand as if to grasp the letter, and then, whisper- 
 ing like one upon whom a great fear has fallen, she said to 
 me, " Look at the date. It may be long ago, and perha] 1 5, 
 now, he is dead." I cannot express to you the passionate 
 yearning she threw into her words, but I shall never forget 
 them whilst I live. She sat trembling, and I broke the 
 al. It bore a date some twelve months back. My 
 lather, who had been silent until now, though painfully 
 agitated, took the letter from my hand as I was on the 
 point of reading it, and said, "Alice, I promise that you 
 shall hear everything in this which you ought to know ; 
 but there may be in short, your brother and I will read it
 
 CHAP, in O RICHEST FORTUNE SOURLY CROST ! 31 
 
 first, and you meanwhile lie down in your own room and 
 endeavour to compose yourself." She was led with totter- 
 ing steps from the room. Even in my haste I was obliged 
 to open the letter carefully, for it was written on the 
 thinnest paper and would have borne very little more ill- 
 usage. It began, — but stay, — I will bring you the strange 
 document and you shall read its very words. I have kept 
 it among my papers.' And as he spoke the Earl rose and 
 left the picture-gallery. Lady May turned to the window 
 and gazed out on the sky, which had in nothing abated of 
 its sombreness; in the heavens was a wild and shifting 
 dance of clouds, directed, as it would seem, by an inconstant 
 breeze, and upon the ear came a long low whisper from the 
 waves which could be seen tossing on the beach and 
 rolling out again to sea. Glanville was deep in contempla- 
 tion of the wreck before him. ' No one,' he said half 
 aloud, ' can tell me what to do with this, except Ivor 
 Mardol.' 
 
 The lady came back at the sound of his voice. ' And 
 who is Ivor Mardol ? ' she said. 
 
 Before he had time to answer Lord Trelingham entered. 
 He bore in his hand a yellow, dingy-coloured epistle, which, 
 when it was unfolded, almost fell to pieces. He spread 
 it out on a table near the window, for it was growing very 
 dark, and said to the artist : ' Your young eyes will decipher 
 this better than mine. It is written, however, in a beauti- 
 ful hand. Edgar Valence did all things gracefully and was 
 noted for his penmanship. Will you read it aloud ? My 
 daughter knows part of the story, but never till this moment 
 have I shown her Valence's letter.'
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FACE OK AX IMMORTAL 
 
 Glanville looked at the paper before him. The ink was 
 faded, and in places the lines were uneven ; but no one 
 could mistake the exquisite character of the hand in which 
 they were traced. There was a date, which I shall not give. 
 But the letter began abruptly. 
 
 ' I don't know,' it said, ' by what name to address my 
 
 old friend, who has perhaps injured me, and who no doubt 
 
 thinks I have injured him. What an age it seems since I 
 
 left Trelingham ! And what an effort to write that word ! 
 
 I meant to have done with it until I could come back and 
 
 claim a promise I shall never, never forget. Ah, Davenant, 
 
 if you cared for me or her, if you could only understand 
 
 how brave, how loyal-hearted she was on that day when 
 
 heaven and earth, her father and her religion, were against 
 
 me, you would know whether a man who had once been 
 
 assured of such an affection could surrender the hope of it. 
 
 But what am I doing ? I may have but a moment before 
 
 the fever comes on again and my brain takes fire. And I 
 
 have something to say, a task to fulfil, if my hurt is not 
 
 too much for me. Should I never rise off the bed where I 
 
 am lying, it will be your task then, not mine. This letter 
 
 will reach you somehow. My nurse tells me I ought not 
 
 to write ; but I must, though I were dying. The thing is 
 
 so strange. Excuse these cramped lines ; I can hardly see 
 
 what I have written, my eyes pain me so. It is the blow 
 
 that wild fellow gave me across the forehead when I would 
 
 not let him, — but I am telling the tale askew. Let me 
 
 try again.
 
 chap, iv THE FACE OF AN IMMORTAL 33 
 
 ' This place is called Sepulveda. You never heard of 
 it, I suppose. A gloomy -sounding name, but a grand, 
 romantic piece of country, some forty or fifty miles from 
 Seville, on the spur of a mountain-range that I can see 
 from my window, stretching across the horizon to the north 
 like the drop-scene of a theatre. I was brought here 
 wounded, I don't know how long ago. A week, a month, 
 an eternity, for all I can tell ! Down below in the valley 
 I can see, too, the waters of a stream where they broaden 
 into the deep pool of San Lucar. The convent stands on the 
 edge of the pool, and looks at it all day and all night ; for 
 its great ruined windows are all on that side. " The con- 
 vent — what convent ? " you ask. It is called San Lucar, I 
 tell you. Ought you not, as a Tractarian, to know who 
 San Lucar was ? Did he not work miracles somewhere, 
 and live in a cave, or on a column, or on nothing, for a 
 couple of centuries ? Well, I cannot tell you who this San 
 Lucar may have been, for it is not the evangelist, but a 
 local deity. And he is dead, and his bones used to be 
 kept in a shrine of fretted silver in a side-chapel, which, I 
 should think, was always dark in spite of the lamps we saw 
 burning all about it. Oh, my head, my head ! I ramble 
 on, as if I had a thousand years to tell this story. 
 
 ' You know I became an atheist and a democrat before 
 I left Cambridge. I don't mean to hurt your feelings ; 
 but the history must begin there. And when I quarrelled 
 with Lord Trelingham, and went home and spent a week 
 brooding over my prospects, the thought struck me that I 
 might as well join these Spaniards, who were doing a fine anti- 
 Christian work since completed by Mendizabal, where it was 
 much wanted, expelling monks, pulling down monasteries, 
 turning the priests adrift, and burning up the foul rubbish 
 that the Inquisition had heaped together and made holy.' 
 
 Glanville, who had hesitated in his reading more than 
 once, now came to a dead pause, and said to Lord Treling- 
 ham, 'Ought I to read all this? It can only give you pain.' 
 
 1 Never mind,' said the Earl ; ' I have read it too often 
 to be pained now. There is not much more of it ; and 
 Valence says truly enough that it is necessary to the under- 
 standing of his adventure.' 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 THE NEW .!.■■ VE PABi I 
 
 The artist read on : 'I sailed from England three days 
 after quitting my home; and in less than a month was 
 enrolled among the volunteers who fought for pro ad 
 
 linst Don Cai os. 1 should like, it I had time, to i 
 ribe some of our wild picturesque doings in the South. 
 
 per had I imagined anything so frantic, stri tirring; 
 
 such a droll medl< 1-world romance and unwashi d bar- 
 
 barism, of orange-groves, and moonlight, and harsh mus 
 and dusty marches, and raging multitudes of men and 
 women, of Qying monks, and shrieking and dancing mobs, 
 not only in the great squares, but in the churches and the 
 long-inviol: isters ; and, in brief, as mad a world, with 
 
 furious clamours, and a high burning sun to add to the ex- 
 citement, as there ever was in the Middle Ages. It deadened 
 my feelings of loss to find all things around me going to 
 ruin; and I was reckless and even happy. 
 
 'I do not mind acknowledging that the ruffian band, of 
 which I became captain, — for promotion is rapid in these 
 parts of the world, — were as savage and motley a crew as 
 ever escaped hanging. I often seemed to be living over 
 Gil Bias on a grander scale, with all the riff-raff of centuries 
 gathered round me and following the tattered banner of the 
 Revolution. But dirty work must be done with dirty tools. 
 These men were good enough to pull down a system that 
 was worse than themselves ; for it pretended to have come 
 from heaven, and they didn't much care whether they came 
 from heaven or hell ; neither did they trouble as to which 
 of the two would have them by and by. They hated 
 monkery, and they liked a wild life. Certain of them, how- 
 ever, were fierce fanatics ; and one of these gave me trouble 
 enough. He was a stalwart young fellow, more gipsy. I 
 should think, than genuine Spaniard. He had been a monk 
 in Jaen, and had run away from his monastery as soon as 
 he got the chance. How he delighted in breaking open 
 church-gates, and smashing altars, ami pulling the great 
 images down from their pedestals ! You will not suppose I 
 minded that ! There is only one mythology I w'ould spare 
 for its beauty — not the medieval, which is a fantastic dream, 
 — but that calm old (".reek world of loveliness, where the 
 gods are the forms of Nature become breathing marble, and
 
 chap, iv THE FACE OF AN IMMORTAL 35 
 
 the heroes are daring and human, with their glorious limbs 
 and fair faces. They have no place in this half- African land 
 brooded over by the sultry air from Sahara, and too hot 
 and feverish to bring forth yellow-haired Greeks. No, I 
 looked on while the churches were defaced and their 
 shrines plundered. But my gipsy-monk would have gone 
 much further. He was, as you would say, no gentleman. 
 And he took my reprimands as sullenly as he dared. 
 
 ' It seems such a while, and yet again the picture is so 
 distinct that it might have been yesterday, since we marched 
 out of Seville towards San Lucar. At this moment I have 
 before my eyes the stains upon a great square flagstone, 
 near a church we passed, where a priest had lately been 
 killed by the mob. Felayo, the gipsy, pointed them out 
 to me, and said, " I wish I had been there." But he 
 added, " We shall catch some of them, if they have not 
 taken to their heels, at San Lucar." For that secluded 
 convent we were making. It was served by a number of 
 clergy, who lived, all except the chaplain of the nuns, up here 
 at Sepulveda ; for it was not a convent of men. What led 
 us to make such a long expedition was the knowledge that 
 San Lucar had never been spoiled, nor its cloister invaded, 
 even by the French during the Peninsular War; and although 
 its treasures were at that- time hidden for safety, they had 
 come to light again and were worth seizing. And then, 
 the delight of ruining an untouched shrine— these were 
 spolia opima to draw us on ! We marched somewhat 
 leisurely, as Southerns will ; but as nobody in Seville quite 
 knew which way we were going, and any one of a dozen 
 convents might have been our attraction, we gained San 
 Lucar without a rumour of the impending catastrophe 
 reaching the good sisters. They were at their beads from 
 morning till night ; and, as we marched up the valley 
 late in the afternoon, we could hear the loud voices of 
 the priests chanting one of their evening services. We 
 had come in three days, but had left stragglers on the 
 road, and were now a company of a hundred and twenty. 
 . . . I cannot continue. The pen drops from my 
 hand.' 
 
 Glanville naturally paused again. Lady May, who had
 
 36 THE NEW A A VE pabt i 
 
 given liim the closest attention, said, iii a sort of mi 
 
 on.' And Ik- re ium< <1 : 
 ' It is some days siru e 1 broke off,' said tin- manuscript ; 
 ' I wonder when I shall finish, or whether I shall at all. 
 1 have been asleep, they tell me, and ravin id deal in 
 
 an unknown tongue. No one here understands English. 
 But they have caught a nunc which I seemed to be in< i 
 sandy repeating — her name! Ay de wi ! Let me make 
 an end. But what are the words that some one is faintly 
 singing under my window? I can just make them out. 
 Apt enough they sound to me, — listen — 
 
 ' ' • I .as venas con poca sangre, 
 I ' 'S ojos con mucha noche." 
 
 1 ittle blood in the veins, and heavy night upon the eyelids. 
 I must hasten while I may. We did nothing that evening 
 except to keep the passes of the valley. It was known 
 outside the convent that we had come, and why ; but the 
 peasants had been cowed by the revolutionary frenzy of the 
 towns, and we neither expected resistance nor much cared 
 if it were attempted. We were stirring next day with the 
 sun. What a glorious morning broke over the valley and 
 the stream, and drove back the darkness towards the 
 mountains as with a single sweep of some glittering sword 
 in heaven ! Such a clear light came over the white monas- 
 tery walls, and was reflected from the lake as we marched 
 up to the huge wooden gates that divided the cloister from 
 the world without. Felayo beat upon them with his 
 thundering club, which had shattered so many before. 
 but they stood unshaken, and we saw that if we were to 
 enter at that point we must open with a regular assault. 
 A.s we hesitated to begin one of the men cried out that the 
 church doors would be easier. That great building stood 
 outside the cloister and opened on the public highway. 
 We marched hastily towards it; and what was our surprise- 
 when we drew near to distinguish the solemn sounds of 
 ' horal chanting and organ accompaniment within ! " They 
 are singing Mass," cried Felayo ; " I suppose they would 
 like to win the crown of martyrdom, as their good ancestors 
 did when the wicked Moors slew them;" and again he raised
 
 chap, iv THE FACE OF AN IMMORTAL 37 
 
 his club, this time with effect, against the sacred gates. One 
 blow drove in the rusty lock, a second and a third, aided 
 by the pikes of the rest, broke the framework in pieces, 
 and with yells of rage and triumph the men rushed in. 
 
 ' Far away, in the dim light, we saw the priests in their 
 vestments at the altar, and ranged on each side in the stalls 
 choristers in white, holding books from which, though now 
 in trembling tones, they were singing. Just as we entered 
 the voices fell silent ; the organ, which stood away in some 
 recess, took up a softer strain ; and I saw the chief priest 
 kneel, then rise again quickly, and lift up the host on high 
 to be adored by the prostrate throng. As if maddened at 
 the sight, Felayo, who had paused a moment, went wildly 
 up the church, calling on us to follow, leaped the silver 
 altar-rails, and struck down the priest where he stood. In 
 an instant all was confusion. Felayo swept the sacred 
 vessels from the altar ; and, as the choristers ran out from 
 their stalls in deadly terror, some to rescue the priest from 
 being trampled on, others to take up their holy things 
 which lay on the ground, and one or two of the bolder 
 spirits to thrust back Felayo, I looked up and beheld 
 that miscreant standing on the altar like a conquering 
 demon. Hideous he seemed, with swarthy face and malig- 
 nant flashing eyes, his arm again uplifted for destruction, 
 and his voice ringing through the church in a defiant 
 shriek. And as I lifted my eyes the clear morning light 
 came in through the windows of the chancel, flooding the 
 space above him ; and I saw, as in a vision of glory, a face 
 that I knew, with an expression that was all tenderness and 
 divine tranquillity, shining down on the confusion unmoved, 
 and a host of figures in glorious raiment about it. "Alice ! " 
 I cried, and sprang upon the altar, as Felayo lifted his 
 head and caught sight of the picture. For it was a picture, 
 not a vision or a dream. Above the altar, like the tutelary 
 saint of the place, depicted in mysterious attitude and 
 with the symbolism of some Catholic doctrine, Alice, whom 
 I had left in England, of whom I dreamt day and night, 
 was before my eyes ; and her glance seemed to go through 
 my very heart. I stood bewildered ; the next moment I 
 was recalled to myself by Felayo's voice, as he thundered 
 
 429344
 
 THE NEW A \ VS PAM i 
 
 out, "Ho, comrades, mount up here an 1 pull down this 
 Virgin of the monks." 1 caught him by the throat and 
 flung him to the ground, leaping alter him as he felL 
 ■■ l town, d ij ." 1 shouted; " you shall not touch the picture.'' 
 lie was so taken aback by the unexpected assault that for 
 a little while he stared at me without answering. Then, 
 gathering himself up for a spring, he strove to get from 
 under my hand ; but I held him fast by the throat, and 
 while the others came round in amazement, I cried out, 
 •• You may pull the church to pieces and plunder what you 
 will, but this Madonna remains sacred. I claim it for 
 myself." I cannot say what they thought of me, but none 
 were so fanatical as the gipsy, and they seemed to respect 
 my whim, for they drew back and began to form into parties 
 to despoil the rest of the church and invade the convent. 
 Even whilst I knelt with Felayo in my grasp, I could see 
 the nuns, who were separated by a carved screen from the 
 body of the church, as they stood shivering in the midst 
 of their cloistered aisle, uncertain whether to flee or remain. 
 Felayo turned himself under me. "Let me go," he said : 
 " I will not touch your accursed picture." — " Do you pro- 
 mise?" I asked. He answered through his teeth, "Yes, I 
 promise." I allowed him to rise to his feet ; but, no sooner 
 had he done so, than, drawing his sword, he slashed me 
 across the forehead, and had not my peaked cap partly 
 warded the blow, that would have been the end of Edgar 
 Valence. 1 was, however, only half-stunned, and with a 
 rapidity equal to his own, I drove the sword I held in my 
 hand through the villain's heart. With a frightful roar of 
 pain he fell dead beside the priest whose life, in the crush 
 and confusion, had been trampled out of him. 
 
 'Meanwhile, the invaders were breaking down the 
 cloister, tearing from their places silver lamps and the 
 precious gates of the various shrines, rending the vest- 
 ments to pieces, and hurling the great crucifixes to the 
 
 and. The noise, the riot, were indescribable. I ap- 
 pointed a couple of men to guard the high altar ; and 
 seeing what was likely to happen now the soldiers were 
 getting infuriated, I made my way over the fallen screen 
 into the nuns" cloister, and endeavoured to restore a little
 
 chap, iv THE FACE OF AN IMMORTAL 39 
 
 order amid the confusion. I told the sisters they were free 
 to depart, but that resistance was impossible. If they 
 wished to be dealt with kindly, let them go to Sepiilveda 
 and prepare lodgings and refreshments for the wounded, 
 of whom there were several on both sides. For the 
 younger priests, when their blood was up, did not hesitate 
 to grapple with the soldiers. There is always in the Spanish 
 temper a wild devil to be roused ; and these sons of the 
 sanctuary were as eager for the fray as their assailants, after 
 they had seen their mass interrupted and the priest flung 
 down. But they had no weapons, except the fragments of 
 the woodwork and church furniture ; and in no long time 
 they were overpowered. When the high altar was under- 
 stood to be my share of the spoils, a general rush was 
 made towards the chapel of San Lucar. I followed out of 
 curiosity, for I could not bring myself to lay a profane 
 hand upon anything in a place where Alice seemed to be 
 gazing at me, and with her heavenly presence reproving my 
 unhallowed thoughts. I saw the shrine dismantled, the 
 dust of the saint scattered where his worshippers had knelt 
 for ages to ask his intercession, the lamps quenched and 
 borne away by the soldiery, the huge windows broken, and 
 the church from end to end made a wreck, — all things in it 
 ruined save the exquisite vision looking down upon the 
 high altar. The men ate and drank about the place, and 
 jeered their prisoners, and would have quarrelled over the 
 spoil, had not an order come towards mid-day from Seville, 
 directing us to quit the convent and take up our quarters 
 in Sepiilveda. 
 
 ' I was greatly embarrassed, for I would not leave the 
 portrait of Alice to the mercy of the new image-breakers ; 
 and yet go we must. In this perplexity, one of the 
 wounded priests whispered to me that, if I wished to 
 save the Virgin, there was a secure place under the altar 
 where it might be hidden. Let me send the rest away 
 and he would show me. I thought the matter out for a 
 while. We could not get the wounded to Sepiilveda with- 
 out mules, of which we had very few. Whatever was to be 
 done must be done at once ; but to stay for the wounded 
 could not be an infringement of orders. I sent men off to
 
 40 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW l 
 
 find means of transport ; and, kei ping only three whom I 
 
 knew to be loyal fellows, when the church was < lea red I 
 hade the priest show me the biding -place of which he 
 spoke. He was badly hurt, but he contrived to reach the 
 altar, and touching the great slab at which mass had heen 
 said, he made it move out of its place noiselessly. There 
 was a dry vault underneath, and several huge (offers in it 
 where treasure had once been stored. If the altar were 
 broken down, the vault would be discovered ; otherwise, it 
 was safe enough. We unfastened the great picture, not 
 without difficulty, from its place on the wall ; covered it 
 with remnants of the heavy silk hangings ; and were so 
 fortunate as to come upon a chest which would hold it 
 under lock and key. I took possession of the key, which 
 is now under my pillow, and will never leave me till the 
 picture is removed to some fitter resting-place. The priest 
 explained to me the secret of the spring; and the great 
 slab, revolving once more, concealed from the returning 
 soldiery what we had done. 
 
 ' They were anxious to get off with their booty ; we left 
 the convent — bare, a habitation for the beasts of the field, 
 and a shelter for owls and other night-birds ; and by the 
 evening our men were lodged in Septilveda. My head 
 was aching from the sword-stroke of Felayo ; I could 
 get no farther than the farmhouse where I am now lying. 
 I know that I have had an attack of brain-fever. The 
 detachment I commanded has gone, I cannot say on what 
 errand ; for it went in haste, leaving me to my fate. These 
 good nuns look upon me as a guardian angel ; all they saw 
 was that I protected their Madonna from destruction and 
 themselves from insult. They are not aware that I helped 
 to overturn many a shrine before I came to San Lucar. 
 They tell me I have been near dying. Why not? Should 
 I live, is there any prospect for me? The vision of Alice 
 forbids me to join my old companions ; I cannot bear to 
 think that I might see her face again, looking down on me 
 in the next sanctuary I profaned. All I desire is to rescue 
 the canvas whereon she breathes and lives, and return with 
 it to England. If I die before this can be accomplished, 
 I charge you to see to it. The convent will never be
 
 chap, iv THE FACE OF AN IMMORTAL 41 
 
 dwelt in again ; and you will have small difficulty in secur- 
 ing this miraculous piece of driftwood. What its history 
 may be, I do not know. I have been too weak to put any 
 questions about it ; and these sisters, though well-meaning, 
 are extremely ignorant. I doubt that they could tell me 
 the true story ; legends, of course, they have in plenty. 
 
 ' Davenant, if I get well, you must prepare Lord Tre- 
 lingham to receive me, if only once, within his thresh- 
 old. I will not entrust the portrait of Alice to another. 
 But when I have put it into his hands, I will turn again 
 and he shall see me no more until he welcomes me as his 
 daughter's husband. 
 
 'Thank the kind fates that have suffered me to write 
 this. I am dead tired. I shall sleep now; and perhaps 
 never waken. But this letter, at all events, will reach you. 
 Say to Alice, — ah no, you will give her no message from 
 me. I hear the voice singing again the self-same words 
 beneath my window — 
 
 " Las venas con poco sangre, 
 Los ojos con mucha noche, 
 Lo hall6 en el campo aquella, 
 Vida y muerte de los hombres." 
 
 How pretty these old Spanish romances are ! But it was 
 not in the field that either love or death found me ; yet, 
 weak though I may be, I am strong enough to meet my 
 fate, come when and how it will. E. V.' 
 
 There was no other signature.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BUT THOU TO ME ART MORI THAN ALL ! 
 
 ■ Was I not right,' said the Earl, ' in calling that a strange 
 letter? As you have read it to me, so did I read it to my 
 lather, keeping an anxious eye on the door at which Lady 
 Alice had gone out, and every moment dreading her 
 return. What could we say to her? Was it possible to 
 hide Valence's danger, or the likelihood of his arrival at 
 Trelingham ? Breaking a heavy silence, my father ob- 
 served, " This has taken almost a year to reach its destina- 
 tion. Should Valence be still living, we must expect him 
 in England soon ; nor can I decline to accept, even from 
 his hands, a portrait which has long been wanting in our 
 gallery." I looked at him in surprise. "What!" I said ; 
 "has not Valence dreamt the whole story? His letter was 
 written during an access of brain-fever ; and must we not 
 suppose that his constant brooding on the loss of my sister, 
 combined with reminiscences of the legend of Lady Eliza- 
 beth, has shaped his fancies to this extraordinary result ? " — 
 •• No," replied my father; "Valence must have done what 
 he describes. Either he never knew or has forgotten the story 
 of Lady Elizabeth. You see he does not once refer to it."' 
 
 ' And may I ask,' said Glanville, ' what is the legend of 
 Lady Elizabeth ? ' 
 
 'I will tell you,' replied his host. 'Ours, my dear Mr. 
 Glanville, is not itself a very ancient peerage. It dates from 
 Charles II., when Sir William Davenant became Viscount 
 Davenant and Earl of Trelingham. Hut in his wife 
 repn a much older line ; and it was chiefly by 
 
 reason of his marriage with her that Sir William was raised
 
 CHAP. V BUT THOU TO ME ART MORE THAN ALL ! 43 
 
 to the House of Lords. She was the last of that old West 
 Country stock, the Trelinghams of Trelingham. Her father 
 died abroad during the usurpation of Cromwell ; and his 
 brothers — the family were Roman Catholic — had taken 
 orders at Rome and St. Omer, but died before him. 
 Hence the title of Trelingham became extinct. But Lady 
 Elizabeth inherited in her own right the estates which had 
 gone with it ; and she was in a convent when her father 
 died. The family chronicles add that the convent was in 
 Spain, but not the name or precise situation. She was 
 on the point of taking the veil, and had she done so, there 
 is no doubt the estates of Trelingham would have passed 
 to the Commonwealth. She was persuaded, therefore, to 
 return home. Her nearest relative, a Protestant cousin, 
 sought her hand ; but he was grasping and ambitious, and 
 twenty years older than the lady. She refused him, and 
 bestowed herself and Trelingham on Sir William Davenant, 
 who, though not of her faith, was chivalrous enough to 
 respect it. She loved him so well that, in course of time, 
 she joined our communion, and her children were brought 
 up in the doctrine of the English Church. She died young, 
 however, and the story ran that she repented of having 
 changed her religion. Certain it is that a mystery attached 
 to Lady Elizabeth — the name by which she was usually 
 designated in honour of the ancient line. She would never 
 allow her portrait to be painted ; and when I was a boy 
 its place in the gallery — at the very spot where we are 
 now sitting — was indicated by a purple veil on which in 
 black letter was inscribed the name of Elizabeth, Countess 
 of Trelingham, with the dates of her birth and decease. 
 What was the explanation ? Well, here Valence's story 
 came in. It was said that, when a girl at her Spanish con- 
 vent, Lady Elizabeth had been chosen, by a painter whose 
 name we never heard, to represent the Virgin in a great 
 altar-piece ; and that an instinct of reverence, mingled 
 perhaps with remorse, determined her never to allow, 
 for ends of pride or vanity, that countenance to be de- 
 picted by a worldly artist, which had been dedicated to 
 religion and enshrined above an altar. We did not often 
 repeat the legend ; we had no picture to show, and assuredly
 
 44 THE NEW A \ VE tk I 
 
 we did not dream that a resembl icisted between the 
 
 features of my sister and those of her faraway am 
 Valence's letter was a revelation. 
 
 • While we talked Lady Alice came back, looking so pale 
 that I ran to her, expecting her to faint in my arms. She 
 thanked me in a feeble voice, but declared that she was 
 strong enough to bear anything save uncertainty. I 
 her the letter; she sat down and was absorbed in it, reading 
 with eager haste, turning back sometimes as though fearing 
 to lose a word, and quite unmindful of our presence. 
 She uttered no exclamation when he spoke of seeing her 
 above the altar ; she was too intent on the sequel, and I 
 dreaded to see her come to his last words. As she did so 
 a fit of shuddering seized her. But with a strong effort she 
 mastered her emotion, and saying only, " I will wait, I will 
 wait," she let the paper fall to her feet and came and put 
 her arms about our father's neck. " Papa," she said, "do 
 not fear me ; I will be a good daughter. Only let, let 
 Edgar come. He will not be so unbelieving then. See 
 how this strange thing has softened him. By and by he 
 will follow your advice, and we shall be happy." Her voice 
 broke, her eyes streamed with tears. " Very well," my 
 father replied, " if he comes I will see him. But you must 
 be patient." — "I will, I will," she whispered, and took up 
 the letter again and was lost in it. 
 
 ' Patience ! It was a wise word. The months passed 
 and he did not arrive. My sister was falling into a decline, 
 my father hastening to his grave ; and, I confess it with 
 shame, I had fierce thoughts about Edgar Valence. Why 
 did he not write ? But perhaps he had expired at Sepul- 
 veda. I did not think so. I hated him. 
 
 ' On a dark cold evening in November, when the snow 
 was lying deep, my father breathed his last. We buried 
 him on the bleak hillside, which looks almost as cold and 
 dark this morning.' And, interrupting himself, the Earl 
 pointed out to Glanville where the old gray church of 
 Trelingham rose up from the precipitous shore, with the 
 green churchyard and the mounds of the dead on every 
 side of it. He resumed : ' The next day, late in the after- 
 noon, as I was seated in my study, and Lady Alice was
 
 chap, v BUT THOU TO ME AR T MORE THAN ALL ! 45 
 
 reclining in her own room, too much exhausted to move, 
 a stranger was announced. He gave no name. I bade 
 them show him into the drawing-room. I entered, and 
 my eyes fell on Edgar Valence. Through the windows I 
 could see that it was snowing fast. 
 
 ' He stood wrapt in furs, bareheaded, and immovable, 
 with the scar quite plain on his forehead. When he saw 
 me, his movement testified surprise. " I asked to see 
 Lord Trelingham," he murmured. Then he observed that 
 I wore deep mourning. " Is any one dead ? " he cried ex- 
 citedly; "is Alice ?" I interrupted him. " Lord Tre- 
 lingham is dead, not my sister. What is your business, Mr. 
 Valence ? " The words were cold and unfriendly, but I 
 was much moved. He looked like one risen from the 
 grave ; his soldierly bearing could not disguise the feeble- 
 ness of his health. He had suffered, and the sword-stroke 
 of Felayo had been almost fatal. But he must not see 
 Alice. " Did my letter from Sepiilveda reach you ? " he 
 inquired. " Yes ; but why did you not write again ? " He 
 smiled. " When I quitted my farmhouse," he said, " I 
 took service in the regular army. I was wounded again, 
 taken prisoner, carried into Estremadura, and did not 
 escape till seven weeks ago. Why should I have written ? 
 Would Alice have seen my letters ? " 
 
 ' " I do not know," was my answer ; " but had you come 
 in my father's lifetime, for her sake he would have granted 
 you an interview. He would have done no more ; and, 
 Valence, unless you are changed neither will I." 
 
 ' He answered, alas ! in his old firm voice, " I am not 
 changed ; do not think it. Nor is my love for Alice." 
 
 ' " Be it so," was my reply, " then you may look for the 
 same course from me that my father would have pursued." 
 
 ' " And what is that, may I ask ? " 
 
 ' I knew very well the answer I meant to give. It was 
 imperative on me as a son and a Christian ; but it would 
 cost me a sharp pang to utter it, when I thought of my 
 poor sister lying dangerously ill, without heart or hope, 
 and the desolate future before us. I delayed the fatal 
 moment. Instead of replying, I said to Valence, " Did 
 you return to San Lucar, as you hoped?" — "Return?" he
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE pari i 
 
 . ried ; " had 1 not returned and brought away the portrait, 
 
 do you think I should have ventured hither today ? The 
 picture is waiting at your 1 ites. Will you receive it ? 
 
 Will you tell some of your servants to bring it up? Do 
 you know anything about it?" 
 
 • I told him the story as briefly as I could. He was 
 surprised and attentive. "Why," he said, "this, if I be- 
 lieved in a special Providence, should be a decisive intima- 
 tion that Alice and I were made for one another. \ on 
 grant it, surely, Davenant." 
 
 ' I shook my head. "There are coincidences," I an- 
 swered, "which have an evil purport. I cannot think, if 
 you are unchanged, that this will come to good." 
 
 ' I gave the order he suggested. While we sat speech- 
 less — for what could we touch upon that would not be 
 painful ? — awaiting the return of the servants witli the 
 picture, I became more and more uneasy lest my sister 
 should come in. And what was to be the end? On such 
 a night I could not turn my bitterest enemy from the door. 
 ar Valence to sleep at Trelingham Court, the night 
 after my father's funeral ! It was strange, it was most un- 
 desirable, yet I saw no way out of it. I could not help 
 asking him, "How long have you been in England? My 
 father's death was announced six days ago." 
 
 ' "Very likely," he replied ; " I landed at Plymouth that 
 very day, and came with the utmost speed hither. At first 
 I thought of preparing you for my arrival. But you might 
 have declined seeing me, and I judged it better to take you 
 by surprise and trust to the generous impulses" — he spoke 
 witli frank courtesy ; how winning I used to think it ! — 
 "which have always seemed to me inherent in the family 
 of Trelingham. I saw no one — I was not aware of your 
 father's illness, much less of what has happened." 
 
 'The men were coming in slowly with their burden. I 
 could not but think, as the door opened, of another and a 
 sad burden that had been carried out yesterday. I would 
 not have them stay in the hall, or go up to the picture- 
 gallery; and the tall p e was set up auainst a book- 
 rase in my study. Lamps were kindled, and Valence and I, 
 with equal agitation, tore off the coverings, and the Madonna
 
 chap, v BUT THOU TO ME ART MORE THAN ALL ! 47 
 
 of San Lucar broke upon my view. At first, like Valence, 
 I saw nothing of the accessories which are all that is now- 
 left of the painting. It was the face I sought ; and oh ! 
 how strangely it resembled Alice when she was yet un- 
 touched by grief and all her thoughts were of the innocent 
 home in which she had been brought up, or of the heavenly 
 world that religion unfolded to her. I gazed and gazed. 
 Can you realise what it is to have the dead beautiful past 
 resuscitated, as at a stroke — the past, which you deemed 
 irrevocable ? I felt pity and deep regret, and a kind of 
 protest that these things should be — a young life faded and 
 marriage impossible. The fate of Alice, of Edgar Valence 
 himself, scarred and maimed as he came before me, our 
 friendship turned to estrangement — it was too much. I 
 knew not how to speak, or what to do ; and when Valence, 
 laying his hand on my shoulder, said, " Do you think I can 
 live without seeing her ? — have pity on me," I could only 
 reply that in the morning they should meet, and then — 
 then, if she held to her promise, I would do all that a 
 brother should. 
 
 ' On this understanding we parted for the night. I went 
 to my own chamber, he to his, but there was no sleep for 
 either of us. How was I to reconcile my father's wishes 
 and the honour of a family which had ever been true to 
 Church and King, with the opinions, the character, the 
 inclinations of Valence ? Lord Trelingham, it is true, had 
 exacted no promise from me ; and my sister, though not of 
 age, wanted so few months of it that to all intents she might 
 be deemed her own mistress. But the very existence of 
 our house was at stake. Who could say that the succession 
 to name and property would not pass to my sister's issue ? 
 There was no other relative but a distant cousin, and he 
 unmarried, and what if her children were brought up atheists 
 and democrats ? I shuddered at the thought, and my 
 former resolution shone out in the clearest light of reason 
 as of religious duty. But, on the other side, was my sister's 
 happiness, perhaps her life. 
 
 ' With the morning came another anxiety. How was I 
 to prepare Alice for the surprise, the tumultuous joy, that 
 she would undoubtedly feel, and for all the momentous
 
 4 8 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt l 
 
 issues that hung upon the next few houi Hei feeble 
 
 health, endangered by mental anguish s<> long endured, 
 would give wa) under this m u tum were she to meet it 
 without warning. 1 hastened to Valence's room. H< 
 was already dressed, and his fatigued look showed n 
 that he had slept as little as I. In a few words I begged 
 him to wait upstairs till I sent for him. He understood 
 and made no demur. I inquired after Lady Alice, and 
 was told that she was too weak to come down to the 
 break fast-room. I now sent her a message requesting her 
 to meet me in the picture-gallery at half-past ten. There 
 was no time to lose. Summoning a skilful workman and a 
 couple of servants to help him, I ordered the Madonna of 
 San Lucar to be conveyed noiselessly to its destined place 
 among the family portraits, and fixed with the utmost expe- 
 dition. My directions were carried out. When the ap- 
 pointed hour came the picture was hanging on the wall, and 
 the dark curtain which had so long marked its absence alone 
 concealed it from view. My sister entered the gallery, and 
 came to me looking weary and distracted. I took her by 
 the hand, asked her an indifferent question or two, and led 
 her to speak of her own feelings. When we had reached 
 the spot where I am now telling this story I induced her to 
 sit down and continued the conversation till, in a pause I 
 intentionally made, she looked round and saw that the 
 curtain did not hang as usual. She looked again stead- 
 fastly, and with agitated voice and manner asked me what 
 was behind it. I answered as lightly as I could, " Do you 
 think Lady Elizabeth's portrait is there ? " Quicker than 
 thought she divined my meaning ; her hand was on the 
 curtain, she drew it aside, and, sinking on her knees, ex- 
 claimed, " He is come ; Edgar is come. Oh, God be 
 thanked ! " She gave way to a burst of weeping, which I 
 thought it prudent to indulge, saying, when she was grown 
 calmer, "Alice, do you think you can bear to see him?" 
 What an expression was on her countenance as she rose 
 up and faced me ! " Have I lived," she cried, " for anything 
 else ? " The colour came into her cheeks while she spoke, 
 and her breathing was like that of a fever-patient, short and 
 difficult. She almost fell back into her chair, but recovering,
 
 chai>. V BUT THOU TO ME ART MORE THAN A LL ! 49 
 
 bade me tell Valence that she would see him here and now. 
 I did not venture to leave her alone. I rang for a servant, 
 and gave him the message that Valence had been all these 
 hours expecting in his room upstairs. A step was heard 
 coming down, a slow but determined step, which we hardly 
 knew. I motioned Alice to sit still, and went to the door ; 
 but no sooner had Valence appeared than my sister flew to 
 him, and they were clinging to one another in a long em- 
 brace. I moved away towards the new-found portrait of 
 Lady Elizabeth ; the same feeling which had inspired me 
 seemed to take hold of them, and we found ourselves, for 
 the first and last time in our lives, united before the 
 Madonna of San Lucar. 
 
 ' The first and last ! One happy moment we had, and 
 then the struggle began again — if struggle it could be 
 called, which was all on my side and most unwilling. 
 I knew that whenever Alice should perceive the physical 
 helplessness to which Valence was reduced, the argu- 
 ment for affection would be strengthened a thousand-fold. 
 It was pretty and exceedingly touching to witness how, 
 on observing his scarred forehead, she clung to him more 
 closely, looking at him again and again with a sort of 
 motherly tenderness. Her tears flowed silently, but she 
 smiled, and, in more cheerful tones than I had heard for 
 many months, she exclaimed, " Well, brother, you see that 
 all is clear now. I cannot leave this poor Edgar. He has 
 waited and suffered, and he has my promise. Poor Edgar ! " 
 And she fondly repeated the words as if caressing a child. 
 I was overcome, but not wholly. Valence, still encircling 
 her with his arm, said to me, " Davenant, love is stronger 
 than death," and he gave me a half-mocking, half-melancholy 
 smile. I will not relate the discussion that followed. On 
 my sister it was impossible to make an impression ; but from 
 Valence I demanded a solemn engagement that he would 
 bring up his children in their ancestral faith, and allow me, or 
 some one whom he might name, to be their guardian. 
 Alice kept her eyes fixed on him, and I question whether 
 she comprehended a syllable of our dispute. It was in vain. 
 At last I reminded Valence of the dignities inseparable from 
 the House of Trelingham, which it was my bounden duty to 
 
 vol. 1. E
 
 So THE NEW ANTIGONE PAKl I 
 
 preserve unimpaired u And do you tliink," he answered, 
 "that I believe more in your titles and laws of inheritani I 
 
 than I do in your traditional religion? What an idiot 1 
 should be I No, Davenant; when your sister accepts my 
 hand she breaks, I do not say with the affection of her 
 kindred, hut with the delusive greatness they call theirs. 
 She will be no longer Lady Alice ; and you may rely upon 
 it, no child of mine will claim the title or estates, or will 
 touch a stiver belonging to the House of Trelingham. I 
 have enough to live upon; and if I had not, a man can 
 earn his bread. With your sister's beliefs I do not inter- 
 fere ; it is too late, and she could renounce them only to be 
 unhappy. But these things," he went on, looking scornfully 
 round the gallery and waving his hand towards the long line 
 of pictures, " I think she will give up these without shedding 
 tears over them. Will you not, darling ? " 
 
 ' Her only answer was to hide her face in his bosom. I 
 could say no more. I turned and went in silence out of 
 the gallery. I knew not with which of them I felt the 
 more indignant. Both were obstinate, perverse, unreason- 
 able. The rest of the day I spent among my books. 
 At dinner Lady Alice informed me that Valence was gone, 
 but I made no remark. During the few weeks she re- 
 mained at Trelingham we met as seldom as possible. A 
 month later she went away. The Tizzies announced, in 
 regular form, that Colonel Edgar Valence and Lady Alice 
 Davenant were married at a London church, and from that 
 hour my sister was lost to me. Her I never beheld again ; 
 but her tomb — you may see it beside my father's in Treling- 
 ham churchyard. There Colonel Valence had her interred, 
 I know not in what year, for I was abroad and we never 
 exchanged a line, but it must he eight and twenty years 
 ago, before my daughter was born. Whether they had any 
 children, how they lived, or in what way my poor sister 
 died, I could never learn.'
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THERE GLOOM THE DARK BROAD SEAS 
 
 The Earl's emotion in concluding his narrative made the last 
 sentence almost inaudible. Glanville would have liked to 
 inquire whether Colonel Valence was still living, and in what 
 part of the world. But he refrained, seeing how deeply 
 Lord Trelingham was moved. After some time, the latter 
 said, with an effort, ' That is the story, and now what plan 
 do you suggest ? How are we to deal with the picture?' 
 
 'It is almost impossible to say,' he replied. 'Were 
 it merely a question of painting, I could perhaps, on my 
 own judgment, attempt to restore the general effect, if Lady 
 May would kindly sit to me for the Madonna. Peculiar 
 as the style is, I might do something. But to restore the 
 canvas I must call in a friend who is more at home in the 
 miraculous. I mentioned him last night, Lady May. He 
 has a bizarre sort of name — Ivor Mardol.' 
 
 ' Oh, that is Ivor Mardol/ replied the lady ; ' well, call 
 him in. My father is not likely to object.' 
 
 ' No, I am sure,' said Glanville ; ' but my friend — I should 
 find it hard to describe him. It is his pleasure not to be 
 clothed in soft garments nor to dwell in kings' houses. 
 He is extremely unconventional, and being in manners and 
 education far more than a workman, and refusing to be 
 called a gentleman, it would be no easy task to find, in a 
 house like this, the niche that would suit him.' 
 
 'What is he then by profession?' inquired Lord Tre- 
 lingham. 
 
 ' An engraver,' replied Glanville ; ' but he works for him- 
 self, not for a firm or a newspaper. He is well enough
 
 52 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW l 
 
 off; lives in his own little house in a I baring 
 
 Cioss, which he has made as quaint and suggestive of the 
 artistic life as any workshop in the time oi Quentin Matsys 
 or Albert Dtirerj and is, in short, a qui minded, 
 
 quick eyed young man, acquainted not only with his own 
 branch of study, but with painting and painters, and the 
 history of art since the Egyptians, if they began it. He 
 will sometimes condescend to stay with me, though seldom. 
 He lives in his work and the studies to which it leads him. 
 Odd and out-of-the-way society he likes, and has friends 
 very low down in the depths. I should think he has never 
 seen the inside of a drawing-room, except in a picture.' 
 
 'What a delightfully fresh being you describe!' said 
 Lady May; 'you must persuade him to come to us. We 
 will excuse him from attendance in the drawing-room. We 
 will fit him up a hermitage in the Park, or assign him a 
 lodging in the tower. But he must come to us, though we 
 should have to employ stratagem.' 
 
 ' My dear May,' said the Earl, ' you let your fancies run 
 away with you. Of course, if Mr. Glanville thinks his 
 friend would come, and that his knowledge could help us 
 to restore Lady Elizabeth's portrait, there could be no 
 difficulty in letting him follow his own way of life while 
 staying here.' 
 
 ' What I was thinking,' said Glanville, ' is, that if he saw 
 the Madonna he could tell us whether a replica of it is any- 
 where to be met. Or, indeed, without seeing it he might. 
 On the other hand, should it be necessary to attempt its 
 restoration, I could have no more skilful assistant. The 
 one thing for which I should, in that case, stipulate, would 
 be, as you kindly say, Lord Trelingham, that he might be 
 suffered to live in his own way.' 
 
 'But there is really a hermitage in the Park,' said Lady 
 May, 'an attempt at an Alpine cottage, just large enough 
 to hold one person and his brushes, if he happened to be 
 an artist. It stands on an islet in the river, screened from 
 observation by wooded heights, and is off the paths in the 
 Chase. It is not far either.' 
 
 ' That sounds enticing,' said Glanville. ' I cannot see 
 my way without Ivor Mardol ; and, if your Lordship agrees '
 
 OHAP. vi THERE GLOOM THE DARK BROAD SEAS 53 
 
 — he turned to Lord Trelingham — 'I will acquaint him 
 
 with the proposal.' 
 
 ' By all means,' said the Earl. 
 
 'And he shall have the hermitage,' said Lady May, 
 'and as much solitude as he chooses.' 
 
 ' I cannot be sure,' said Glanville thoughtfully, ' that 
 you will like him ; description goes for so little. He is a 
 bright, unworldly spirit, but reserved to excess when not 
 among intimate friends.' 
 
 ' Is he married ? ' inquired the lady. 
 
 ' Not that I am aware,' said Glanville, with a smile ; 
 ' but that is one of the points on which he would be most 
 reserved, if the whim seized him. I know nothing of his 
 relations or surroundings beyond what I see. Nor, though 
 we have been friends since we were at school, has he 
 uttered a syllable respecting them. However, personal 
 talk was never a characteristic of Ivor Mardol. His mind 
 is given elsewhere. For a man not yet thirty, he is marvel- 
 lously staid and self-contained.' 
 
 'You describe an interesting, almost a romantic per- 
 sonage,' said Lady May. 'We must hope he will not be 
 deaf to your persuasions.' And so the matter dropped. 
 Nothing more could be done till the 'almost romantic 
 personage' had been consulted. The portrait of Lady 
 Elizabeth was taken away. In its stead, the curtain which 
 had hung there before was put up for the time being ; and 
 when Tom Davenant came from his equine studies, he 
 found that his strong arm was not to be called into requi- 
 sition, but only the brains of Ivor Mardol, described as 
 ' something between a workman and a gentleman.' Tom 
 lifted his eyebrows slightly. 'What kind of cross is that?' 
 he inquired of the Earl. ' I don't think those half-breeds 
 usually turn out well.' But I must do him the justice to 
 remark that he spoke in a professional and abstract point of 
 view, and not with contempt for the ' half-breed.' Tom 
 despised nobody. But he liked the distinction of races 
 to be kept. As he said now and then with the succinct 
 wisdom which sat so well upon him, 'You can't get an 
 Arab out of a cart-horse. ' 
 
 I have no intention of chronicling the luncheons and
 
 54 THE NEW ANT* <u.i i 
 
 dinners that were eaten at Trelingham during those event 
 
 ful days. My reader must imagine them, with the dull or 
 brilliant conversation whi< h served as their intellectual 
 sh; and he m well, at the same time, picture to 
 
 himself the amusements or occupations — it was not always 
 easy to distinguish between them — which filled up the 
 intervals. The story I have in hand does not concern 
 itseli it deal with eating and drinking, nor much with 
 
 the amusements of the great world ; though, doubtk 
 was entangled in all these threads of the earthly life. 
 
 Suppose, then, luncheon over, and Glanville bent on a 
 lonely walk by the sea, in spite of the rain-clouds and an 
 occasional downpour. He took a delight in wild weather, 
 and found it inspiring; nor did it bring to his mind melan- 
 choly visions, sad landscapes, or the gloomy uncomfortable 
 forebodings which seemed in Lady May to be its accom- 
 paniment. He liked to live within himself, as he phrased 
 it ; and he was never more so than when the sky lowered 
 overhead, and the sullen or defiant roar of the waters came, 
 as now, like a deafening thunder all round him. Imagine 
 him sauntering along the shingly beach. What had been told 
 in the picture-gallery did not keep its ti his fancy 
 
 down here ; it served merely as an occasion to dream and 
 muse, exxiting him as a volume of Spanish ballads might 
 have done, with their lingering assonance, their fine heroic 
 clangour, and undercurrent of love, disastrous or fortunate. 
 He thought of Lady May, of the Earl, of Lady Alice, much 
 as you or I might have thought of them after hearing the 
 story, — with interest, and some degree of wonder that so 
 romantic an incident should have come athwart the mono- 
 tonous course of the Earl's life ; but he felt no deeper 
 emotion. Did he not stand outside their circle ? When 
 he had restored the wrecked portrait and painted the 
 dining-hall, he should lose sight of Trelingham, and the 
 days he was now beginning would roll up like a scroll. 
 He had touched upon many another circle, come into the 
 lives of old and young, and gone out of them again. 
 ' What a lonely fellow I am ! ' he said to himself. ' But 
 for Ivor, I should not have a friend, to call a friend, in the 
 world.' It was this, perhaps, that drew them together.
 
 chap, vi THERE GLOOM THE DARK BROAD SEAS 55 
 
 Ivor seemed to be cut off from the sweet companionship of 
 home, and a solitary from childhood, much liked, suc- 
 cessful in his work, but still — alone. ' And I am alone, 
 too,' repeated Glanville. His parents had died when he 
 was just beginning to know them ; the guardian of his 
 moderate estate had been a man of law, highly conscientious 
 and careful, but at no time capable of winning his ward's 
 confidence, and now himself gone the way of all flesh. 
 He stood there, the centre of his own universe, solitary but 
 for Ivor. 
 
 Thinking thus, the old schooldays came back to him, 
 that careless dreamy time when human nature is making 
 the first trial of itself, and a boy looks on at his own deeds 
 and ripening qualities with as little concern as though they 
 belonged to a stranger, yet is liable to deep and sudden 
 passion, to fits of melancholy and of longing, to pain and 
 disquietude, which sometimes leave their mark on him 
 for life. He remembered the springing up of this friend- 
 ship, fast as Jonah's gourd ; how it seemed perfect in an 
 hour and had continued ever since. They say that only 
 school friendships last. It may be so. At any rate, here 
 was an exchange of mind, heart, imagination, of feelings 
 and experience, that had resulted in steadfast devotion and 
 an almost passionate rivalry of good offices. Rupert Glan- 
 ville was proud of the ancient Norse blood that ran in his 
 veins ; and the name of Ivor Mardol suggested a kindred 
 other than English. Both these young men, however, 
 combined a high degree of reserve and stern silence with 
 a frankness of sentiment which, among Englishmen, is 
 seldom exhibited — unless in moods that express contempt 
 or anger. The explanation perhaps lay in this, that they 
 were both, though by no means after the same fashion, 
 artists. Neither of them took up the instruments of his 
 calling as a drudgery, but in obedience to an instinct, and 
 as a life-long dedication which no success or increase of 
 fortune would lead him to renounce. Brilliant, sociable, 
 and, in a measure, volatile, Rupert had yet never declined 
 the hard work of the studio. His own lightness of disposi- 
 tion led him to admire his friend's patient philosophy, wide 
 learning, and easy waving aside of the world's good gifts.
 
 56 THE NEW ANTIGONE paei i 
 
 Rupert had a poeti< fancy and a heart which, in his e 
 musings, he confessed was too liable to momentary confla- 
 grations. II used to say jestingly that he went to Ins 
 philosopher to have the tire put out. For Mardol, like 
 main gentle persons, had in his nature a fund of austerity. 
 lie was tender-hearted, but his principles were severe, and 
 he sometimes unwittingly manifested a rigour of judgment 
 before which Glanville, though not deeply tarred, like so 
 many young men, with the brush of worldliness, was 
 fain to keep back certain of his own frivoliti Except 
 
 for this perhaps venial offence against friendship, he was 
 loyal tv itself. The splendid success he had achieved in 
 the last three years neither corrupted his heart nor dazzled 
 his understanding. He had met none to compare with his 
 schoolboy-friend, and their attachment was never so strong 
 as when he thought of persuading Ivor to join him at 
 Trelingham. 
 
 He wandered to and fro on the beach considering it. 
 His letter of invitation was not yet written; indeed, he had 
 chosen this solitary promenade to shape its contents. The 
 hermitage and Ivor Mardol living there on fruit and milk, 
 brought him every morning by a rustic attendant, with the 
 glades of Trelingham Chase for his outlook, made a pretty 
 picture. But to enjoy such solitude, in the neighbourhood 
 of the friends who had bestowed it on him, was possible 
 only to a diseased egoist, and Mardol was by no means 
 that. If he came, he would wish to acknowledge their 
 kindness in a becoming spirit ; and could he be at ease 
 or bring out his rare gifts in this too polished society? 
 Would he feel at home? Glanville was not selfish. He 
 weighed these things in the balance. But, again, to have 
 his dearest friend with him ! And why should Ivor, in his 
 proud shyness, or whatever it might be termed, deny him- 
 self the pleasure of associating with men and women from 
 whom, the moment he was really known to them, he would 
 receive an enthusiastic welcome ? He must be entreated 
 to come in the name of their friendship; for his own good 
 he must be taken in the silken snare He couid not go 
 on for ever being a recluse and an outcast from his natural 
 surroundings. He had been so too long. It was all verj
 
 chap, vi THERE GLOOM THE DARK BROAD SEAS 57 
 
 well to begin with a healthy scorn of drawing-rooms and 
 conventionalities — nay, to keep a little of it for future 
 occasions ; but more than this was cynicism, was not defens- 
 ible in the eyes of reason, and was heroic on the wrong 
 side altogether. 
 
 Thus far did Glanville proceed in his meditation while 
 the wind kept driving in the waves about his feet, and 
 the flying scud ran across the sky, making a chequer of 
 light and dark at once fantastic and impressive. Not 
 another human being was in view. Hither and thither 
 went sea-birds on the wing, shrieking out their thin music, 
 now dipping into the foam with careless plunge, and now- 
 sweeping hastily by him to lose themselves in the clouds. 
 There was no boat on the nearer waters ; far out on the 
 horizon he seemed to descry a vessel that loomed up while 
 he gazed and sank out of sight again, giving him the most 
 vivid notion he had ever conceived of a tossing sea and an 
 impending shipwreck. He knew the coast was ironbound 
 and perilous ; immediately below the reach of sand and 
 shingles he was treading a line of sunken rocks was indi- 
 cated by the foaming and wind- beaten surge. But the 
 rain came on harder ; it was growing late ; and he must 
 return to the Court if he would not lose the London post, 
 which left nearly two hours before dinner. He had come 
 down by a long winding path ; but there was a shorter 
 way through the Churchyard. He would take that. 
 
 Shorter it may have been ; steeper it undoubtedly 
 proved. Glanville, in the words of the Pilgrims Progress, 
 ' fell from running to going, and from going to clamber- 
 ing,' while he attempted to guide his steps over the huge 
 stones, with slippery tracts of grass and prickly heather 
 between them, which composed the main part of the ascent. 
 He was soon out of breath, and paused to take in a fresh 
 supply, and look round on the view to which he had turned 
 his back, for, like a true artist, he regretted leaving it. The 
 scene was unutterably grand. A strange, cold light was 
 coming over shore and ocean, bringing out to their smallest 
 detail the crests of the waves, the shining sands, the fringe 
 of rocks to right and left, and the runlets in the heathery 
 sides of the steep he had been climbing. Between the
 
 58 /'// ANTIGONE i'ai.i i 
 
 spectator and the horizon all save this narrow strip was 
 raging sea. On the utmost verge he could still descry the 
 great ship struggling with the waves ; hut while he looked, 
 it was gone e rain drove heavily into his face; and he 
 
 turned again and passed up into the churchyard, of which, 
 in the sudden exchange of daylight for dark, he could not for 
 a moment so much as discern the outlines. It was, in fact, 
 lying under the shadow of a thundercloud that seemed to 
 be gradually sweeping down upon the enclosure, which, 
 marked by a hedge of loose stone-, was the cemetery of the 
 parish. In the blinding storm Glanville stumbled along, 
 endeavouring to gain at least the antique porch, where 
 he hoped there might be shelter from the rain and wind. 
 It was utterly dark when he reached it ; the church-doors 
 were fastened ; and, wet to the skin and almost repenting 
 his afternoon ramble, he sat down on one of the stone seats 
 which, in accordance with some forgotten point of ritual, 
 were on each side of the dim recess. But he could not rest 
 there long. He must stand up and gaze out once more 
 upon the tempest, although to do so he had to shield his 
 eyes from the mingled dust and foam that came driving 
 in with the rain as it blew off the sea. A flash of lightning 
 followed by the rattle of thunder overhead warned him 
 that he was not in a very safe situation. He tried the door 
 again, but it would not yield. Visibly the gloom of a 
 thunderous atmosphere deepened over the churchyard ; 
 a mist of rain seemed to cover the ancient mounds of the 
 dead ; and the solemn yews stood here and there like 
 uncanny apparitions in a dream, dripping with wet, and 
 rustling mysteriously as the wild airs of heaven blew in 
 upon them. 
 
 'What a desolate place!' thought Glanville. 'How it 
 makes one shiver to think of the dead in these storm swept 
 graves by the sea! Can they rest quietly on such a day as 
 this ? ' He smiled at his grim fancies even while he in- 
 dulged them. But, looking, it seemed to him that some- 
 thing, that a figure he had not noticed, was moving in the 
 churchyard among the low hillocks. At first he could not 
 be sure, for the mist was thickening, and it might only be 
 one of the leaning tombstones that to his roused imagina-
 
 chap, vi THERE GLOOM THE DARK BROAD SEAS 59 
 
 tion had assumed the outline of a cloaked figure. Nor had 
 he time to look long. Flash after flash the lightning 
 dazzled his sight, and the peals of thunder, coming faster 
 than he could count, made him draw back into the porch 
 as far as possible. Minutes passed before he could see 
 distinctly. But when the extraordinary violence of the 
 storm was a little abated, and a streak of open sky showed 
 itself among the lower clouds, he saw, not without surprise, 
 a tall figure in a cloak making hastily for the place where 
 he stood. It was no ghost, evidently, although in such 
 ghostly surroundings. Hardly, however, had Glanville made 
 this silent observation, before the rain and the gloom 
 returned, and the stranger, entering as if he perceived no 
 one in the porch, flung himself down on the stone seat, 
 and bent his head against the wall in an attitude of extreme 
 fatigue. The scanty light, or rather, ' darkness visible,' to 
 speak with Milton, showed only a person of commanding 
 stature and flecks of white hair under his drooping hat. 
 Glanville made no sign, but waited, somewhat curious to 
 know what manner of personage it might be that visited so 
 forlorn a spot when tempests were abroad. It was none 
 of the guests at Trelingham ; and no house, except the 
 Parsonage, was nearer than three or four miles. Could he 
 be some one staying at Mr. Truscombe's ? or King Arthur 
 himself, thought Glanville, come to pay his client a visit 
 and thank him for the enthusiastic belief he cherished in 
 the Table Round ? It might well, in mien and lordly bear- 
 ing, be the fabulous King. While these idle musings were 
 passing through his brain, the artist was astonished to 
 observe that his involuntary companion had fallen asleep 
 where he sat. The soft and regular breathing of a sleeper 
 was unmistakable. 
 
 It was a strange situation. To the watcher a sleeping 
 person has always something peculiar, some sense of mystery 
 about him, which inspires a dim and not very comfortable 
 feeling, as of gazing into unknown depths. It is life under 
 the semblance of death, a soul retired into far-away recesses 
 whither we cannot follow, leaving the body animate, yet 
 corpselike, a thing lying on the border of the great abyss 
 and overshadowed by its horror. Glanville felt that a visit-
 
 6o THE NEW ANTIGONE paut l 
 
 ant from the tomb would have been almost as welcome. 
 h was worse than being alone; he had a sense <>f the 
 haunting presence touching him while it could not be held 
 
 in turn. He would go Out ol the por< li and make liis v. 
 through the tempest ; it was better than waiting in such un 
 desirable company. I Jut what, he said to himself, it the 
 man were in need of succour, and too feeble to quit that 
 out-of-the-way spot without assistant He did not know 
 
 whether at the Vicarage, itself some quarter of a mile 
 there would be help, or how Mr. Truscombe's people were 
 to know of a stranger lying asleep in the church vestibule. 
 It would be more humane to wait until the man awoke, 
 or gently to rouse him and ascertain his condition.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN A VAIN SHADOW 
 
 There was no need to wait long. By some magic stroke 
 in the heavens a ray of sunlight, piercing the sullen clouds, 
 darted in at the door and rested on the sleeper's face. It 
 vanished as quickly as it came, but the instantaneous change 
 in the light seemed to have dispersed the old man's 
 slumber. Yes, he was unmistakably an old man that now 
 opened his eyes and fixed them calmly on Glanville stand- 
 ing by the entrance and watching his motions. He shook 
 himself, came forward, and with an easy air inquired of the 
 artist whether he had found him sleeping, and how long he 
 had been there. Glanville told him what had really happened; 
 and the stranger, thanking him for his courtesy, added that 
 old bones were soon tired, and began to look out in silence 
 at the scene before them. It had changed again. The 
 lower clouds, melting in rain, were nearly gone ; and high 
 above them a livid, unbroken mass of vapour stretched over 
 the sky, making a sort of roof that seemed, at the horizon, to 
 bend down and rest on a heavy ridge of purple tinged with 
 white. The boiling sea which occupied the intervening 
 space was desolate as when Glanville last looked across it, 
 save for one object which he did not think to have viewed 
 so nearly. In the midst of the tumbling waves he beheld 
 the same vessel which had been visible less than an hour 
 before. It was not so large as he thought. With bare poles 
 it had been scudding before the gale, but now it was giving 
 a tremendous lurch every moment ; and as it turned a 
 broadside towards him there were to be seen figures on deck 
 moving about in great confusion. They seemed in evil
 
 62 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt i 
 
 plight So intent was Glanville on the spectacle that he 
 . ried out involuntarily when a red flash from the ship told 
 him that a gun had been di d. ' What is that for?' 
 
 he said to his companion, not meaning to speak aloud. A 
 dull boom came upon his ear as the stranger answered, ' It 
 is a signal of distress; she is likely to founder.' 
 
 ' Good God ! ' exclaimed Glanville, ' do you mean to tell 
 me she will be wrecked?' 
 
 ' I think so,' said the other, as if it was a foregone conclu- 
 sion which did not concern him. ' See, they are signalling 
 again. They will never get into harbour ; if she stands in 
 she will go to pieces on the bar. It is a good dozen miles 
 to the next place where she could run in. But that is only 
 a roadstead.' 
 
 ' But the lifeboat,' cried Glanville, in much distress ; ' is 
 there no lifeboat on the coast ? ' 
 
 ' What lifeboat would venture on such a sea ? ' inquired 
 the stranger. ' It would be merely adding to the number 
 of drowned men. Ah, she signals again ! It is no use ; 
 we shall see her heel over in a few minutes.' 
 
 ' Oh, horrible, horrible ! ' said the artist. ' To look on, 
 and be so helpless. If we could but do something,' and he 
 moved to and fro restlessly, looking round in the hope that 
 help of some sort might be putting off from the land. But 
 he could see only the tall vessel staggering along and the 
 waves rising over it. 
 
 ■ You never saw a ship go down, I suppose ? ' said the 
 old man, eyeing him in a way that implied some pity and a 
 great deal of scorn. Glanville, struck by the harsh ring in 
 the stranger's voice, stopped in his walk and looked, as 
 seeking for an explanation, straight across at him. ' What 
 makes you ask ? ' he said ; ' have you ? You seem not to 
 mind it much.' 
 
 ' What difference can it make whether I mind it or no?' 
 retorted the old man. ' It will not save one of them from 
 drowning. The play must be played out. Do you think 
 of rushing on the stage and rescuing Hamlet or Lear from 
 his fate because you pity him ? No, you sit there quietly 
 and enjoy your sentimental illusions and your exquisite 
 weeping. This is but a larger stage You can't interfere ;
 
 chap, vii IN A VAIN SHADOW 63 
 
 be miserable if you must, or if you wish to indulge in the 
 luxury. It is all one to the men in that sinking ship. Ha, 
 what a lurch ! She cannot stand much more of it.' 
 
 1 Why,' said Glanville, ' you talk as if you had not the 
 heart of a man. What hideous nonsense ! and at such a 
 time ! You are not, you cannot be serious.' The words 
 of the old man seemed to him almost as horrible as the 
 shipwreck he was gazing on. 
 
 The other answered with astonishing calm. ' When I 
 was your age,' he said, ' I felt as you do. I have learnt 
 since not to lament the things I cannot help. We must 
 bear them. The time will come, if you live long enough, 
 when you will have witnessed many a ship go down, and 
 be as helpless to save them as you are at this moment. 
 Perhaps it is the deepest pity that sheds no tears.' 
 
 The vessel was again out of sight ; but they heard the 
 signal-guns from minute to minute ; and in Glanville's 
 heart, at least, they excited a sickening sensation, which 
 took away all desire of speech. But he thought he must 
 reply. 
 
 ' Pardon me, sir,' he said, ' if I did not quite under- 
 stand you. This dreadful scene, — it is too much.' He 
 stopped abruptly and turned away. The signal came again, 
 but fainter. His next glance seaward showed the horizon 
 one sheet of lightning, and there came crashing down upon 
 them a roar of thunder which appeared to be sounding 
 from every quarter of the heavens. 
 
 ' You will hear no more signal-guns,' said his companion 
 when the tumult ceased ; ' that was probably the last 
 which came before this overwhelming clap of thunder. 
 Nothing can live when sky and sea are gone mad in such 
 fashion. To-morrow planks and spars will be thrown up 
 along the coast, and we shall have to lay in this nook, 
 which holds too many already, the bodies that may be cast 
 ashore. Well, it is all over now ; when the play comes to 
 an end the tragedy is out' 
 
 Glanville kept silence. He could not trust himself to 
 speak. The stranger, as though thinking aloud, went 
 on in a lower tone : ' The worst is if the curtain should 
 draw up a second time. To be wrecked is unpleasant,
 
 64 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW l 
 
 but the waves close over you, and you sink to sleep as 
 on velvet cushions. I remember the keen sense of anticipa- 
 tion. That cuts deep into a man. Hut afterwards is 
 
 nothing in comparison. No,' lie said, rousing himself 
 and speaking to Glanville, who was beginning to listen. 
 ' it is coming back to life that I regret, not seeing it slip away 
 into the ocean.' 
 
 ' Were you ever in a shipwreck, then?' asked the young 
 man, softening. 
 
 ' Once, many years since,' he replied. 
 
 ' And you escaped easily ? ' 
 
 ' I was brought back to life when I had been dead, so 
 far as any one could tell, several hours.' 
 
 ' Were you unconscious all that time ? ' the artist in- 
 quired. 
 
 ' Utterly so,' he answered ; ' and coming back to con- 
 sciousness was far more dreadful than the pangs of drown- 
 ing. I left half my vitality — the best half, I think — behind 
 me.' 
 
 Glanville hastily spoke what was in his mind : ' Is that 
 why you feel so unconcerned ? ' 
 
 'No,' said the other, who seemed incapable of taking 
 offence ; ' 1 think life itself is the great shipwreck. Exist- 
 ence is made up of pain. It is always and everywhere 
 pitiable. And we are but spectators till our own turn 
 comes to wear the burning crown and be racked and torn. 
 You cannot help me, and I cannot help you if you stand in 
 need of help. But the sky is clearing now the brave vessel 
 has gone down. Let me wish you good afternoon.' 
 
 He stepped out of the porch, and, at the same moment, 
 a gust of wind took his hat and blew it some distance. 
 He ran after it bareheaded, stooped, and caught it up again. 
 As he turned about, Glanville, who had run to his assist- 
 ance, perceived with strong amazement that the stranger's 
 bare forehead was disfigured with an irregular seam, the 
 evident trace of a sword-stroke. He almost staggered back. 
 It was utterly improbable that here, in this churchyard, a 
 casual visitant should be marked like the hero of the tale 
 he had heard in the morning. It must be Colonel Valence. 
 He pronounced the name aloud, and was answered in-
 
 chap, vii IN A VAIN SHADOW 65 
 
 stantly. ' Colonel Valence ? What do you want with him ? 
 He is here at your service.' 
 
 Glanville blushed and stammered. He could not in- 
 form Colonel Valence that in the last four and twenty hours 
 he had learned to know him intimately, though unac- 
 quainted with his name before ; that he had read a most 
 confidential letter written by him over thirty years ago, and 
 knew the history of the Madonna of San Lucar. Should 
 he tell Valence of the morning's accident to that picture ? 
 No, he would tell him nothing. The Colonel saw that 
 a struggle was going on in the young man's mind; and 
 as Glanville hesitated to reply, he said, ' Have I had the 
 honour of meeting you at any time, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Never, to my knowledge,' said the artist ; ' but — but 
 I have heard your name, — something, too, of your history, 
 of your having fought in Spain when a young man. You 
 lived in this neighbourhood once, did you not ? ' 
 
 'I live here still,' answered the Colonel briefly; 'and 
 now, since you appear to be well acquainted with my name, 
 may I ask the favour of yours ? ' 
 
 'My name is Rupert Glanville,' the young man replied. 
 
 ' Rupert Glanville ! ' repeated his questioner, surprised 
 in turn ; ' Glanville the artist ? ' 
 
 'An artist, certainly,' said the modest painter. 
 
 Colonel Valence seemed for a while lost in thought. 
 ' Are you staying at the town yonder ? ' he inquired, 
 pointing away to the cliff which hid Yalden from them. 
 
 ' I am staying at Trelingham Court.' 
 
 'Oh, at Trelingham Court!' echoed Valence, without 
 moving a muscle. 'Then I wish you good-day, sir!' 
 And, as if not a word more was to be said, he turned de- 
 liberately towards the ascent, and with slow but not feeble 
 steps began his journey homeward, as it should seem, for 
 he faced away from Yalden and Trelingham, both of which 
 lay on the same side of the country. 
 
 Glanville looked after him. There was something, he 
 acknowledged, of the stately grace and resolute daring of 
 King Arthur about the man ; but what a harsh cynic ! how 
 little resembling the idea that, in his own mind, the artist 
 had formed while reading the epistle from San Lucar ! 
 
 vol. 1. F
 
 66 THE NEW ANTJGOA i'ai.i i 
 
 i [eroic he might be, and doubtli ; his bearing showed 
 
 it. But every particle of feeling seemed extinguished by 
 
 the stern and pitiless philosophy that, in the name of pity, 
 would not suiier him to care for the calamities which user- 
 took his fellows. And so that was Colonel Valence I He 
 was still living, still in the neighbourhood of Trelingham 
 Court. And Lady Alice was dead. In what relation did 
 the two families stand towards each other? He longed to 
 know more of the strange story. The thought quickened 
 his pace as he walked up the hill. But he was cold and 
 tired; the road appeared steeper than ever, and not until 
 some time after the dinner-hour did he reach the front 
 terrace of the Court. As he did so two men wrapped up 
 as for a night expedition, and with lanterns in their hands, 
 ran against him. They stopped and explained that, in 
 pursuance of the Earl's directions, they were just setting 
 forth in quest of him, for his long absence, combined with 
 the fearful storm by which he must have been overtaken, 
 had given rise to great anxiety. ' We should have started 
 sooner,' one of them subjoined, ' but for the accident to 
 Mr. Davenant.' 
 
 Glanville was shocked to such a degree that he forgot 
 to thank them for going after himself. 'What accident?' 
 he hastily inquired. 
 
 ' One that might have been very serious. Mr. Davenant 
 had been out in the lifeboat and had nearly been drowned. 
 He was brought home as soon as men could be spared 
 from attending on the wreck.' 
 
 ' Ah, there was a wreck !' cried Glanville, and he had 
 begun to question them as they arrived at the entrance, 
 when, catching sight of Lady May crossing the hall, he ran 
 up to her, and begged to know whether her cousin was in 
 any kind of danger. 
 
 'I do not think so,' she answered; 'we were beginning 
 to feel more anxious on your account than his. The 
 doctor at Yalden ascertained that there was no fracture, 
 but the shoulder has received a severe strain. My cousin 
 laughs at the notion that he shall not be about the house 
 to-morrow in However, we have written to Mrs. 
 
 Davenant in town. He has been ordered to keep his bed,
 
 chap, vii IN A VAIN SHADOW 67 
 
 and we must see that he obeys. He takes any mishap to 
 himself very lightly — too lightly indeed.' 
 
 ' And was he out with the lifeboat ? ' inquired Glanville, 
 feeling very kindly towards the young man, and silently 
 contrasting him with Colonel Valence, not to the latter's 
 advantage. 
 
 ' Why, it was all Cousin Tom's doing,' said Lady May. 
 ' You shall hear the story at dinner, for ' — interrupting her- 
 self to look at his weather-beaten state — ' you must change 
 at once, Mr. Glanville, and come down as soon as you are 
 ready. Dinner is late, owing to my cousin's accident.' 
 She rang, and instructed the housekeeper to see that Mr. 
 Glanville was treated as an invalid. ' It is the only way to 
 keep you from becoming so,' she added. Under such 
 gracious care did the artist appear at dinner. He looked 
 pale and tired ; with a paleness, however, which set off his 
 bright hair and intellectual features to exceeding advantage. 
 He was not so good-looking as Tom Davenant ; but ' he 
 was well enough.' 
 
 They were a small party. Mr. Truscombe and Lord 
 Hallamshire had gone down to the wreck ; and the Earl, 
 who was very fond of his cousin, could not be induced to 
 quit his bedside until that young man was satisfactorily 
 asleep. The only remaining gentleman besides Glanville 
 was an elderly squire, who lived a long way across the 
 moor and had come to enjoy a few days' fishing at Treling- 
 ham. He was a good-natured, silent creature, not easily 
 roused to express sentiment of any kind, good or bad; and 
 while he made you comfortable in his presence (which 
 some silent men are far from doing), you could not expect 
 him even to ask a question. But Glanville was ready to 
 ask a thousand ; and Lady May and the Countess were 
 only too willing to satisfy him. 
 
 He could ask questions, but he could neither eat nor 
 drink. The light and warmth of the dining-room were 
 grateful to him physically, and took away the chill sense of 
 desolation which so many hours in the churchyard, under 
 the pelting storm, had inflicted ; but his memory was full 
 of the dreadful sight, and yet more dreadful imagination, 
 which had mastered him while gazing at the tossing ship.
 
 THE NEW ANTIGOA paw i 
 
 He could not choose but think of it again and again, and, 
 though he knew not one of the human beings she carried, 
 it would prove an intense relief should any, by the gallant 
 exertions of Tom Davenant, have escaped destruction. 
 'How came Mr. Davenant to be at Yalden ?' he asked. 
 
 The Countess, who exhibited a curious mixture of excited 
 gaiety and sudden relapses into the terror which had laid 
 hold of her that afternoon, answered plaintively, ' It was 
 partly my doing that he went. For I knew that this week 
 there was to be a salmon-hunt in the Yale ; and I have 
 never seen one ; and I thought I would get Cousin Tom to 
 instruct me a little beforehand ; and so I persuaded him to 
 ride to Yalden for some tackle, because I was to have a 
 lesson in fly-fishing to-morrow. It was all just to under- 
 stand what fishing is like. Of course I couldn't join in 
 the salmon-hunt, much as I might long for it. But I never 
 thought Cousin Tom would persuade the men to go out 
 in a lifeboat. Oh, May,' she cried, with a piteousness in 
 her voice that Glanville could not laugh at, although he felt 
 there was a comic element somewhere in it, ' are you quite 
 sure that Tom will not be hurt for life ? ' 
 
 'The doctor is quite sure,' answered Lady May; 'don't 
 distress yourself, Karina. Tom will be himself in a day or 
 two, if he keeps quiet, — and if you do,' she added some- 
 what mockingly. 
 
 ' For, you see, Mr. Glanville,' the Countess went on, ' he 
 really did put himself into the greatest danger. The men 
 told us that brought him. He would insist on getting 
 alone into the lifeboat and taking it across the bar, as they 
 call it, and ' 
 
 ' My dear Karina, we shall hardly understand the story 
 if you tell it in that way,' said Lady May. 'Cousin Tom 
 was brave enough, but he was not out of his mind. The 
 fact seems to have been,' she continued, looking towards 
 Glanville, ' that when my cousin was choosing the fishing- 
 tackle for the Countess, in a shop not far from the promen- 
 ade, he saw people running down to the waterside and 
 heard them shouting that a vessel was standing-in, showing 
 signals of distress. He thought he had heard a minute-gun 
 discharged ; but there was so much thunder that he had
 
 chap, vii IN A VAIN SHADOW 69 
 
 not dwelt on the notion. Following the crowd, he arrived 
 on the beach at the same moment with half a dozen fisher- 
 men, well known to him, who were passing the wet after- 
 noon in a tavern close at hand. The air was so full of mist 
 that even with glasses little more of the vessel could be 
 made out than her size, which seemed considerable, and the 
 direction in which she appeared to be going ; for she was 
 not standing-in to Yalden, but making for the roadstead to 
 the north.' 
 
 'I saw her at that point, I am sure,' said Glanville; and 
 he described how she had repeatedly fired minute-guns and 
 received no answer. 
 
 'You could not have heard the answer,' said Lady May, 
 ' had any been given, with the high cliff between you and 
 Yalden beach. But, in fact, there were no signal rockets ; 
 and the sailors had only their fowling-pieces. About the 
 rockets there has been, my cousin says, some extraordinary 
 mistake. But to go on with the story. You heard, I 
 make no doubt, an unusually violent peal of thunder, which 
 seemed to finish the worst part of the storm ? ' Glanville 
 nodded assent. It was when Colonel Valence had given 
 the vessel up for lost, and when she had, in fact, disappeared 
 from their view. 
 
 ' Well, no sooner had the awful sound died away than 
 the ship came swiftly round the edge of the cliff, as though 
 driven by a hurricane, and made straight for the bar, over 
 which the waves were breaking with the utmost fury. The 
 excitement on shore became intolerable. My cousin had 
 persuaded the fishermen to get out the lifeboat and make 
 her ready for sea ; and thus far they were willing, although 
 not one of them but assured him that it could never be 
 launched. By dint of coaxing and commanding, however, 
 launched it was ; a crew was brought together, and with 
 immense difficulty they had got her a few yards from land, 
 when she was flung on shore again and stranded. My 
 cousin implored them to try once more ; they refused ; and 
 it was then that he told them, in a desperate sort of way he 
 sometimes has, that he would venture alone rather than see 
 a shipful of helpless beings perish before his eyes. That 
 shamed them ; and, for the second time, as the vessel was
 
 70 77/ 'ANTIGONE i-aut i 
 
 rounding the High Cliff, they managed, with Tom for their 
 captain, to launch the boat and get it as close to the bar as 
 they dared. Further it was impossible to go; indeed, th 
 hardly knew how to keep the lifeboat afloat, when the vessel 
 struck on the bar, and its crew of four or five and twenty 
 — I cannot tell the exact number — was seen struggling in 
 the waves. It must have been heartrending to look on. 
 The lifeboat did wonders. Ropes were thrown out, and 
 nine or ten poor creatures rescued; while, as the sea was 
 now slightly calmer, the rest, who had clung to what they 
 could, were able, all except three or four, to keep floating 
 till a second boat went out. Poor Cousin Tom, however, 
 who had been so active and undaunted all through, was not 
 to come off scatheless. The heavy sea carried the life- 
 boat a long distance from the point they endeavoured to 
 make. It was driven inshore unexpectedly ; and as it 
 touched, a projecting piece of timber struck Cousin Tom on 
 the shoulder, knocking him off deck into the shallows. It 
 is a marvel that he escaped being crushed. He was carried 
 some distance by the returning wave ; and but for a young 
 fisher-lad who instantly plunged in and brought him out 
 
 Poor dear Tom ! ' said Lady May, stopping in her 
 
 narrative as the thought of his peril came home to her ; 
 ' what a brave fellow he is ! and how could we have borne 
 to lose him !' 
 
 Karina, who had for some time been listening with her 
 hands clasped, was crying like a child, and could not speak 
 for tears. She looked very pretty and innocent so, like 
 a white rose upon which the rain is falling in heavy drops, 
 while the sun lights them up. 
 
 Glanville, who felt himself liking Tom Davenant more 
 and more, said, when the silence was becoming rather pain- 
 ful, ' Your cousin behaved nobly. I hope he was not left 
 long without proper attention.' 
 
 ' He was much shaken,' replied Lady May, ' and confused 
 for a while, but not, he tells me, unconscious. They took 
 him to a little cottage on shore, but he insisted on walk" 
 to the doctor's, and when he arrived there fainted. The 
 doctor happened to be at home ; he had to decide in a 
 moment whether to leave my cousin or to examine his hurt
 
 chap, vii IN A VAIN SHADOW 71 
 
 before going down to the wreck. However, he gave it in 
 Tom's favour, saying that but for him there would have 
 been no other patients to attend to. He declares that 
 there is only a strain, which will go off, and that nothing is 
 displaced or broken. A carriage was got ready, and came 
 on slowly with my cousin, while one of the men very kindly 
 ran on before, to inform us of what had happened. There 
 was much gentle feeling shown on all sides.' 
 
 Again Glanville's thoughts reverted to Colonel Valence. 
 But he would not speak of him. ' Is it certain that any 
 are lost?' was his next question. 
 
 1 We shall not know till to-morrow, when Lord Hallam- 
 shire returns. But I fear that some were lost at the moment 
 of foundering,' said Lady May. 
 
 ' Do you think their bodies will be recovered ? Would 
 they be buried in Trelingham cemetery, if they were?' he 
 asked. 
 
 ' Yes,' she replied; 'it is the only place at hand. You 
 may have observed, if the storm allowed you to walk about 
 the churchyard, how many graves there are of persons 
 drowned. Shipwrecks are common on this terrible coast.' 
 
 ' There were not five minutes of clear weather,' he re- 
 plied, 'while I was in the porch. But I can imagine it 
 is so.' 
 
 He would not mention Colonel Valence. Glanville, spend- 
 ing much of his time alone, and keeping his own confidence 
 because he had none to share it, had fallen into a habit of 
 reserve, which often induced him to be silent when he was, 
 as now, living in a domestic circle. What harm could 
 there be in saying that he had come across a man whose 
 name, since he lived in their neighbourhood, must often be 
 heard at Trelingham ? However, he did not choose to 
 repeat his disagreeable adventure ; and he was spared the 
 temptation, thanks to the Countess Karina, who, in her 
 vivacious manner, was perpetually recurring to the event of 
 the afternoon — admiring, fearing, and hoping by turns as the 
 thought of Tom Davenant's heroism, of his danger, and 
 the many perils he had escaped already on the hunting- 
 field and the river, came uppermost. All this, from the 
 peculiar lightness of accent which distinguished the fair
 
 7* THE NEW ANTIGONE vk\:\ i 
 
 lady, and the impossibility of a cloud resting long on her 
 transparent brow and sparkling eyes, seemed to Glanville 
 
 like a fantastic interlude weaving itself up with the horror 
 of the shipwreck and the simple manliness of Cousin Tom. 
 He laughed inwardly, tired and depressed as he felt, at the 
 naive a fled ion which would not let the Countess be silent. 
 Was she engaged to her cousin ? It did not seem so. She 
 was not more than his age, if so much ; but there was a 
 tone about her that implied the enjoyment of more freedom 
 than is usual in young unmarried ladies, even when en- 
 gaged. That she was exceedingly interested in Mr. Tom 
 I >avenant no one with eyes in his head could help seeing ; 
 not even the placid sportsman, Glanville supposed, who had 
 looked and listened in silence imperturbable during the 
 whole of the narrative, only remarking, when it was con- 
 cluded, that he knew the man whose stack of timber that 
 was nigh which Mr. Tom had come to grief. He was a 
 sawyer named Frampton, and ought to have taken it away 
 a good week ago to his yard at Plymouth. 
 
 ' I wish he had, then,' cried Karina. ' Don't you think, 
 May,' she observed next moment, ' that we ought to send 
 up and ask how Cousin Tom is now?' 
 
 ' Papa will join us in the drawing-room,' answered Lady 
 May, 'and he will tell us.' On which hint the other lady 
 rose, and Glanville was left to the company of Squire 
 Huffington. The squire drank his wine quietly, in modera- 
 tion, and as with a conscience void of offence ; although in 
 the course of ten minutes he did but open his lips once 
 for the purpose of conversation, and then merely to em- 
 phasise the delinquency of sawyer Frampton, on which he 
 had before animadverted. ' He ought to have taken that 
 stack away a good week ago,' he said. Glanville could not 
 but agree with him ; and after this brilliant dialogue they 
 joined the ladies, just as Lord Trelingham came from his 
 cousin's room. He gave a reassuring account of Mr. 
 Tom, except that he could not sleep long together because 
 of the pain. But a good deal of pain, the nurse said, was 
 better than insensibility at that stage ; and the patient 
 took it all as a matter of course, and was very obedient 
 to orders. While the Earl spoke he glanced uneasily at
 
 chap, vii IN A VAIN SHADOW 73 
 
 Lady May, who neither avoided nor sought his observation. 
 The Countess he patted on the head, but otherwise gave 
 her no great share of attention. Glanville went to bed 
 saying, ' I wonder which of them is engaged to Cousin 
 Tom?' But he was too cold and wretched to pursue the 
 subject, and he spent a miserable night, feeling more 
 feverish than he liked to own.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 
 
 ' Df.ar Ivor,' wrote GlanviUe next morning, 'your friend 
 Rupert has not been slow to seek wisdom at your hands 
 when he thought it lacking in himself. And you have 
 shown as much pleasure in giving as he in receiving ; while, 
 which I take to be a sign of perfect friendship, he has never 
 once thanked you. But now, he is going to put your 
 philosophy to the test — not your affection; no, indeed, 
 who could think it ? 
 
 ' My dear old fellow, I want you to give me not advi< e, 
 but two or three weeks of your existence. I am lost if you 
 do not come to Trelingham Court. You exclaim at the 
 notion ; but without you I cannot stay here. You know 
 to what severe fits of depression I am liable ; one of them, 
 owing to a misadventure that I witnessed yesterday, has 
 come upon me again, and I shall not shake it off in the 
 mental solitude of this place. Other reasons, curious and 
 important, would have led me to write yesterday. I will 
 explain when you come, and you shall decide whether they 
 would have justified me in asking you to break through 
 your rule and mix in this kind of society. I should tell 
 you that Lord Trelingham, who sends a most cordial invi- 
 tation, and will be charmed to make your acquaintance, 
 — this banal phrase is not without meaning in the present 
 instance, — knows the ways and customs of the artist tribe 
 too well to think of binding you down to formal observ- 
 ances. You may live as retired lure and as much at your 
 ease as in your own sanctum. I have informed him, so far 
 as was required, of the manner in which you meet the
 
 chap, vni AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 75 
 
 world, or, to speak more truly, get out of its way. You 
 shall be a hermit at Trelingham, if you will come, and meet 
 only those you like. If you say the thing is impossible, 
 then, Ivor, I must go back to London. To not a soul in 
 the world but yourself would I reveal this streak of mad- 
 ness — for what else can it be ? I was caught, by the bye, in 
 a storm yesterday afternoon, have neither eaten nor slept 
 to speak of in the last twenty-four hours, and shall want 
 you if I indulge myself in a slight attack of fever. But 
 what is the use of going on ? Send me a line and say I 
 may expect you to-morrow evening. I enclose directions 
 for the journey. Rupert.' 
 
 It was altogether true. Since yesterday morning the 
 reasons for which Glanville would have summoned his 
 friend to Trelingham had yielded to others of a very 
 different complexion. The overstrained temperament of 
 the artist, who works by feeling and imagination where 
 other men are busy only with their hands, was suffering 
 from the combined effects of long hours spent in the rain 
 and excitement consequent on the shipwreck. This latter 
 experience will be understood by any one that has had the 
 misfortune of witnessing a great fire in which lives have 
 been lost. The senses seem all wrapped up in the horror 
 of it ; the mind cannot get away from it ; the eyes still see 
 what has happened, and have in them a hot sensation. 
 Nor will the impression pass for days. Glanville was 
 feeling a kind of nausea which made it impossible to touch 
 food ; and when he woke from such sleep as came to him 
 in the morning, he knew that an old and dreaded enemy 
 stood by his bedside. He called it depression, melancholy, 
 a streak of madness ; it was all these, perhaps. When he 
 was younger, at school, he had often suffered from it ; but, 
 as he said, except Ivor Mardol, no one guessed that so 
 mercurial and cheery a nature could be hypochondriac ; 
 nor was he so wanting in prudence as to let his ' friends ' 
 know of the complaint which made him miserable. A 
 man who is to succeed should never acquaint the world 
 that he is sick, or sore, or sorry. He will meet, if he does, 
 with contempt, not compassion. There are secrets which
 
 76 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-\kt i 
 
 make up the greater part of many a life, but will never be 
 uttered ; secrets that explain sudden downfalls, want of 
 enterprise, rashness in the wary, and intoxication in the 
 self-controlled. But the explanation cannot be given, and 
 the world wonders. 
 
 Glanville did not send his letter until he had seen Lord 
 Trelingham, and ascertained that he need not delay be- 
 cause of Tom Davenant's illness. The Earl believed that 
 he would soon be right again. He strongly desired to see 
 the portrait of Lady Elizabeth restored to something of its 
 pristine glory ; nor was he unobservant of the worn and 
 pallid look which testified in Glanville to the agitation he 
 had gone through. Lady May insisted that he should see 
 the physician who drove over in the course of the day 
 from the county-town to attend her cousin. But the 
 artist firmly declined. He would admit only that he was 
 tired, and that a fire would make his room more comfort- 
 able. It was a curious fact, connected with his ' streak of 
 madness,' that, whenever it affected him, he shivered and 
 could not get warm. ' Diminished circulation and inter- 
 mittent pulse,' the physician would have said, shaking his 
 head a little, and prescribing quinine and gentle exercise. 
 But, unlike most who suffer from slow circulation, Glanville 
 at such a time hated sunshine, and would sit in a chill 
 room rather than face it. What he asked was a fire, and 
 to lie with a cloak about him on a sofa. These moderate 
 luxuries were bestowed on him; and he hid himself away in 
 his den, like a wounded animal. 
 
 As the afternoon wore on he thought he must rouse 
 himself and pay a visit to the real invalid, who had only 
 strained his shoulder, and bore it like a man, instead of 
 surrendering to phantasmal terrors from the void inane. 
 Tom Davenant was lying in bed, as near the open window 
 as the nurse would let him. On seeing Glanville he held out 
 his hand, saying how kind it was of him to come, and that 
 he hoped no mischief had befallen him during the storm. 
 A twinge or two of pain interrupted the good-natured 
 fellow before he could finish his sentence. The artist, who 
 admired both his bravery and his unconcern, knew better 
 than to praise either. He merely said, ' Oh, I am all right,
 
 cuap. vin AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 77 
 
 thank you,' and began to inquire about the shipwrecked 
 vessel, where it was from, and how many it carried. I 
 think that by some knack of freemasonry which goes with 
 reserved speech, he contrived to inform Tom, through the 
 medium of these collateral questions, that he looked on 
 him, if he might say so, as an exceedingly fine fellow. 
 Tom, at any rate, was very cordial and communicative. 
 Lord Hallamshire had come up to see him after luncheon, 
 and brought the whole story of the shipwreck. It was an 
 English sailing-vessel, coming home from the Cape, with 
 only three passengers, and a crew, all told, of four and 
 twenty. They had been driven out of their course in a 
 fog, and, intending to make the Channel, had slipped by 
 Land's End, and run clean into the heart of the storm 
 which had been travelling partly ahead of them. No one 
 on board knew the coast or its soundings. When Glanville 
 saw them, it was their expectation every moment to be 
 driven upon shore underneath Trelingham Church ; nor 
 did they suspect the neighbourhood of Yalden Harbour, 
 which, owing to the mist, they had never once sighted. A 
 sudden change in the direction of the gale had turned the 
 vessel round High Cliff and on the bar. Long before that, 
 however, she had refused to answer her helm and was rolling 
 at the mercy of wind and tide. 
 
 'Twenty-seven on board,' said Glanville, when Tom 
 had brought the narrative to this point. ' And how many 
 saved ? ' 
 
 ' Eleven,' replied Tom quietly. ' We did what we 
 could ; but the sea was awful. Our boat rescued six, and 
 the other which followed us picked up the rest. Mr. 
 Truscombe will be pretty well worn out by the time he has 
 seen to the survivors and buried all that may be thrown on 
 shore. He is down there now; Lord Hallamshire left him 
 in the midst of living and dead, for the poor things that 
 were saved are quite destitute.' 
 
 Glanville started. ' Thank you for reminding me,' he 
 said. ' I will go down and see whether I can be of 
 use.' And in ten minutes he was riding along the avenue 
 on his way to Yalden — not as one that hurries in vain- 
 glorious mood to proffer his aid, but ashamed that he had
 
 78 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW i 
 
 waited for another to rouse him. lie reflected with sur- 
 prise on the likeness between his own depression, which 
 kept him lying on a couch all the morning, and Colonel 
 Valence's despairing philosophy, which looked with dry eyi 
 at a perishing < rew. He could excuse himself only by saying 
 that melancholy was his complaint, that it prostrated his cour- 
 age and benumbed his faculties. But what did he know 
 of Colonel Valence? He rode on, and reached Yalden in 
 a more tranquil, though not less melancholy frame of mind. 
 For it was only as he went to and fro by the side of the 
 good clergyman, ministering such help and consolation as 
 he could to the survivors — who were all much distressed 
 in mind and body — or assisting with his own hands to lay 
 out the remains of the dead, — only then, amid these 
 dismal surroundings, did he feel that the dark spirit was 
 loosening its hold on him. Mr. Truscombe would not let 
 him stay all night, as he proposed, but sent him back to 
 Trelingham, where he arrived late, to encounter the kindly 
 reproaches of the Earl and his daughter, to take a hasty 
 meal, and to lie down tired, but not altogether miserable. 
 
 Next day a telegram announced that Ivor Mardol might 
 be expected by the fast train which, two days previously, 
 had brought down the artist and Tom Davenant, and was 
 obliging enough in that way to open our story. Lady May 
 inquired whether he would at once take up his abode in 
 the hermitage. But Glanville assured her that such a pro- 
 posal directly made would frighten him into' the severest 
 observance of the proprieties, although to his exceeding 
 discomfort. A life in the hermitage would be best for him, 
 no doubt; only, like a bird, he must enter the cage of his own 
 accord. He was the sort of person that, from intense shy- 
 ness, refuses what he knows to be pleasant, and what he 
 would much like to accept. ' But,' continued the artist, 
 ' please, do not think him unmanageable, or morbid, or, as 
 perhaps my account of him has led you to believe, in any 
 way ridiculous.' Lady May declared that she was far from 
 dreaming of such a thing. ' I do not wonder,' she said, ' if 
 original people — in a society of portentous dulness like ours, 
 where the outside is solid and the inside hollow — have to 
 wear a mask. They cannot help being shy, because they
 
 chai'. viii AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 79 
 
 are always solitary ; conversation as it goes on around 
 them must sound like the cawing of rooks. I honour Mr. 
 Mardol's shyness. It seems to be founded on genius and 
 character, not on the fear of man's opinion.' 
 
 ' It is founded,' replied Glanville, ' on absorption in 
 the greatest thoughts, which often makes him disregard 
 little things when he should be attending to them. He 
 does not wish to be or to appear singular; but his excep- 
 tional gifts make him so ; and he is startled into shyness 
 when the difference between himself and others comes out.' 
 
 ' You say he is learned ? ' 
 
 ' Beyond comparison the best-read man of my acquaint- 
 ance. Speaks half a dozen languages, understands as 
 many more, and is at home in all literatures.' 
 
 'And his profession — is he skilful in it?' 
 
 'A most sure and delicate touch. His eye quick in 
 discerning the finest shades, and an equal lightness of 
 hand in rendering them.' 
 
 ' But why is he not celebrated ? Has he no ambition ? ' 
 
 ■ I do not think he understands the word. He earns 
 money and gives it away ; talks to me when he wants 
 society, or goes among the working men in his neighbour- 
 hood ; travels occasionally in a modest way ; can bear his 
 own company for months at a time ; and would expire with 
 shame if any one pointed him out in the street. Is there 
 not a Roman poet who calls that the summit of ambition — 
 to be pointed at as you go along ? It would kill Ivor 
 Mardol. I think he would give a gallery of his finest prints 
 to buy the cloak of darkness they tell of in fairy tales, and 
 go about in it unseen.' 
 
 'Your friend is a phoenix, not an engraver,' said Lady 
 May, smiling. ' I shall be curious to see him. But is he, 
 then, to be accommodated with an ordinary guest-chamber, 
 like any other mortal ? ' 
 
 ' For to-night and to-morrow I think it will be wisest. 
 Afterwards, I will ask you to show him the hermitage.' 
 
 In this way Ivor Mardol came to Trelingham. 
 
 If Lady May Davenant had expected to discover in 
 his outward appearance tokens of the rare excellence 
 within, she must have been disappointed when Glanville
 
 So THE NSW ANTIGONE PARI I 
 
 presented his friend to her. Without showing any trace of 
 the ' half-breed ' which her cousin had fancied him to be, 
 he looked a man whom you might easily pass in the 
 average. His height was not commanding, nor were his 
 features handsome. By the side of Glanville he looked 
 plain and slight. He was very thin, stooped a little in the 
 shoulders, walked negligently though not without ease, and 
 for some time hardly lifted his eyes from the ground while 
 his hostess addressed him. When he did so, however, he 
 showed a countenance that, in the manly expression of 
 Robert Burns, ' had received its patent of nobility direct 
 from Almighty God.' Intellectual distinction gave his dark 
 and rugged features a stamp that you might seek in vain 
 among the crowds wherein he would so readily have been 
 lost There was a steady look in those penetrating eyes, 
 an attentive pose of the head, a resolution in the attitude, 
 an absence of the slight nervous motions associated with 
 ordinary shyness, that told the spectator of a man whom it 
 would be dangerous to grapple with and hard to overcome. 
 He spoke in very brief sentences, and very little, turning 
 his gaze rather upon Glanville than Lady May, with an air 
 of affectionate anxiety that did not escape the latter. 
 What he did say was to the purpose, phrased with admir- 
 able clearness and decision, but in no sense over-con- 
 fidently ; and his subdued voice had the resonance which 
 indicates that the speaker possesses one, and that the most 
 persuasive, of the gifts of oratory. Glanville's delighted 
 ear made him sensible of the contrast and harmony which 
 these two voices produced. ' How well they would match 
 in singing 1 ' he said to himself. The commonest tones in 
 Lady May were of a certain grandeur ; if you listened, you 
 could not but experience a thrill of admiration. Ivor 
 Mardol, on the other hand, suggested in his voice all that 
 was keenly passionate and caressing ; it was light and high 
 rather than deep, the music of a reed-pipe, not of the 
 swelling organ-stop. One was reminded of an English 
 song-bird, singing on the topmost bough when winds are 
 hushed. Or to speak more precisely, such was the simili- 
 tude that occurred to Lady May, when Ivor, forgetting 
 himself in the presence of the view that lay extended
 
 chap, vin AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 81 
 
 before the drawing-room windows, began to talk at his ease. 
 The qualities of his speech may be summed up in this, that 
 he said nothing for effect, that if he spoke at all, it was on 
 his part thinking aloud, and almost (that there should be 
 no difference is impossible) in the words he would have 
 chosen had he been alone. Sincerity and directness in 
 talk are among the lost arts in civilised life ; and to fit 
 them in with its requirements is not less rare than to 
 possess them. We are trained to make language hide 
 thought and the want of thought ; and the more refined our 
 conversation the nearer it approaches to an algebra of 
 which every man keeps the key in his own bosom. Our 
 words express little or nothing, and they imply no more 
 than we find convenient. Now, Mardol, I do not say 
 spoke all that he had in his mind, — often he kept silence 
 even from monosyllables — but what he did speak had a 
 picturesque force and a high relief which made the lan- 
 guage of common men insignificant. Instead of showing 
 you the painted canvas, he seemed to show you the lion. 
 This, perhaps, made it undesirable that he should be much 
 in polished circles, where lions, and, much more, badgers 
 and jackals, are hinted at rather than spoken of, and 
 never introduced to evening parties. But I am fallen on a 
 vein of moralising. Let us to our story. 
 
 When the great storm was over, and the sky once more 
 visible in cloudless calm, the summer, as though rejuve- 
 nescent, continued many days bright and serene. The 
 verdure had never been more tender, nor the purple bloom 
 of the heather more enchanting ; not a leaf hung yellow on 
 the branches, nor did the petals of the roses fall until fresh 
 buds were springing to take their place. All day a mild 
 and tranquil splendour dwelt upon the waters, which, 
 rippling under a soft breeze, rolled in musically over sand 
 and pebbles, or plashed with murmuring sound against 
 the rocks. Only Glanville, in the midst of that fair land- 
 scape, gave a thought, oftener than he would, to the gray 
 cemetery where beneath one large mound, marked as yet 
 with no inscription, lay hidden what the waves had cast up. 
 His melancholy, assuaged by the coming of so dear a 
 friend, was yielding to other sentiments — to the affection 
 
 VOL. I. g
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE PABl I 
 
 which [vor's presence inspired and was ever drawing forth 
 
 in brotherly act, to the desire for work which he felt again 
 lit up in him, to a real and growing attachment, of its own 
 
 kind, but very genuine, to the Karl and Tom Davenant; 
 perhaps also to a feeling which he would not define, nor 
 altogether admit, towards the daughter of the house into 
 whose company for hours every morning he was thrown. 
 Do not be hasty, reader ; you are acute and have a prat 
 tisecl eye for possibilities ; but you know as little about the 
 matter as Glanville did himself. Have I dropped a hint 
 that he was beginning, dimly, to think of Lady May as 
 not merely a model for the restored countenance of her 
 ancestress? lie it so; but I have gone no further. His 
 mind was interested, his fancy — a young man's fancy, ever 
 on the wing — was drawn in the direction of this rare- 
 exotic flower, planted in our northern clime. So much I 
 do confess. Beyond that, let all be uncertain. 
 
 On being introduced to the picture-gallery, Ivor at once 
 recognised the Madonna of San Lucar, which he called, 
 however, by another name — the Virgin of the Seraphim, 
 from the messengers arrayed in kingly vesture and moving 
 as on wings of light, who heralded therein the ascent of 
 the crowned lady towards the empyrean. It was attributed 
 to an otherwise unknown monk, Fray Raimondo, whose 
 works, though not numerous, exhibited the union of high 
 artistic skill with transcendent mysticism. Lord Treling- 
 ham inquired whether a copy of the picture was extant. 
 He received for answer that only one such had been set 
 down in the catalogues — a copy in debased style which, 
 taken from the Escorial by French soldiers, had since found 
 its way into Russia. There the record broke off, nor was 
 it possible to say who was its present owner, nor, conse- 
 quently, to ascertain in what condition, after so long a 
 period, it might be. His counsel, Ivor went on, would be 
 to set about restoring the canvas immediately, — which he 
 offered to do on the ground that his experience in the 
 rougher technicalities of art had been considerable ; and 
 that, while he was so engaged, Glanville should execute a 
 portrait of Lady May, from which afterwards the counte- 
 nance of the Madonna should be painted in. If this did
 
 chap, vin AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 83 
 
 not prove satisfactory, a replica of the original might be 
 attempted. The entire undertaking was delicate and 
 hazardous in the extreme ; but Lord Trelingham could 
 not surrender his hope of preserving in this way one of his 
 rarest treasures. He consented, and the sittings began. 
 
 To find a place for them was easy. The picture-gallery 
 suggested itself at once. It had light and space, and would 
 furnish a morning- room for the Countess or any other that 
 chose to look on. When he painted Glanville was not 
 disturbed by conversation; and he cared not whether he 
 were tete-a-tete with Lady May — except in the artistic 
 sense — or had a company about him. He felt no em- 
 barrassment in her presence and as little in theirs. Brush 
 in hand, he could maintain a discussion when painting a 
 portrait, though not while engaged on landscape or the 
 grouping of figures. With Ivor it was otherwise. To 
 him silence and solitude were as necessary as fresh air and 
 open windows. Nor dared he bring his mechanical appli- 
 ances into the splendid gallery. Lady May, whom with 
 characteristic modesty he consulted through Glanville, sug- 
 gested, as though it were an inspiration, the chalet. He 
 had not seen it, nor had his perfidious friend. 
 
 ' Then you shall at once,' replied Lady May, and she 
 laid her hand on the Countess's shoulder, where that pen- 
 sive beauty stood gazing at large out of window lost in sad 
 thoughts of Tom Davenant's captivity in his room. ' Come, 
 Karina,' said her cousin, 'a truce to your reveries; they 
 are really becoming a mania. We are going to visit the 
 chalet, and these gentlemen will accompany us.' 
 
 Karina sighed, looked at the gentlemen with a mournful 
 sweetness of expression, which implied not regard for them, 
 but regret for the absent ; and suffered herself to be led 
 away. Since Cousin Tom was not there it mattered little 
 where she went. Mr. Rupert Glanville, who had never 
 felt the pangs of disconsolate love, was exceedingly amused, 
 though his speech bewrayed him not. All he did was, as 
 they went along, to ask the Countess a number of in- 
 different and worldly questions, not bearing on the illness 
 of Tom Davenant, and to watch how her mind slipped 
 away from them. She answered at random ; and he
 
 THE NEW ANT1 pai 
 
 retly enjoyed her blushes whi found she had been 
 
 talking nothing to the purpose. H< t ordinary state, \ 
 
 ever Mr. Davenant's image did not occur, was one of serene 
 self-control ; and now she felt vexed at herself and annoyed 
 with Ckmville, whose frivolous (hatter • in her wrath 
 
 she termed it) made her trip into these ridiculous mi- 
 takes. She answered him soon with yea and nay. letting the 
 words drop from her lips as they might, and fell to pluck- 
 ing the petals of a rose she held in her hand till they were 
 scattered on the pathway. 
 
 ' You will have to leave the gravel and follow this track 
 over the grass,' said I.ady May. when they had descended 
 for some time. 'The path we are on,' she added, in an 
 explanatory tone to the artist, 'goes winding about till it 
 reaches the upper terrace again. There is a short cut 
 through the rather tangled brake, which will take us first 
 up and then down into the glade where the hermitage 
 stands. Are you afraid of the wet grass ? ' 
 
 ' We will follow you, Lady May,' said Glanville. ' But 
 the Countess?' and he turned an inquiring glance on the 
 Lady Karina. She looked down at her boot and across at 
 her cousin. ' I think I will go back,' she said ; ' I don't 
 like walking over wet grass,' — to which she subjoined in a 
 reflective manner, ' and I may be wanted at the house.' 
 
 • Nonsense, my dear,' cried Lady May ; ' who could want 
 you ? My father is in his library, writing a tract on the con- 
 nection between the medieval reredos and the mosaics of 
 San Clemente at Rome.' She endeavoured while saying 
 these words to look serious, as a daughter should, but her 
 eves would brighten in spite of herself. 'You know he 
 cannot bear to be disturbed. There is no one in the place 
 but Tom, and we have promised, if he is awake, to pay 
 him a visit at two o'clock. Come. Karina ; you don't mind 
 the grass more than 1 do.' 
 
 The unwilling victim bowed her small fair head, and 
 followed in the train of this haughty Zenobia. Neither of 
 the gentlemen could lead the way, for they did not know 
 it. The track along the grass became fainter and soon dis 
 appeared altogether; but they saw an opening in the shrubs, 
 which here flourished luxuriantly ; and with more scrarn-
 
 chap, vin AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 85 
 
 bling through briars and rending of garments than Lady May 
 expected, they ascended the side of a thickly-wooded ridge, 
 where they could see no distance before them and only a 
 long clear strip of blue sky overhead. The morning was 
 fresh and balmy ; an abundant dew brought forth on 
 every side a fragrance as of paradise ; and the smell of the 
 stone-pines which rose on the low crest had that penetrat- 
 ing sweetness, so keen and exhilarating, which is like a 
 sudden breeze sweeping inland from the sea and laden with 
 its odours. But there was no view on the crest ; it was all 
 a thicket growing high above their heads. A rugged de- 
 scent, where the pathway turned continually to avoid the 
 huge masses of rock that lay across it, brought them, still 
 under dark boughs, half way down on the other side. The 
 wildwood trailed off to right and left ; the last of the stone- 
 pines fell into the rear ; and a cry of delight from the 
 gentlemen showed that they were rewarded for their pil- 
 grimage by a lovely view. 
 
 They were standing on the lower side of a gorge not 
 more than thirty yards wide ; and over against them rose a 
 steep and almost inaccessible wall of verdure to a height 
 which, though in perpendicular measurement it could not 
 have exceeded three hundred feet, looked noble and im- 
 posing ; while the close-set vegetation and bosky under- 
 growth gave it a soft beauty of aspect to which the firs, 
 standing in long rows at the summit or springing abruptly 
 from the sides, added a touch of ruggedness. At their feet, 
 almost hidden among the trees that fringed it, ran a clear 
 brown stream, sparkling a little way off in the sun, and as 
 it descended the valley broadening till it might have Dome 
 a small boat, if the stones over which it swirled in diamond- 
 like mist did not proclaim it dangerous to launch anything 
 on the troubled waters. The gorge turned at a sharp 
 ar.gle on the side over against them, but on their own fell 
 away more gently, melting by degrees into the wide expanse 
 of moor, and allowing a dim and distant glimpse of the sea 
 above Yalden. They could see the wooded height over 
 the stream stretching towards fresh woods and fresh heights. 
 But their gaze was speedily drawn up the valley, and a second 
 exclamation of wonder followed upon their discovery of
 
 86 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-ai:ii 
 
 its new and singular charms. The apparent source of the 
 stream was a large piece of water, lying in view where the) 
 stood, but more of it, as they perceived on going a few 
 steps, spread out behind the ridge that served them as a 
 coign of vantage. It was an irregular sheet, formed by 
 nature, and hemmed in by the granite cliffs which, coming 
 out bare to the north, did not allow it, except for about 
 sixty yards, to present a wide expanse. Here it filled the 
 valley from side to side. Deep in its placid bosom were 
 reflected the fleecy clouds set in a great blue sky, the rising 
 wall of verdure, and the dark granite crags which, by their 
 fantastic shapes and riven sides, reminded one of a castle in 
 ruins which has a tower or two still intact. About midway 
 between shore and shore, standing up in the water and 
 anchored, so to speak, in its own shadow, — which came out 
 foreshortened in every variety of peak and overhanging roof, 
 — itself a picture of balconies, outside staircases, ivy-mantled 
 porches, glistening windows with creepers falling over them, 
 was visible, in the clear stillness of a summer morning, the 
 object of their expedition. With delighted looks they 
 beheld the Hermitage. 
 
 ' It is a scene of fairyland,' exclaimed Rupert ; ' an en- 
 chanted island, where the Sleeping Beauty should be dream- 
 ing away her hundred years till the Prince comes to waken her.' 
 
 'That was a palace in a garden,' said Ivor, who could 
 not turn from the exquisite vision, but for the moment had 
 lost his shyness; 'a palace with thickets of roses fencing it 
 all about. Whereas this, which you called a chalet,' he 
 just glanced towards Lady May, 'is a lake-dwelling, such 
 as was intended, though he had not tools or skill to realise 
 it, by pre-historic man.' 
 
 ' One feature it has in common with the lake-dwellings,' 
 remarked Glanville. ' There is absolutely no way of 
 reaching it except in a boat.' 
 
 ' No,' answered Lady May ; 'and even that is at the dis- 
 cretion of the hermit. For, if you notice, the steps which 
 descend from that projecting ledge, or floor of the verandah, 
 are fastened merely by rings, and may be drawn up when 
 the lake-dweller pleases. It was a fancy of my grand- 
 father's. The architect wanted a bridge on this side; and
 
 chap, vin AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 87 
 
 in wet weather it would be a convenience, for the lakelet 
 is stormy enough at times. But my grandfather had a 
 model, "in his mind's eye," he used to say ; and nothing 
 would persuade him to allow the bridge.' 
 
 ' He was right,' said Glanville ; ' there is something im- 
 pressive in the utter isolation of such a dwelling. It seems 
 to belong to another world, to be " an exhalation from the 
 watery deep," a fixed vapour, taking the appearance of things 
 we know, but ready to dissolve at a breath.' 
 
 ' Is that poetry ? ' inquired the Countess, with a simple 
 air. ' All I can see is a cottage made of little church 
 roofs and old planks, which must be damp in winter.' 
 
 This original account of a lake-dwelling made them all 
 laugh, except the author of it, in whose opinion, as she de- 
 clared poutingly, it was much nearer the truth than Glan- 
 ville's 'exhalations' and 'fixed vapours.' She was proud of 
 being matter-of-fact, and said so. A stray reminiscence of 
 Cousin Tom, however, gleamed upon her as she spoke ; 
 and Love contemptuously shook his light wings when she 
 repeated that 'she liked matter-of-fact people.' Was the 
 young gentleman up at Trelingham Court ' matter-of-fact ' ? 
 was he not but there is no need to pursue her medita- 
 tions. She laughed at herself in a minute or two, though 
 she took care to wait until no one was watching. 
 
 There was a small boat-house on each side of the lake- 
 let. The party entered a tolerably-sized skiff which they 
 found under shelter, and Rupert and Ivor Mardol took the 
 oars. To make up for her little outbreak of pettishness, 
 occasioned solely by a love for matter-of-fact people, Karina 
 insisted on steering. She was not a creature to bear malice. 
 The water was very still, and so warm and pleasant that 
 they lingered on their mimic voyage to bask in the air and 
 take a steadier look down the valley, which, seen from this 
 point, appeared high and narrow, with the broad gleam of 
 the sea and an intensely blue sky over it, for a perspective. 
 No habitation save the lake-dwelling could be discerned ; 
 the belt of tall brushwood under the lee of which they were 
 loitering hid Trelingham Court ; and the purple moor was 
 shut off by the ridge they had descended. A more lonely, 
 a more beautiful, a more tranquillising scene, who could
 
 88 THE NEW ANTIGONE vwa \ 
 
 iu ? They forgot to praise and were silent l 
 the i (Carina felt its subduing influence; much more 
 
 did her cousin and the two friends. Transparent light 
 brooded on the glassy depths which no ripple stirred, and 
 seemed to dye the surface with a thousand emerald tints, 
 bright or dark, as it reflected the rich vegetation that, 
 embowering the hillside. < rept down to the edge of the mere, 
 and threw out straggling branches to the water lilies floating 
 on its bosom. A trance at noon-day fell upon our pilgrims ; 
 they dreamt with open eyes. 
 
 'Does no one live in the chalet? or is it abandoned to 
 pre-historic man?' asked Rupert, in the light tone which 
 sometimes indicates that thoughts too solemn for speech 
 have passed through the air. 
 
 'My father used to spend a day there formerly, but he- 
 finds it too cold,' said Lady May. ' My cousin, too. when 
 he wants a little quiet fishing, has it put in order, and will 
 not come up to the Court for a week if the weather favours 
 him. It is an excellent place for trout ; and I am told, 
 though it seems hardly credible, that salmon find their way 
 up that rocky stream. It has deep holes in it where they 
 can lie at their ease. AYhen they reach the lakelet, I can 
 fancy their enjoying its depth and coolness before starting 
 on their journey seaward again.' 
 
 'It was here,' said the Countess plaintively, 'that I was 
 to have taken my lesson in fly-fishing.' Her grief returned 
 at the thought. 
 
 'Well, you may take it still,' said Glanville. 'Mr. 
 Davenant is recovering; and if he cannot join the next 
 salmon-hunt, there will be all the more reason why he- 
 should come here to throw the fly.' 
 
 This was an expectation to caress and make much of. 
 The Lady Karina began to steer again with a lighter heart, 
 and forgave Glanville. A few strokes brought them to the 
 side of the Hermitage. The waters were still swollen, and 
 their skiff rose to the middle round of the ladder. A chain 
 hung down over the verandah for the oarsmen to seize : 
 the boat was made fast to it ; they ascended with quick 
 ami easy steps, although the feeling was much like that of 
 getting up a ship's side, and were soon assembled, without
 
 chap, vin AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 89 
 
 a wet foot or other mishap, on the floor of the verandah. 
 The chalet was built somewhat like a cabin on the main 
 deck of a steamer. Round it was a broad open space, 
 paved with coloured woods, and overhung with a sloping 
 roof to keep out the rain. Casements fitted in made this 
 a comfortable promenade, or deambulation, as the Romans 
 called it, in wintry weather. They were now standing wide 
 open, shaded by the too-abundant creepers ; but the house 
 was airy and dry, furnished with simplicity, as became its 
 pretensions, but the details carried out in admirable taste. 
 There lacked nothing to the hermit's comfort : his study, 
 fitted with volumes of the poets and books on fishing ; his 
 sleeping apartment, contrived with a pleasant outlook to- 
 wards the morning sun ; his dining-room, bright and cheer- 
 ful as the scene of temperate enjoyment and philosophic 
 mirth should be ; his small but elegant kitchen, copied, as 
 to its decorations, from Pompeii ; and a guest-chamber in 
 the snuggest corner of the house, sheltered from wind and 
 storm by the hills which looked down upon it, — these, 
 with a watch-tower, skilfully perched up among the gables, 
 made a lake-dwelling at which the heart of the troglodyte 
 would have rejoiced. But Ivor Mardol was no troglodyte ; 
 he had not hitherto dwelt in a cave ; and his heart 
 laughed within him, to use an Homeric expression, when 
 he thought of exchanging, for at least a few hours every 
 day, the splendours of Trelingham Court for this lovely, 
 lonely hermitage. He stood in admiration, above all, of the 
 kitchen, a temple of ideal coolness, contrasting with the fiery 
 dens wherein our meals too commonly are made ready at 
 the expense of temper and religion. But Rupert, although 
 he praised what he beheld, inquired after some reflection: 
 
 ' But where is the servants' accommodation ? I don't 
 perceive any.' 
 
 'What!' cried Ivor, looking at him with large eyes, 
 reproachfully. ' Do you imagine that a hermit has anybody 
 to wait on him ? Where would be the charm of solitude, 
 if another human being dwelt and cooked within these 
 walls ? For my part, I should flee out of them and build 
 myself a hut in the wood over against us, did such a 
 demoniac presence come to trouble me.'
 
 90 THE NEW ANTIGONL iw;ti 
 
 The grave earnestness wherewith Ivor delivered this 
 protest amused Lady May, and she laughed more heartily 
 than Glanville had known her to do. He laughed with 
 her, and for some time nothing serious could be said. At 
 last the lady, whom Ivor was now looking at, not as 
 rebuking her, but as wondering that she should laugh, 
 recovered herself, and said : 
 
 'But you are very right, Mr. Mardol. When my father 
 stays here he brings a cold luncheon with him ; and Mr. 
 Davenant — as my grandfather used to do — not only catches 
 his own fish, but cooks them, and will not allow a servant 
 to come up the ladder whilst he is here.' 
 
 ' I surrender, said Glanville, ' to such examples ; and I 
 grant the romance of the thing, provided one knows how to 
 cook. Do , you, Ivor ?' 
 
 ' Qui nescit coguere, nescit reg?iare,'' replied Ivor. ' How 
 should a man be lord of himself that has not full dominion 
 over a mutton-chop? I learned the art long ago. For 
 me, a kitchen, especially when it is redolent, as this, of 
 Pompeii and Hadrian's villa, has no terrors, but a charm 
 unspeakable.' 
 
 'Then,' said Lady May, ' if you can be satisfied with the 
 light, you will bring the canvas hither, and enjoy that perfect 
 freedom which I know you prize. But I hope you will 
 give us the pleasure of your company at dinner as often as 
 possible. However, both then and at all times you must 
 look upon yourself as unshackled by our formal ordinances. 
 You see, Mr. Mardol, I have learned how great a lover of 
 solitude you are.' 
 
 ' But,' he replied, ' do I really understand that it will 
 not seem strange to you if I spend a day or two in this 
 cottage and do not dine at the Court?' 
 
 ' Certainly,' answered Lady May ; ' we know it will give 
 you pleasure, and it will therefore please us. I think Mr. 
 Glanville touched on this point in conveying to you my 
 father's invitation. We could not dream of inflicting on 
 you the captivity which is often another name for staying in 
 a country house.' 
 
 ' This is, indeed, most kind,' cried Ivor ; ' more than 
 1 dared imagine, much less propose. I have lived so
 
 chap, viii AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 91 
 
 long by myself, ' he continued apologetically, ' that it 
 makes me wretched to be in any company — even in my 
 friend Glanville's — for a whole day without a break. I 
 will not abuse the freedom you bestow on me. But it is 
 delightful.' 
 
 They mounted the quaint staircases that led in the open 
 air from one verandah to the next, and from that to the 
 watch-tower, wherein was a chamber having windows in the 
 four walls and a different landscape visible through each of 
 them. At this height the sea became a vast sheet of gold, 
 on which the waves, not otherwise to be made out, shone 
 like an endless tracery where every point sparkled and the 
 finely-curved lines were interwoven as with a needle. The 
 brightness was intolerable, the radiance golden, like clear 
 glass. ' If you could dip your pencil in that,' exclaimed 
 Ivor, addressing his friend, 'you might paint with molten 
 sunlight.' 
 
 ' Ay, indeed,' returned the artist; 'it puts one out of 
 conceit with painting, when we know that a sheet of white 
 paper is the most dazzling brightness we can attain. Here 
 is the crystal sea, shot through and absolutely bathed in 
 a fiery element which the eye cannot bear to look upon. 
 Will any canvas render it?' 
 
 ' How dark the ships come out in all this light ! ' said 
 Lady May. ' The white sails seem lost in the overpowering 
 radiance. All one can perceive are the heaving hulls, like 
 lines of ebony crossing the gold. Cannot you fancy crea- 
 tures of a finer make, with slow-moving pinions, traversing 
 that shining space, or treading its pavement, which seems 
 all ablaze, on errands to a distant world?' 
 
 1 " He maketh the winds His messengers,"' said Ivor in 
 a musing tone. ' What deep sayings there are in that old 
 Hebrew book ! Not slow-moving, though majestic in their 
 march, and irresistible, — the four winds, angels between 
 earth and sky, — binding one element with another. It is 
 the life of Nature exhibited in vivid allegory.' 
 
 ' Do you think the angels an allegory ?' asked Lady May, 
 not like one surprised or shocked, but as seeking to know 
 his opinion. 
 
 ' I think,' he replied, ' that Nature is a living miracle, not
 
 THE NEW ANTIGO part i 
 
 a dead machine. To me it is full o which arc always 
 
 gazing into mine' 
 
 ' And these arc angels? 1 she said, bending her own i 
 upon him earnestly, and forgetting that they too might 
 
 scorch and burn. 
 
 'You may call them so; why not?' he answered. 
 • Through them I discern that all things arc known to one 
 another and reflected, as in countless mirrors, from world 
 to world.'' 
 
 You remind me,' said Lady May, ' of the famous verses 
 in Faust;' and she repeated them : 
 
 ' Wic Ilimmelskra'ftc auf und nieder steigen 
 \ iid sicli die goldnen Eimer reichen ! 
 Mit segenduftenden Schwingcn 
 Yom Ilimmel durch die Erde dringen, 
 Harmonisch all' das All durchklingen!' 
 
 She recited well. The artist could not help admiring 
 her. People are commonly shy of repeating verse; she 
 did not mind. ' How finely Goethe renders our modern 
 thought !' said he. 
 
 ' Yes,' replied Lady May ; ' I don't think the worshippers 
 of angels would recognise their creed in him.' 
 
 'What matter?' said Ivor. 
 
 They were forgetting luncheon. The Countess, partly 
 because she was hungry, and yet more from a dread that 
 in lingering so unconscionably they would be leaving no 
 time for a certain visit as a sister of charity in the after- 
 noon, reminded them of the fact. ' I don't see any angel 
 ining to us with a golden pail,' was her comment on the 
 Lady May's quotation. Had we not better be going 
 towards luncheon? It is past one' 
 
 Thus admonished they came down from the watch-tov 
 embarked in the skiff, and shot rapidly across the water. 
 Glanville moored the boat where they had found it; and, 
 avoiding the brushwood and the stone-pines, they walked, 
 at a pace to satisfy the Lady Karina, along an easier path, 
 which brought them to the front terrace. They were all 
 tired, yet delighted with their morning. An appetite for 
 luncheon is a blessed thing ; each of them was so season- 
 ably graced; and even the sad brows of Glanville, where
 
 chap, viii AN ENCHANTED ISLAND 93 
 
 gloom put on a cloud from time to time, unbent at the 
 merry meal. His friend, of more equable temper, felt that 
 his happiness had no alloy. He was still in thought on the 
 watch-tower, looking over the golden sea, and contemplating 
 the white-winged messengers as they moved about it. Once 
 or twice a pair of dark eyes glanced in upon the vision and 
 faded as quickly as they came. He had seldom enjoyed a 
 morning so much. Ah ! Ivor the philosopher, beware ! 
 Next day he took up his abode at the Hermitage.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ANIMUM PICTURA PASCIT [NAN] 
 
 Now that Destiny had got a number of threads in her 
 hand, on every one of which hung a human life, she pro- 
 ceeded, with the haste and fury of a seemingly blind 
 inspiration, to entangle them. It was not merely to paint 
 pictures that Rupert Glanville had come to Trelingham. 
 Little as he dreamt it, the central knot of his fortune 
 was there to be tied ; he was to act and be acted upon, to 
 drive and be driven, to be caught up as by a swiftly-turning 
 wheel and hurried round with it. Nor did Ivor Mardol 
 quit his London solitude and find delicious shelter in the 
 Hermitage that he might be satiate with rustic beauty and 
 add a new leaf to his sketch-book. By sure degrees the 
 pleasant intercourse that marked the beginning of their stay 
 among strangers yielded to an intimacy which, at first 
 promising larger gratification, led to the most unexpected 
 i onsequences. 
 
 I have often thought how much turns on the minor 
 personages in a drama, whether on the stage or off it. 
 Had Tom Davenant not been kept an invalid in his room 
 for some three weeks by low fever ; had his mother, a 
 woman of the world, not returned to London after the 
 briefest of visits; had the Countess been less absorbed, or 
 Lord Trelingham more observant, Lady May and the artist 
 could surely never have spent hour after hour tcte-a-tctc 
 while she was sitting for her portrait. But the Earl, intent 
 on dossals and mosaics and altar-flagons, had not a moment 
 to spare in the morning, and seldom looked in, although 
 from time to time he inspected the picture with marked
 
 chap, ix ANIMUM PICTURA PASCIT INANI 95 
 
 satisfaction. The Countess moved hither and thither in 
 her restless way, came and went, threw in a mocking won! 
 when the conversation flew above her comprehension, sat 
 dreaming her own dreams by the window, and, whether 
 from negligence or wilfulness, turned a deaf ear to most 
 that was said. She could not, therefore, be supposed to 
 perceive how artistic discussion and talk upon general 
 topics were giving way to more intimate personal com- 
 munings, at least on the part of Lady May, and that 
 mischief was gathering. She had her own reasons, perhaps ; 
 and we may as well endeavour to find them out. 
 
 Look at this little scene. It was a mellow afternoon, 
 and Tom Davenant, weak but convalescent, was sitting 
 propped up in an easy-chair by the drawing-room fire. It 
 was the first day he had left his room. Glanville, at no 
 great distance, was writing a letter ; Lady May, engaged 
 upon some trailing piece of embroidery that fell about her 
 feet, seemed wholly occupied in what she was doing, and 
 neither spoke nor looked up ; while the Countess, demurely 
 seated where she could keep a charitable eye on the in- 
 valid, was wondering how she might persuade him to talk. 
 For it was part of her infatuation to like the sound of that 
 young man's pleasant but not astonishingly musical voice. 
 Her longing was to be satisfied without effort on her 
 side. Tom laid down the newspaper he was holding, and, 
 stifling a yawn, said to Glanville, whom he had come to 
 like rather : ' The worst of being knocked up is that a 
 fellow doesn't know what to do with himself. He can't 
 read anything except the Field ; and I've read it all through 
 now. I must hark back, I suppose, and see whether I've 
 skipped a page ;' and he took up the discarded journal again. 
 
 'Shall I read to you, Cousin Tom?' said Karina softly. 
 
 ' No, thank you,' he answered ; adding, after a while, 
 with some annoyance in his tone, ' I wish, Countess, you 
 would get out of that way of calling me Cousin Tom. You 
 know I haven't the honour of being your cousin, and it is 
 stupid.' 
 
 The Countess blushed, but attempted a smile. ' I 
 know,' she said, ' I am not so much your cousin as 
 Lady May : but, if I am hers, you ought to be mine.
 
 TH ' TGONE past i 
 
 Don't you think so, Mr. — Mr. Davenant?' The curious 
 mingling of sarcasm, fright, and tenderness with which the 
 Countess uttered his name thus formally was worth ob- 
 serving. Glanville, hitherto intent on his letter, began to 
 feel an interest in the little comedy. He knew nothing of 
 the relation in which the Countess stood to the house of 
 Trelingham ; he had never even caught her family name. 
 To the servants she was 'the Countess' and 'her Lady- 
 ship.' The Earl and his daughter addressed her as Karin 
 hut Tom Davenant, as it now struck the artist, at all times 
 ike to her as ' Countess,' and never bestowed on her a 
 ( hristian vocative. Sometimes, though seldom, he would 
 11 Lady May by her name; but this favour was withheld 
 from the light-tongued Karina. 
 
 'Don't I think so?' echoed Tom. 'Not by any means. 
 You are May's first cousin, because her mother and yours 
 were sisters. But May and I are related on the father's 
 side. You might as well have argued that your husband 
 was my cousin because he married you. Poor fellow !' 
 concluded Tom in sympathetic accents, — but whether pity- 
 ing the Countess's late husband (she was a widow then, it 
 seemed) on the score of his marriage or his decease, Glan- 
 ville could not determine. 
 
 ' Poor fellow !' sighed the Countess ; ' I know you liked 
 him, and he suffered so dreadfully at the last. It is not 
 pleasant dying at two and twenty. But no, Mr. — Mr. 
 Davenant,' she observed, brightening up after her transient 
 expression of regret ; ' the Lutenieffs are too proud to ac- 
 knowledge kinship with any but old Russian families. The 
 Countess Lutenieff never forgave me for being half-English. 
 She threw it in my teeth often enough.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Tom, relenting, ' if you have suffered in the 
 cause, I suppose it is fair that you should call any English 
 gentleman you choose your cousin. But ' 
 
 She interrupted him. 'Thank you so much, Cousin 
 Tom,' she said archly, though with contentment in her looks. 
 ' After all, you will want a cousin when May gives up that 
 dignity.' Tom was silent, but turned his head in the direc- 
 tion of the real cousin. If she heard anything, she made 
 no sign.
 
 chap, ix ANIMUM PICTURA PAS CI T INANI 97 
 
 ' I don't know what you are talking about,' said the 
 young man, when he saw that Lady May paid no attention 
 to the Countess. ' It seems to me that you say whatever 
 comes into your head. I shall go back to my room now 
 and lie down. This fire is too hot, and I can't smoke here 
 if I want.' 
 
 The Countess begged him to stay; she would take the 
 coals off the fire ; she would open a window so that he 
 should not feel the draught. But her entreaties were 
 unavailing. Tom walked slowly to the door and dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 When he was gone, Glanville, who had not relished the 
 end of this argument, and feared that the Countess — 
 Lutenieff, since that was her name — might follow it up with 
 unpleasant revelations, dashing some faint but idle dreams 
 of his, rose, and passing through the long window, strolled 
 out on the terrace. To what was that mischievous sprite 
 alluding ? How could Lady May cease to be Tom's 
 cousin ? By marrying him ? There was no other way. 
 Glanville recalled her father's look that night when Tom 
 was brought home from Yalden. He had not thought of 
 it since. The cousins were so little together, and his at- 
 tention had been drawn so strongly to Karina's worship of 
 Tom Davenant, that the idea of an engagement between 
 him and Lady May had completely vanished. ' Well, what 
 if it were true ?' he asked himself. ' How did that concern 
 him?' Not a great deal, his conscience replied. Should 
 he feel mortified, or vexed, if the lady wedded her cousin ? 
 Why, yes; he must admit it would be a disappointment. 
 But would his heart be broken ? Did he feel that life 
 would have lost its sweetness were she married ? There 
 was no answering throb. His heart was sound, apparently. 
 He would think it over in the presence of Lady May ; 
 perhaps the calmness he felt was deceptive. And so de- 
 ciding, he approached the window. Scarcely had he come 
 within earshot than the Countess's laughing voice broke on 
 him. She spoke rapidly, and the sentence, complete in 
 meaning, struck at once into his understanding and stayed 
 there. ' But if you don't care for Tom, you must refuse 
 him.' Such were the words. She was clearly addressing 
 vol. 1. H
 
 9 8 THE NSW ANTIGONE i-aiit i 
 
 Lady May. Glanville fled to the other end of the terrace; 
 he was aghast at having heard what was not intended for 
 his hearing. 1" forget the sentence was, however, imp 
 
 sible. The Countess had spoken in loud tones, but her 
 laugh sounded unnatural and her voice was sharp and 
 peremptory. It seemed to insist on a thing which was not 
 certain to be conceded Could there be an engagement, 
 and Lady May so little anxious about her betrothed, so 
 free from jealousy of the Countess, so much — he paused 
 for the right word — interested in another? 
 
 Next day when they were in the picture-gallery, he found 
 himself insensibly leading to the subject. ' It is strange, 
 Lady May,' said he, 'that I never heard the Countess's family 
 name till yesterday.' 
 
 ' Did you not ? ' she inquired ; ' I can fancy it, however. 
 My Cousin (Carina has been so constantly with us from 
 childhood, and her marriage lasted so short a time, that we 
 hardly think of her as a Lutenieff. Her own name, which 
 we never liked, was Karen Zarkoff. My aunt married a 
 Zarkoff; but he need not have disfigured his daughter by 
 calling her Karen. So we changed it when she came to us 
 quite young to Karina, spelling it with a K to make it look 
 Russian. She lost both parents before she could speak. 
 Her guardian sent her to England until she was sixteen, and 
 then had her taken back to the Ukraine to marry Count 
 Lutenieff, whom she had never seen in her life. There was 
 no help for it. But she cried at leaving my Cousin Tom, 
 who had been her idol ever since she played with him and 
 me during a summer holiday, when we were all three in 
 this house, as we are now. Nevertheless, she liked her 
 husband after they were married ; he was a gentle, con- 
 sumptive young man, greatly attached to her and to Mr. 
 Davenant, who visited them in Russia. At eighteen she 
 became a widow, and is, in a measure, my father's ward. 
 But she does what she pleases, and is always on the wing ; 
 for to reason with her or to keep her in one place is 
 impossible.' 
 
 ' And Mr. Davenant ? ' said Glanville, controlling his 
 voice lest it should betray undue curiosity. ' His father is 
 not living ? '
 
 chap, ix ANIMUM PICTURA PASCIT INANI 99 
 
 ' No ; he died years ago, soon after his marriage. My 
 father spoke of him the first morning you were here. He 
 married late. Mr. Davenant is strictly under my father's 
 guardianship till he comes of age, which will be in some 
 months. You see,' she went on, ' Mr. Davenant is heir- 
 presumptive to the title and estates of Trelingham ; and so,' 
 she said, laughing, ' he requires to be taken great care of. 
 He has a place of his own in the next county, but he does 
 not stay there, except in the shooting season. He will make 
 an excellent landlord, however, when he begins. But at 
 present he is wild about sport. He came to Trelinghan to 
 join in the salmon-hunt which was so unluckily hindered by 
 his accident.' 
 
 All this, told in a calm way, was interesting, but it 
 threw no light on the question whether Lady May and her 
 cousin were engaged. One point only seemed certain. 
 Tom Davenant might be the idol of the Lady Karina's 
 affections as much as he pleased, or, very likely, did not 
 please ; to the Earl's daughter he was a cousin and nothing 
 more. She spoke of him readily, without changing tone or 
 colour, she lauded his manliness, and at the same time laugh- 
 ingly applied to him the charming words of her poet — 
 
 ' It are such folk that loved idlenesse, 
 And not delite hadde of no businesse, 
 But for to hunt and hauke, and play in medes, 
 And many other such idle dedes.' 
 
 That negligent chaperon, the Countess, who had slipped 
 away at the beginning of this conference, now returned ; 
 and there came an interval of silence, during which, if many 
 fine strokes were added to the face that was growing perfect 
 on canvas, not a few went deep into the heart of one, at 
 least, in that speechless company. 
 
 And now, reader, I will draw away the curtain, and, 
 with such skill as I may, endeavour to disclose the inward 
 meaning of this simple and oft -repeated scene in the 
 picture-gallery at Trelingham Court. What could eyes 
 behold ? On the one hand a lady, in the dark crimson, 
 curiously embroidered with gold, which vested the Madonna 
 of the Seraphim, and was here in some artistic drapery 
 imitated, — a lady, I say, seated where the light fell on her
 
 ioo THE NEW ANTIGOA part i 
 
 meditative, earnest brow, glowing features, and massive dark 
 hair arranged as in a crown, her whole attitude one of re- 
 flection and yet suggesting a concentrated passionateness 
 
 which, when she spoke or acted, would manifest itself 
 daringly; and on the other, moving lightly about the easel, 
 glancing at the seated figure from time to time, smiling a 
 little as he turned to lay on a colour, and murmuring to 
 himself in the painters' dialect, a young man, of good height 
 and graceful mien, of ruddy countenance too, like the lady, 
 but, unlike her, with the yellow hair of the Norsemen or 
 the Greeks, the sleeves of his velvet coat turned up over 
 fine wristbands, and a certain air of distinction, of dainty 
 though not effeminate carefulness in all his attire, which 
 threw into strong relief the genius shining out of his bright 
 and steady eyes. He was at once an artist, a refined man 
 of the world, and an athletic, well-knit figure of youth and 
 comeliness ; one in whom the balance of thought and 
 fancy, of reason and instinct would seem incapable of being 
 overthrown. The shade of melancholy which came, like 
 a passing cloud, across his countenance when he was not 
 speaking added that indescribable touch, that dim sense 
 of the imperfection hidden in all fair things, apart from 
 which we may admire and be dazzled with the splendour of 
 a face, but do not feed our heart upon it. 
 
 A pleasant sight, you will say, and worthy of its sur- 
 roundings in that stately room, where the portraits of three 
 centuries looked from the walls, various in costume, feature, 
 and bearing, yet a gracious assemblage of old and young, of 
 knights and ladies, of warriors, statesmen, ambassadors, re- 
 calling confusedly the life of court and camp in which they 
 had acted their part till life's poor play was o'er. In front 
 of the great windows lay the wild moor, beautiful in desola- 
 tion, framed in the silver sea, which, now at peace, sent up 
 its multitudinous voices in a murmuring chorus that 
 whispered things sweet and strange. The lady sank, and 
 sank, and sank into deeper reverie. She listened to the 
 echoes in her heart of all that had been in the past, began a 
 sentence to let it fall unfinished, and mused upon the many 
 days she had spent alone. She had been asked in marriage 
 — by whom ? By men whose birth and breeding, equal to
 
 CHAi'. ix ANIMUM PICTURA PASCIT INANI 101 
 
 her own, carried with it an outward semblance of perfection, 
 but implied neither deep feeling nor elevated thought, nor 
 enthusiasm for anything in earth' or heaven except their free 
 open-air life, their horses and dogs, their yachts in the 
 Solent and rivers in Norway. Yes, she had not wanted 
 suitors of a different kind eidieF,--SGlcma-'a&t;ci njen[ with 
 brains as unpromising as Nimrod's, but whose narrow vision 
 took in objects less picturesque ; her father's friends, lay or 
 clerical, who asked her to share their destiny and help to 
 build schools in the East End, and churches at Earl's Court 
 or Stoke Newington, to weave ecclesiastical garments accord- 
 ing to the use of Sarum, and save mankind by acres of 
 broadcloth fashioned into coats of the strictest orthodoxy. 
 
 She smiled at the notion ; but her feeling was bitter 
 enough. Riches, leisure, friends, the most delightful sur- 
 roundings had been given her by Fortune. She was a 
 great lady, to be envied and courted. But all these things 
 were the embroidery of life ; she wanted the simple greatness 
 which comes of knowing and loving, not a gorgeous frame 
 about the poor ge?ire painting, which was all she had to 
 show. How can a woman be noble, she asked herself, 
 except by uniting her life to another which is governed by 
 the highest thoughts ? She could have devoted herself to 
 a father, to a brother, if she had had one, provided only 
 he were intent on realising a great ideal. But her father's 
 ideal? It did not tempt her. It was nothing but the 
 digging up of old grave-clothes and multiplication of 
 minutiae ; it was insular, parochial, sectarian. She had 
 long felt that the controversies of little or no meaning 
 which went on in her presence, and to which she was 
 obliged to listen, were driving her in the opposite direction 
 to her father; and, though she would not afflict him by 
 disclosing what had taken place within her, she saw clearly 
 that, perhaps for want of the right teacher, the religion in 
 which she had been brought up had become to her merely 
 a name. It gave her no principles, it had ceased to be the 
 rule of her conduct. She longed for a light from Heaven ; 
 she did not remember that it sometimes leads astray. 
 Unhappy she was and had been ; dissatisfied, sick with 
 longing for a world of which, in poem or romance, the out-
 
 io2 THE NEW ANTIGONE part j 
 
 line was revealed like a cloud I teadfast, shining 
 
 sun-bathed in the infinite blue. Was it all an impossible 
 dream? Even so,. she opuld not renounce it. To bend 
 her gaze 'Hi the < Ttfr, and putting her hand into that of a 
 man whose thoughts were fashioned of its gross elements \ 
 and on, over . (he barren moor, with no prospect 
 before her but the waste and sundown, was to die ere her 
 prime She was resolved to drink of the fountain of life. 
 She cared nothing for station, and heeded little of the 
 world's judgment on those that descend. Unworthy she 
 would not be, nor undutiful to her father. ' But I must 
 live, I must live,' she often repeated when alone. To 
 sit at the great banquet a spectator; to find every dish 
 enchanted of which she desired to partake; to hear the 
 music and not know its meaning, — this had been her 
 martyrdom, and she could bear it no longer. 
 
 I cannot tell what might have befallen Lady May if the 
 higher powers had shuffled the cards otherwise than they 
 did, and not Glanville, but a person of less scrupulous 
 delicacy had come across her in this despairing mood. 
 To represent her as perfect would be pleasant to me; but 
 she was not perfect ; she was headstrong, passionate, im- 
 perious, and, from the absence of equally determined 
 characters around her, she had, by long habit, become 
 utterly independent of control. She loved her father 
 dearly; but she was too clear-minded to regard his opinions 
 with intellectual deference. And there was no one else. 
 Her cousin, Tom Davenant, she looked upon as a man 
 with the simplicity of a boy ; he was her junior by six 
 years, and the thoughts that vexed her would have been to 
 him as unintelligible as the language of another planet. 
 Did she want a chivalrous protector, he would have sprung 
 to her aid ; but she wanted no such thing ; what she wanted 
 was to go her own way. She guessed her cousin's mind ; 
 partly out of consideration for him she was now pausing on 
 the path she had entered; but she did not mean to be 
 affected by his generosity. 
 
 When her mother died, Lord Trelingham had thought it 
 right to acquaint Mrs. Davenant with his resolution not to 
 marry again. He wished Tom to know on what he might
 
 chap, ix ANIMUM PICTURA PASCIT INANI 103 
 
 count in the future. Tom, who was then nineteen, sought 
 an interview with the Earl, and with unspeakable confusion, 
 but very decidedly, begged him so to arrange that the Trel- 
 ingham estate might go to Lady May. It was a generous 
 impulse, dictated by a good heart and ignorance of the 
 legal impossibilities which stood in the way. The proposal 
 could not be entertained. But Tom had gone further than 
 Lady May was aware. The young man, finding one door 
 shut, had tried another. He had asked Lord Trelingham 
 to accept a proposal of marriage for his daughter, and to lay 
 it before her when he should judge expedient. He had 
 been brief and manly, saying little of his affection for Lady 
 May, which, however, was apparent enough. He had con- 
 sented to wait until he came of age ; and, trusting implicitly 
 in the Earl's honour, had quietly gone home and shot par- 
 tridges. That something would be said to her when he was 
 twenty-one, the lady surmised. She had, or soon would 
 have, her answer ready. 
 
 For, wandering listlessly through the exhibitions of 
 painting that make London a huge picture-gallery, she had 
 been struck one day with a drawing of extraordinary breadth 
 of power and splendid execution, to which corresponded in 
 the catalogue the name of a young man who had leapt into 
 fame at a single bound some three years previously. For 
 all description of the piece were a line and a half from 
 Wordsworth — 
 
 ' Or lady of the mere, 
 Sole sitting by the shore of old romance.' 
 
 The rest of the gallery vanished from Lady May. She saw 
 nothing but the wide woodland scene and the dim gray 
 waters stretching away and away till no eye could follow, 
 so distant was the gleam of the horizon, so many the fold- 
 ings of the cloud which, with a flake of sunshine gilding it 
 faintly, hung like a vision of dreams between sea and sky. 
 There was something weird, ghostlike, unsatisfying in the 
 appearance of that untenanted realm, where the elements 
 reigned supreme, yet were themselves all unsubstantial — 
 dim air, gray water, a hidden sun. But on the shore, her 
 bare feet just touching the waves as they rolled indolently
 
 io 4 THE NEW ANTIGONE mat l 
 
 where she sat, was a figure, SO radiant with life and long- 
 
 . of such exquisite shape and lovely countenance that 
 
 the spectator drew back, as if intruding on a queen's 
 
 privacy, yet was drawn again in wonder to the wistful eyi 
 full of an intense desire which sought and could not attain 
 its object. It would be hard to express in language the 
 contrast between that eager, throbbing life and the gray 
 visions whereon it was feeding. Had but a youthful knight 
 come breaking through the wild and careless brambles 
 which closed her in on one side, or riding along the green 
 forest path low down in the background on the other, it 
 might have seemed that the artist was reproducing the 
 old tale of Arthur and the brand Excalibur, given him by 
 the lady of the mere. But there would come to this lady 
 no King Arthur ; she was beholding a vision unfulfilled — 
 never, on any day, to be fulfilled And yet how beauteous, 
 how young a life, to be consumed in gazing, to be denied 
 fruition ! Lady May read the picture like her own story. 
 She detected in it something which was not medieval, a 
 kind of irony, bitter and sad, not intended by the poet 
 when he wrote his magic verses, but perhaps of a deeper 
 truth; for was not the romance he celebrated an idle thil 
 dedicating itself to sonnets and madrigals, and the cere- 
 monies of the Court of Love ? Behind its wan clouds the 
 sun was shining, eclipsed only by them. ' Unsatisfied 
 ideals,' she said, as she turned away; 'did the painter 
 mean to warn us that Love can be contented only with 
 Life, not with shadows ? ' 
 
 This picture was her book of Hours, her philosophy, for 
 many a day. She lived in it ; she saw its every detail, and 
 could have drawn it from memory. As soon as her mind 
 would let her, she begged Lord Trelingham to purchase 
 the drawing ; but it had made a great impression and was 
 already sold. The intelligence grieved her like a personal 
 loss, and she began to haunt the galleries where other 
 works of Rupert Glanville's were on view. She had not 
 been deceived in ranking him neither among the votaries 
 of religious medievalism, nor with the school of senti- 
 mental landscape, so to call it, which has grown out of 
 the study of the Middle Ages by men whose creed may
 
 chap, ix ANIMUM PICTURA PASC1T INANI 105 
 
 be summed up in the words, ' Sin and be sad.' When 
 Glanville chose a medieval subject, he treated it like one 
 to whom larger worlds were known ; he was free, ironical, 
 and, as the critics said sometimes, joyously pagan. What 
 he painted was full of life ; life, running over at the brim, 
 energetic, bold, adventurous, taking the infinite resources 
 of existence for granted. But his pictures had in them 
 nothing sensuous or over soft ; they did not represent joy 
 as the intoxication of a Silenus, still less did they affect 
 the morbidezza, the pallid waxen tints which in their ex- 
 cessive refinement denote that the artist has sought beauty 
 in decline and is enamoured of consumption. Glanville's 
 art was healthy ; one might almost have called it, to use 
 the philosopher's jargon, optimist. But, as in the draw- 
 ing which had first made him known to Lady May, so 
 in all he painted, there were suggestions of the infinite 
 unseen, the mysterious and strangely possible. He, too, it 
 was apparent, sought and had not found. His ideal, like 
 hers, was behind the clouds. She came unexpectedly on 
 a small picture of his in a friend's drawing-room, and 
 acknowledged, by the violence of her emotion, that she was 
 falling in love with the unknown artist. 
 
 Did she think of subduing her passion, of putting away 
 his remembrance ? With all her force of character, and in 
 spite of her wide attainment and unusual gifts, May 
 Davenant was a very woman. She could do much ; she 
 could not forget. So, at least, she told her conscience 
 when it warned her against caring about a man she had 
 never seen. Might he not be low-born, ill-educated, any- 
 thing but charming to look at ? this worldly-wise conscience 
 inquired. She did not believe it possible. No, his mind 
 must be equal to his paintings ; and what did the rest 
 signify ? His mind was himself ; birth and appearance, 
 good or ill, were but accessories. However, she w r ould ask 
 and be satisfied. Her father had a multitude of friends in 
 the world of art. She invited one of them, to dinner, was 
 very gracious to him in the drawing-room, and put her im- 
 portant questions among a sheaf of others, trivial, but 
 sufficient to blind the deluded artist, who flattered himself 
 that he was always welcome where ladies ruled. ' Did he
 
 io6 THE NEW ANTIGONE part i 
 
 know Glanville?' — c 0h yes Hail met him several tim< 
 goodish sort of artist \ made some lucky hits; was rather 
 too deep for him, you know, but clever — decidedly.' — ' Much 
 in society?' — 'A good deal, he should say; met him in the 
 best houses, where he was a favourite ; could tell capital 
 stories, not too long; was not bad-looking : sang and played 
 a little ; fancied he came from somewhere on the Welsh 
 border — Herefordshire, Shropshire, that way; had been told 
 he was of good family, all extinct but himself; not a bad 
 thing when one's family was all extinct but one's self, provided 
 they mentioned one in their wills, ha, ha!' — 'Rich, did he 
 suppose ? ' — ' Why, not, you know, rich, but landed pro- 
 prietor, that sort of thing, etc. etc' Lady May, having 
 squeezed this sponge, left him dry, but not discontent, to 
 the care of others ; and told her conscience it might now 
 keep quiet, which it did for a while, being terrified at 
 a domineering way she sometimes used towards it. By and 
 by it would take courage and speak again. 
 
 She might make his acquaintance, then, if she wished, 
 and ask him to dinner, like his loquacious brother-artist ? 
 Yes, and then ? How much was she likely to see or know 
 of him in a London dining-room, or during a London 
 season ? She wanted more than that. He must be worthy 
 of her friendship ; nay, could she be certain that she was 
 worthy of his? 
 
 She began to consider. Conscience, whispering mali- 
 ciously somewhere within, hissed out, ' the Belle's Strata- 
 gem.' She laughed ; she was in a good humour, and 
 would see whether a stratagem were possible. Glanville 
 must come to the house, must stay with them long enough 
 to reveal his character as fully as she desired. How could 
 it be accomplished? She had got so far in her meditation 
 when Lord Trelingham came to her with the plans which 
 various artists had submitted for decorating their Great 
 Hall. Her father wanted the Arthurian legend painted on 
 his walls, for it was a proud tradition that the Trelinghams 
 were children of Uther. He had long meant to begin the 
 work, and it was now high time, if he was to see it executed 
 at all. The Great Hall, Arthur, Launcelot, the Lady of 
 the Lake ! It was all nature could do to stifle a cry. To
 
 chap, ix AN I MUM PICTURA PASCIT INAN1 107 
 
 hide her feelings May looked at the designs on the table. 
 Not one but was inspired by the Idylls of the King — pretty, 
 fantastic, old-faced, so to speak, but the only genius per- 
 ceptible was Tennyson's. She swept them on one side. 
 ' Mr. Glanville is your artist, papa,' she boldly said. The 
 Earl thought for a minute or two. He knew Mr. Glan- 
 ville's productions well ; strangely enough, he liked them. 
 In design they were bold and clear ; in execution, it was 
 agreed on all hands, they were admirable. 'I will call on 
 Mr. Glanville at his studio,' said the good man finally. 
 When the door closed behind him, Lady May sank down 
 trembling on her chair. What had she done? 
 
 This was the first of many interviews which Lord 
 Trelingham held with Glanville, who never showed to 
 such advantage as in adapting himself to men from whom 
 he entirely differed. Valuing his own opinions too highly 
 to bestow them on every chance comer, and not preaching 
 them save by the indirect methods of art, the young man 
 took pleasure in observing how variously the world ap- 
 peared in other men's eyes ; and he was therefore attentive 
 to the Earl and charmed him in turn. To accept the 
 commission, though brilliant, was another question. He 
 did not want for money or fame ; he hesitated to leave 
 London for so many months as the task would demand ; 
 and he doubted that Lord Trelingham would enter into 
 his conception of the cycle of the Morte d' Arthur, which 
 was more rugged, primitive, and barbaric, but also of 
 larger scope and nearer, as he believed, to the roots of 
 life and reality, than the current interpretation. To his 
 surprise, the formal ritualist did enter into his thought, 
 — thanks very possibly to Mr. Truscombe, whose volume, 
 then about to be published, had been seen by the Earl in 
 manuscript, and whose sturdy realism had one element, 
 at all events, in common with Glanville's more elevated 
 historical views. Thus encountering no resistance where 
 he had looked for it, and captivated by the mingled courtli- 
 ness and good nature of the old man, Glanville consented 
 to pay a visit to Trelingham, and, after seeing the Great 
 Hall, to lay his designs (of which he drew out a lucid 
 sketch) before him. He did not propose to call on the
 
 io8 /•/■' V ANTIGONE *LK I 
 
 rl in town ; it was a busy time when his ments 
 
 stood six deep, and he must add to them it' lit- int< ndi '1 an 
 early departure Lord Trelingham felt relieved He had 
 suggested to Lady May, after his first visit, that she should 
 ask the artist to dinner, and she. a good deal to his surpri 
 had not exactly declined, but put it off, saying that it did 
 not matter and they should have as much as they wanted 
 of him in the country. It was a fancy on her part to begin 
 their friendship away from London, in a less artificial atmo- 
 sphere. The key-note of an acquaintance is so often struck in 
 the first conversation, and how often wrong ! Mr. Glanville 
 would surely come to Trelingham ; and, with a light heart, 
 she delayed the dawn of a day whose varying fortunes she- 
 could by no means have guessed at. Resolute, however, 
 she was in turning over this new leaf, that looked so fair in 
 its gold-illumined border, of the book of her fate. 
 
 She would have blushed for shame had her intention 
 pointed in the direction for which a hard, practical world 
 would have given her credit. So rude and gross are the 
 maxims upon which social arrangements are calculated that 
 the motives of a lady, at the age of twenty-six, and still 
 unmarried, who takes an interest in a young unmarried 
 genius, seem even to the fair-minded, suspicious or self- 
 evident. What can she want except to marry him ? And 
 there is much to be said for that view. Nevertheless, she 
 does not always want to marry him ; she may be seekin. 
 an object of admiration, of worship, which is not com- 
 patible at all times with marriage ; or a friend to share her 
 better thoughts ; or simply a comrade whose amusing 
 manners would be lost outside the circle of a numerous 
 society by the domestic hearth. All this will be conceded 
 by the philosopher who sees in life deeper problems than 
 those of ordinary match-making; but even he, the wise 
 observer, will shake his head when enthusiasm mounts so 
 fast as it did in the bosom of Lady May. She, to her own 
 seeming, had left behind her the ' land of white and green,' 
 the velvet-footed flower-besprinkled valley where youths 
 and maidens choose one another ; she was, and meant to 
 continue, an 'old maid.' She did not call it the state of 
 single blessedness ; it was only not so miserable as would
 
 chap, ix ANLMUM PICTURA PASCIT INAN1 109 
 
 have been a life spent with any of the suitors that had come 
 to her. What she did ask, had it ever been possible, was the 
 1 marriage of true minds,' which is the inward grace of all 
 outward union between man and woman. She dreamt now 
 that in Rupert Glanville was such a true mind as she 
 had hitherto sought in vain ; but the time of marriage was 
 past. With a sigh she looked back, and once more the 
 land of white and green, the daisies and fresh springing 
 grass, had melted into reminiscences of early youth. 
 Glanville was unwedded ; but he might still be her friend, 
 and teach her something better than to feed on romance. 
 
 I dare say the reader will experience some contempt 
 for Lady May, on hearing that a friendship like this, 
 pitched just right between high and low, appeared in 
 her eyes a state of life to which she and Glanville might 
 be called. And yet she thought so. Inbred modesty 
 would have forbidden her to take steps towards securing 
 a lover ; but how could it interfere with her winning a 
 friend ? Conscience, perplexed, though not entirely con- 
 vinced, lay down to sleep again. The sacred epochs of 
 fashion were passing quickly by. Lord Trelingham, who 
 usually observed these times and seasons as he did Easter 
 and Saints'-days, — although he never had witnessed a horse- 
 race or owned a yacht, — went down early with Lady May 
 to his country-seat, and summoned Mr. Truscombe to 
 advise him in the selection of historic scenes for the Great 
 Hall. Rupert Glanville likewise, as if he were acting of 
 his own free will, and there were no Lady May in ex- 
 istence, took his ticket for Yalden on a certain morning, 
 and, in so doing, burnt his ships. There was no going 
 back the same man that he came. 
 
 Thus, at the end of a month, we find these two in 
 the picture-gallery : Rupert, master of himself, uncertain 
 whether he cares for the lady, certain that he does not care 
 with any overwhelming passion ; and she already doubting 
 whether to bind herself to friendship and nothing beyond, 
 or yield to this new absorbing influence which is wrapping 
 her all round in its golden haze. To yield ? But, if he 
 should think of her only as a friend, would it not be planting 
 a dagger in her bosom, never to be withdrawn ? He was
 
 no THE NEW ANTIG01 PAST l 
 
 courteous, attentive, full of pleasant wisdom, open as the 
 day. He would have been a perfect brother. Was that 
 
 the whole of it? She longed and feared and grew unea 
 and could find no rest She knew, what Rupert, being 
 only a man, was not likely to perceive, that (Carina Lute- 
 nieff watched them ; that she would have em 1, had 
 
 she dared, an affection which to her meant the surrender, 
 by her cousin, of Tom Davenant. When the Countess 
 spoke in the drawing-room about Lady May's giving up the 
 dignity of cousinhood, she was moved by a mischievous 
 desire to irritate all three who were sitting there. She 
 had said, petulantly enough, when the gentlemen left, that 
 it was a shame Lady May did not at once refuse Tom 
 Davenant, since she seemed not to care for him. And 
 Lady May had answered, ' Will you not allow me to wait 
 till I am asked?' For though the Countess was afraid, 
 and her cousin suspected, that something would occur on 
 Mr. Davenant's coming of age, neither of them knew of 
 his having already made a proposal in set terms. 
 
 There were moments, during these days of bewilder- 
 ment and growing trouble, when Lady May, as she sat 
 listening to Rupert, seemed to catch glimpses of a nobler 
 order of things, where friendship and not love should be 
 the primal element, — rifts in her golden haze through 
 which the pure heavens were seen like unchanging sapphire, 
 a great, free, illimitable world, passionless, tranquil, clear 
 as the morning dawn. They came when he spoke of the 
 artist's enthusiasm, of his yearning to express the unseen 
 beauty which haunted his steps and whispered in his ear, 
 and vanished so soon as he turned his head to look upon 
 her. Or again, when he descanted on the secret loveliness 
 of landscape, its infinite meanings, its mysterious half- 
 tones, its silent touches lulling the spirit to rest, on the 
 lapse of streams and the glory of foaming waters. While- 
 he forgot himself in speaking, she, in her rapt attention, 
 saw the earthly vanish and themselves entering into a unity 
 of which all the love we know is but a trembling shadow. 
 And he spoke of history, of the old classic times, of reli- 
 gion, not as a man largely-informed indeed, but as a true 
 artist, whose eye sees things in their grouping and judges
 
 cn.u\ ix ANIMUM PICTURA PASCIT INANI m 
 
 them by the law of the beautiful. It was the high world 
 she had longed to dwell in. How could she think of 
 marriage if this were not the heart of it, the gold that 
 made it precious ? She grew ashamed now, though never 
 before, humbled at the remembrance of what passionate 
 desires she had allowed to come between her and the 
 unsullied light. She would be worthy of him, of his large 
 thoughts and heroic aims ; for did he not make of his 
 profession a heroism ? After a morning spent like this, 
 she went about her household tasks with an air of gentle- 
 ness, a countenance so clear and eyes so washed in heavenly 
 dews, that the Earl, moved to admiration of he knew not 
 what that was exquisite about her, would say smilingly, 
 ' You have put on your angel's face to-day, my dear ; why 
 don't you wear it always for our delight?' 
 
 Alas ! she could not. Rupert himself was not always 
 soaring on eagle's wing. He could be melancholy and 
 dispirited ; he was sometimes w r orn out with fatigue of 
 which he rendered no account ; for, as I have said, he 
 united to a most winning frankness a reserve that none, 
 except Ivor Mardol, attempted to break into. He was 
 unequal, changeable, or, in his friend's complimentary 
 phrase, iridescent. Trifles irritated him when serious mis- 
 fortunes left him tranquil. He could be touchy at a word ; 
 and although in Lady May's presence he never displayed 
 temper, it was not difficult to perceive that many things 
 tried him. Some afternoons he would make an excuse for 
 strolling out alone, and, going down to the boat-house, 
 unmoor the skiff, leap into it, row across to Ivor sitting 
 philosophically in the verandah of his hermitage, and run- 
 ning up the water-steps like a man pursued, fling himself 
 down on the sofa in Ivor's study, and lie there silent till 
 the bell summoned him to dinner. He returned, for the 
 most part, in good though not exuberant spirits, and said 
 not a syllable of where he had been or what doing since 
 last they saw him. Trelingham was a pleasant house to 
 stay at ; for its owner possessed the hospitable grace of pro- 
 viding all things for your amusement and never asking 
 whether you had availed yourself of them. 
 
 But these imperfections, proving that the serene spirit
 
 na THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt l 
 
 was human, had more dan:.? for Lady May than their 
 joint expeditions in quest of the [deal Prom pity to love 
 is an easy step. She admired, she pitied, she began, de- 
 spite her interest in the higher friendship, if we may call it 
 SO, to love. And mark, reader, for I must tell you the truth 
 as I know it, she felt that, in so doing, she was descending; 
 she did not admire her love, but yielded to it as a disease. 
 I have heard say that tailing in love is like falling asleep; it 
 implies a quiescent, not an active will. So was it with Lady 
 May. She felt herself falling asleep; her better resolutions 
 melted away ; her fear of consequences changed to an im- 
 petuous hope. The angel-face did not return so often ; the 
 golden haze thickened and shut out the sapphire. She be- 
 gan to long for an acknowledgment of affection from Glan- 
 ville, as a fevered man longs for the cooling water. She- 
 would die rather than speak ; surely she was no Countess 
 Lutenieff to blazon her feelings before friends and strangers; 
 but how slow the minutes moved until that draught was 
 handed her? She kept her secret with an agony like the 
 young Spartan's who felt the gnawing of the fox under his 
 cloak and would not cry out though his vitals were torn. 
 Had men so little perception when a woman was suffering? 
 But could he return her love merely because she suffered ? 
 No, she would not have it in such a shape, on such con- 
 ditions ; she would wait and think of that higher world, 
 and — and if nothing came of it, well, she could die. The 
 lady of the lake seated by the dim gray waters, looking 
 on the infinitely unfolding cloud, flecked with faint sun- 
 shine, the impenetrable thicket on one side of her, the 
 deserted path away in the green forest behind her ; — all 
 the picture came back as when first she saw it, and the 
 same feeling of desolation. Its irony was prophetic, its 
 meaning likely to be fulfilled in her own life with which 
 she was now making a last and desperate experiment. 
 
 Timid though she felt in approaching a subject that 
 might betray her emotion, she could not refrain one morning 
 from the inquiry what his meaning was in that composition. 
 I [e asked her in turn, as was not unusual with him, to give 
 him an account of it ; whether it seemed to aim at any- 
 thing except describing in colour what the poet had de-
 
 CHAP. IX ANIMUM PICTURA PASC1T INAN1 113 
 
 scribed in words. She was dreadfully embarrassed, and 
 wished she had not spoken. In a low voice, hesitating at 
 every sentence, she faltered out her surmises, her probably 
 mistaken opinion, that it implied rather a longing for the 
 unattainable than perfect joy in the realms of romance. 
 Glanville, not laying aside his brush while she spoke, gave 
 her a look of contentment from time to time, and said, 
 when she could keep her voice no longer under control 
 and took refuge in silence, ' I did not think to have made 
 the meaning so clear. Either you have a quick discern- 
 ment or my parable was plainly written. Yes, I did en- 
 deavour to convey an ironical suggestion that the beauty of 
 old romance was deceptive, and less akin to the truth of 
 existence, of the perfect ideal existence which it ought to 
 be our aim to enjoy, than were the ghostly mere and its 
 phantasmagoria of clouds to the creative sun. But,' he 
 went on, ' you did not, perhaps, gather a second meaning 
 I had put into the parable. That beautiful lady, who is all 
 desire and wistfulness, seems to be passing idly through her 
 hands the golden hair which has fallen down over breast 
 and shoulders, while upon her knees lies the magic wand, 
 forgotten. She understands, though dreamily, that she is 
 beautiful ; she has the rod of life within her grasp. But, 
 charmed by the fantastic visions that pass along the sky, 
 she sits entranced ; and her beauty and her magic are of 
 no avail. Were she but to rise and strike the waters, how 
 marvellous a change would come over them ! For she is 
 the queen, not the slave of romance ; it is for her that its 
 realms were created, and all its uncertain glories do but re- 
 flect in weak sentimental imaginations, like those of children, 
 knight-errants, and medieval troubadours, the fulness of her 
 life. I have painted a second picture, where the dreaming 
 fay remembers that once upon a time she was the Lady 
 Venus, the mother of the living and the delightful god- 
 dess. For, as you know, these mythologies are all pretty 
 nearly identical in meaning. During the Middle Ages 
 life and beauty lay under a spell ; they were bewitched 
 and all things with them. To strike into the depth of 
 existence and fling one's sails upon every breeze, confi- 
 dent that shipwreck in the infinite was not possible, — do 
 vol. 1. r
 
 114 Till NEW ANTIGONE pari i 
 
 you think the boldest medieval spirit would have ven- 
 tured it?' 
 
 •And ran you believe, ' she said, raising her countenai 
 to his, 'that shipwreck is not possible? You often speak 
 as though the supreme law were the law of beauty. 
 Granting that, indeed, we need not fear to go upon the 
 rocks.' But, in her own mind, she was far from grant- 
 ing it. 
 
 Rupert did not answer immediately. His thoughts 
 went back to Colonel Valence and that forlorn afternoon 
 in the churchyard. He seemed to hear the sad yet mock- 
 ing tone in which Valence declared existence a universal 
 shipwreck ; and it gave him pause. Too large-minded to 
 call a possibility in question because it was disagreeable, 
 he preferred not to dwell upon it. After a while he 
 answered gravely: 'There seems to be a controversy be- 
 tween the artists and the philosophers on this point, witness 
 my friend Ivor Mardol and me. He does not pronounce 
 all things evil, nor do I say they are at their best ; neverthe- 
 less, I could not paint if I believed that beauty was less 
 than the sovereign law. And he speaks of expiation, the 
 tragic Nemesis, and I know not what.' 
 
 'Then you hope the best," she said, 'although you see 
 it nowhere realised. The lady of the mere is dreaming 
 still; but she may awaken and with a stroke of her wand 
 restore our lost ideals ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' he cried; 'I subscribe to that creed, on one con- 
 dition.' 
 
 ' What is it ? ' she asked anxiously. 
 
 ' Let it be whispered in her ear that she is dreaming. 
 We are near waking, it has been said, when we dream 
 that we dream.' 
 
 'You would imply something I do not quite under- 
 stand.' 
 
 ' Well, then, so long as fantastic visions abuse her eyes 
 she cannot resist them, because they are all her world. 
 Let her see, however faintly, a different ideal; in com- 
 paring them both she will wake to perfect reason.' 
 
 Lady May sank back into her chair and meditated. 
 The unreal vision was love which pined in secret and called 
 
 I
 
 chap, jx ANIMUM PICTURA PASCIT INANI 115 
 
 forth no response. The reasonable union between herself 
 and Rupert Glanville could only be friendship, if she saw 
 a way to keep it as intimate as now it was becoming. But 
 no way presented itself. He would marry and forget her. 
 She must return to a lonely life. The days ran on ; there 
 was little change in them. And while her own counte- 
 nance gazed upon her from the canvas, she beheld only 
 the enchanted fay, her eyes full of wistfulness, looking out 
 upon dim waters, upon a mist of weary sunshine, and a 
 world of dreams. Would she ever awaken ?
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 COMPANIONED BY DIVINER HOPES 
 
 'Thursday, 18 — . It seems only the other day 
 
 since I took possession of the Hermitage; and it is more 
 than a month. What a gap in these pages ! I have never 
 been a careful annotator of the day's work. The less 1 
 had done, the less I was inclined to write it ; when my 
 hands were full I grudged the time. But this evening 
 I have lighted my reading-lamp, drawn the curtains, stirred 
 the wood fire into a blaze, and, seated where I can en- 
 joy its cheerful glow and feel its warmth, must make an 
 effort, in the only way endurable, to hold up the mirror 
 before me and view therein my counterfeit presentment. 
 The time is propitious. Thanks to Van Helmont and his 
 alchemist forefathers, I have at any rate restored the sur- 
 face of the Virgin of the Seraphim. My composition, as 
 binding as Roman cement, smooth enough to lay upon it 
 the most delicate colours, and no thicker than a trans- 
 parent wash, will endure from Rupert's hand whatever treat- 
 ment he may attempt. Who says that alchemy was good 
 for nothing? or that poring over its obscure and dusty 
 records will bring no reward? If I had not been drawn 
 to them, held by them, lost in them during weeks of seem- 
 ing idleness, the Madonna would still be a dismal sight, 
 instead of inviting a great modern artist to add the finish- 
 ing touch, and promising to shine out again among the 
 Trelingham portraits. 
 
 ' I have done what was required, and should be returning 
 to London when my portmanteau is packed. Do I think 
 of going ? No. I must if the Earl does not bid me stay.
 
 chap, x COMPANIONED BY DIVINER HOPES 117 
 
 But I am confident he will. There is the Great Hall to be 
 commenced now. Rupert's designs will have to be made 
 out, and I can help him better than any one else. Why 
 should I not render him the service he expects ? Ad- 
 mirable reasoning, Ivor ! And is it what you mean ? 
 Come, my friend, be plain with yourself; there is not a 
 soul listening. Let me cross-examine you a little. Now, 
 sir, what are you by profession? A philosopher. Good. 
 It is not the commonest trade in these times. And what 
 kind of philosopher ? — do you pretend to know the essences 
 of things, entities, quiddities, and all the rest ? You do not ? 
 You hold with an uncouth Athenian sculptor, who carved 
 badly, but argued irresistibly, that your business, being a 
 philosopher, is to know yourself and do your duty, not to 
 peer into the mysteries of the gods. Yes, and you con- 
 sider that a man should rise above his passions and con- 
 trol them, not be swayed as they move. For, you say, 
 they run wild in every direction, all wanting to be satisfied 
 at once, and, like horses that will not obey the rein, each 
 of them pulls the way it would like to go, and is fain to 
 drag the charioteer along with it. Right — quite right. 
 You remember your Greek, I see. But, then, why do you 
 think of staying here ? 
 
 ' Because the place is so beautiful, adapted exquisitely 
 to my tastes and desires. I have travelled, but never 
 dwelt in a lovely region like this. The air feels like home ; 
 the waters are ever sounding sweetly or solemnly in my ear, 
 and when they lie down in perfect stillness the calm pene- 
 trates my innermost being, and is more delightful than the 
 murmur of ocean. The mind grows clear ; the passion for 
 wisdom takes on a more ethereal hue ; my thoughts seem 
 larger, and become crystalline in depth and tranquillity. 
 Without violating the secrets of the gods, I lift a corner of 
 the veil of Isis, and fall down in reverence before a loveli- 
 ness too awful to be disclosed. 
 
 ' You speak very well, better than some books I have 
 read. And, Ivor, were I not looking so straight at you, I 
 should think this was not only the truth, but the whole 
 truth. Ah, you colour at my insinuation ; your eyes droop. 
 I must ask no further. My dear young man, the lawyer
 
 i.s THE NEW ANTIG01 parti 
 
 shall give place to the physician, to the father confessor. 
 Tell me what that feeling is which gun to stir like a 
 
 serpent in your bosom. I will not vex you, but suggest the 
 healing remedies, if any there \- 
 
 When Ivor Mardol hail written thus far he laid down 
 his pen, and, going to the window, drew aside the curtain 
 and looked out. He was in the largest chamber of the 
 Hermitage, called the study, which permitted a view along 
 the gorge and down to the sea. A portion of the over- 
 hanging roof had been taken away, to allow of sufficient 
 light for mending the canvas and for such bits of engraving 
 as Mardol might undertake during his leisure. It was a 
 silent, starlit night. No moon was in the sky, nor any 
 cloud. The air, though not frost}-, was keen and dry, for a 
 wind came at intervals out of the north and swept noiselessly 
 along, brushing away the evening vapours which lingered 
 about the Hermitage. Everywhere, as he looked, the st 
 broke on his view sparkling with soft light, not wildly, as 
 when a throbbing seems to take the heavens, but in mild 
 serenity and with friendly glances at the mortal who beheld 
 them. ' The thousand eyes are looking into mine,' he 
 murmured, remembering that conversation on the watch- 
 tower with Lady May. Her dark eyes, too, — he was not 
 likely to forget them. How beautiful and piercing they 
 were ! they seemed to look through you. But the light in 
 them was fitful, not serene ; it came and went in sudden 
 flashes, startling you as with unexpected questionings. It did 
 not speak of calm or comfort ; the deep resignation which 
 that silent night inspired, — how unlike the restlessness, the 
 languor, yearning, melancholy, the fretting desire which 
 their glance quickened into life within him. He was alone 
 now, in the presence of infinite worlds, each an abyss of 
 splendour, a flaming ocean pouring out its waves upon 
 Eternity, unhasting, unresting, bound by obedience to un- 
 speakable laws which might not be transgressed, moving 
 towards a goal that no man should ever behold. Could 
 human passion endure in the greatness of the midnight 
 spectacle? What was it but a little flame springing up out 
 of the dust and dying down in a moment, — a handful of 
 dry heather set on fire and cast into the waters of death ?
 
 chap, x COMPANIONED BY DIVINER HOPES 119 
 
 Should he break his heart because no flame answered 
 his ? For a long while he stood motionless, absorbed in 
 meditation. An hour passed, but he did not move ; his 
 mind, intently thinking, controlled the muscles of the 
 limbs ; as though he were out of the body, his spirit sweep- 
 ing through the countless worlds, beheld their greatness, 
 their strange magnificence, their lonely spaces where living 
 thing had never breathed nor would breathe, and unbroken 
 solitude had reigned from the immeasurable past Eternity, 
 as it would reign into the Eternity to come. He did not 
 strive to leap the bounds of ordinance and break through 
 the guarded gates into the mystery beyond. It was enough 
 to open his eyes and see what was before him. The longer 
 he thought the more was his mind overwhelmed, subdued, 
 penetrated, cleansed from earthly desires and lifted out of 
 itself. Again, the beautiful face, with its piercing passionate 
 glances, came across the vision ; but it had lost its power. 
 It passed by like a falling star, vanishing in the steadfast 
 night of eternity. And the awful silent heavens looked 
 down and were reflected in the waters of the shining 
 mere ; and deep calm fell upon Ivor. He drew the curtain 
 again, sat down, took up his pen with a firm hand, and 
 wrote : — 
 
 ' If hitherto I have been so foolish as to dream of love, 
 and such a love, here is the end. It is not for me. I 
 know my calling, to which, until I found myself at Trel- 
 ingham, I have never been disloyal. These moments of 
 madness shall not count. Let me recall them now that 
 they belong to the past ; let me examine, in the starry 
 light of intellect, a passion to which, as I think, I yielded 
 too much, but hope to yield no more. The most effica- 
 cious means of vanquishing a sentiment is, say the wise 
 masters, to put it under the microscope and analyse it 
 to the last fibre. I doubt that a mistress's letters, how- 
 soever tender and eloquent they seem to the lover, would 
 charm or subdue if he read them critically to see where 
 the charm lay. I will pluck up this fast -growing wild 
 rose by the roots, trace the delicate, almost invisible 
 threads which it was insinuating into my heart, and leave 
 it, a beautiful dead thing, perfect but withered, compressed
 
 i2o THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW i 
 
 between these pages. Am I strong enough to be fair 
 to myself, resolved enough not to run a further risk ? 
 But should I not still be exposed to temptation, while the 
 warm earth cherished the seed of love? Out with it to 
 the surface j let the light kill it! But in what way? Let 
 me think. This hook, so scanty in its record of farts, is 
 abundant in delineation of moods and feelings. I always 
 meant to make it an autobiography, — the travels of a soul 
 towards truth. Why, now, should 1 not take Carlyle's ad- 
 vice, and set down the story of my life? Why not, like Jean 
 Paul, in that charming brief fragment of his, become the 
 professor of biography to myself? It will bring out the 
 contrast which would make any love of mine for Lady May 
 ridiculous ; and I might turn to these pages for a little cool- 
 in g of my infatuation should it return. The sweet poison 
 must not run in my veins any longer. This antidote shall 
 allay its fury. Do but let me begin at the beginning, and not 
 spare the subject of the story out of misplaced tenderness. 
 
 1 Ivor Mardol, then, a young man of uncertain age, but, 
 as he believes, verging on thirty, of plain features, less 
 than the middle height, and surely not well connected, — 
 ay, that is the inventory. 
 
 ' Of my birth and parentage I know less than a work- 
 house orphan, except that neither can have signified to the 
 world at large ; for it is something to be chargeable to the 
 parish. All I know is that I was brought up by good- 
 natured, affectionate people, who told me I was no child 
 of theirs. The old man taught me to draw, praised us- 
 ability, set me to learn what I could, being a mere lad, of 
 the technique of engraving, and took me with him, almost 
 as soon as I could walk, to his workman's club, his trades- 
 union meetings, his political association, his temperance 
 and vegetarian propaganda, but at no time to church. He 
 did not believe greaWy in churches. However, I soon 
 learnt that the world was a busy place ; and strange to say, 
 I learnt equally soon that I had nothing to do with its 
 concerns. I liked to see and hear human beings. To 
 attend a crowded meeting and listen to straightforward, 
 energetic speeches, interrupted, encouraged, sometimes put 
 an end to, by a vast audience upon whom not a word fell
 
 chap, x COMPANIONED BY DIVINER HOPES 121 
 
 unobserved, — this was to me as animating as it was in- 
 structive. All the arguments I heard were of much the 
 same import ; they dwelt on the misery of the masses and 
 proved it by appealing to ourselves. I was not miserable ; 
 I had all I wanted. But I knew of some in my own street 
 that had nothing, to whom the charity of neighbours sup- 
 plied a crust now and then, while at other times they went 
 hungry to bed. Did I feel for them ? Have I not often 
 sat down with tears in my eyes to our simple table, because 
 I could not share my little meal with the poor wretches ? 
 I pitied, I caressed the tiny children, so begrimed and 
 neglected, as they sat shivering on the door- step near the 
 street lamp, afraid to go into the dark when night was 
 fallen on the huge city, and mothers and sisters had left 
 them at home — left them on what a business too often ! 
 That, too, I was not long in learning ; the children of the 
 poor know everything. They cannot be blessedly ignorant 
 like those who are fenced round about in luxurious man- 
 sions and pleasant gardens whither evil does not penetrate 
 easily. But I have known them, though not ignorant, 
 innocent ; though acquainted so young with the ways of 
 life, modest and self-respecting. My teacher might 
 have forbidden me to make friends among these out- 
 cast children. He did no such thing. He trusted 
 to the moral influence of the movement of reform to 
 which he belonged ; and his trust was not in vain. 
 Deeply impressed as I was, at an incredibly early date, 
 with a sense of the many things, too bad for improve- 
 ment, that could not and ought not to endure, there 
 was little room left in my thoughts for what was base 
 or ignoble. I have smiled since on hearing it said that 
 children are too young to understand these things. How 
 young was I when the problem of social misery, shouted 
 from a hundred platforms, became to me as real a fact as 
 it is this night ? 
 
 ' But still, it was a problem in which others were 
 affected, and I on their behalf, not on my own. The days 
 of my childhood were solitary, and not at all unhappy. I 
 could have wished for a companion in the evenings ; 
 I longed to know my father and mother. There came
 
 122 THE NEW A.XTIGQNE faut i 
 
 rainy hours to vary the long calm sunshine, and, like other 
 children, I wept, even bitterly. But it was seldom. Mr. 
 Mardol and his wife displayed the tenderest fondness for 
 a child who lacked neither discernment to recognise their 
 tion nor the feeling of gratitude that was all he could 
 give in return. I do not mean that he was unloving, far 
 from it; but he knew they were not his parents, and he 
 would have deemed it somehow a violation of the duty he- 
 owed elsewhere to love them as such. A curious distinc- 
 tion for a boy to make! He had, in truth, from the be- 
 ginning a quick and delicate sense for the moral aspects of 
 things, developed by his intimacy with men who were all 
 day long discoursing of the just and the unjust, the rational 
 order of the world, and the inherent defects of existing 
 institutions. I have read nothing in the debates of Parlia- 
 ment or the works of political economists with which as a 
 boy I was not familiar. The handling is not always so 
 good ; the amount of conventional falsehood seems to 
 me immeasurably greater. 
 
 'Had I lived in my own family, or known what it was to 
 have brothers and sisters, I too must have thrown myself 
 as I grew up into the reform movement. To change the 
 world, one must have a home, a country, a religion. It is 
 that which gives the local habitation and the name, apart 
 from which our aspirations are like the poet's dream — airy 
 nothings. But I had neither home, nor country, nor 
 religion. I had only myself and this kind-hearted philo- 
 sophy. It charmed my imagination ; it roused me at 
 the great meetings to enthusiasm ; it did not hinder me 
 from falling back into that solitary world where I was 
 the only figure. I learned much, and with superhuman 
 quickness ; I spent hour after hour at my teacher's side, 
 watching all he did, and copying it as he allowed me, 
 always with astonishing accuracy for so young a hand. 
 The good man looked on me, I think, as something un- 
 canny. I must, indeed, have been a weird, elfish crea- 
 ture. And how I went on dreaming, longing, imagining, 
 ever under a presentiment that, sooner or later, a figure 
 would step down to me from the unknown world, and I 
 should enter upon a fresh chapter of existence ! Not
 
 chap, x COMPANIONED BY DIVINER HOPES 123 
 
 that I despised my station, or coveted the rich wares 
 I saw in shop-windows, or thought as I went by the enor- 
 mous palaces of Belgravia and Tyburnia, that I should 
 like to live in them. My dream did not run thus. I saw 
 myself restored to father and mother, or kissing the lips 
 of a baby-sister, and wandering in the fields, holding my 
 new-found father's hand. An idle dream ! But, surely, 
 innocent enough. 
 
 ' The fresh chapter of existence opened at last, when I 
 was not expecting it. There was one day in the year, and 
 only one, that Mr. Mardol had a fancy for keeping. It was 
 Christmas Day. He did not go to church, and he despised 
 the festive decorations by which his neighbours marked 
 their enjoyment. But, if the day was fine, he took his wife 
 and me for a walk in the green country, which then lay 
 nearer London than it does now. We went just so far as 
 to be out of the clash and jangle of the Christmas bells, 
 but not far enough to lose their delicious chiming when 
 heard in the distance. While we wandered quietly along, 
 my teacher would take up his favourite parable and ex- 
 pound to us the universal charity of Nature; for he 
 never uttered the name of God. He enlarged on the 
 bounty that sends us not only what we may eat and drink, 
 but wise men, in whom there are thoughts by which we 
 may live and learn to care for one another. He told over 
 their names ; he spoke of their sufferings, their triumphs, 
 their undying influence; and he chose, as the greatest 
 example, the name which so many in gross and ignorant 
 fashion were celebrating that day. He said a man could 
 do nothing so good as follow His example and labour to 
 change the world in His spirit. Occasionally, he would 
 read a few words from the story of His life ; but this was 
 not often, and the only book he would not have me peruse 
 was the Christian Bible. 
 
 ' I liked what he read ; but I did not think of disobeying 
 his wishes. What took up my thoughts a great deal more 
 was the fancy, which I indulged without breathing a word to 
 any one, that Christmas Day was my birthday, to be kept 
 sacred by me, to be filled with a vision of home and all 
 that I was by and by to recover of my inheritance of love.
 
 i2t THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt i 
 
 Christmastide for me meant infinite hopes, unquenchable 
 I. too, was to taste the joys of childhood, and be 
 
 folded to a mother's bosom. While old Mr. Mardol was 
 speaking of the dream of innocence long banished from 
 
 mankind, or to be found only in the hearts of children; 
 when lie prophesied that by the law of progress it would 
 in due time become no dream, but a universal reality, and 
 the age of reason, of obedience to nature, of unpurchased 
 happiness and sylvan delights, be ushered in with acclama- 
 tion, and terminate the ferocious strife of man with man, 
 by a treaty of eternal brotherhood, my heart warmed within 
 me, and I saw myself roaming the beautiful forest and 
 playing in its sunlit glades, not an orphan or an outcast, 
 but restored to all that loved me and were by me be- 
 1. 1 could think of no progress but the change from 
 my wintry desolation to a home looking out on the wide 
 world, yet centred in the rustic cabin of my parents. I oi 
 it was the firm conviction of Mr. Mardol, as of thousands 
 besides, that, when the day came, mankind would pour out 
 of their enormous modern towns, as on the opening of the 
 prison gates captives rush forth in ecstasy, and would never 
 more shut out the air and light of heaven with high walls 
 and crowded habitations, or heap together corrupting 
 luxuries, every one of which was soaked or stained with the 
 blood and sweat of unrewarded toilers. He called the 
 splendid capitals of Europe and America mouths of hell, 
 where flame and smoke ascended clay and night without 
 ceasing, and the shrieks of the damned for ever filled the 
 mirky air. But for the sense of duty which kept him 
 where the battle raged, he would have sold what he- 
 possessed and gone away, when he was young and active, 
 to the uncolonised lands in which a man might live as 
 nature intended. But it was a task laid upon him, laid 
 upon me too, he repeated with solemn emphasis, to aid in 
 conquering from effete civilisation the countries on which it 
 had inflicted wars and pestilence and famine, and a tyranny 
 as hurtful to the few that exercised it as to the millions who 
 could not shake it off. Meanwhile, we must share the cap- 
 tivity of our brethren, and teach them to forge weapons 
 whereby freedom might be won. I felt that he spoke nobly;
 
 chap, x COMPANIONED BY DIVINER HOPES 125 
 
 I was eager to follow his lead ; but my imagination de- 
 lighted in the remote continents whose soil was yet virgin, 
 and whose pathless woods owned no sovereignty but 
 nature's. I longed to lose myself in the vast solitude, with 
 only the stars to tell me whether I was travelling towards 
 the equator or the pole ; I spent in thought more hours than 
 I can reckon floating down the mighty rivers in the canoe 
 I had with my own hands hollowed out of a fallen trunk, — 
 floating, dreaming, as the waters bore me onward between 
 forest and forest, the endless branches interlacing over my 
 head, and almost shutting out the sky. Was I called to be 
 a soldier in the war against corrupt civilisation, my pleasure 
 should be to explore in fancy the beautiful regions I could 
 not otherwise attain. I was, and have remained amid 
 a variety of changes, an untamable creature, a denizen of 
 woods and wild places. The deep seclusion of this valley, 
 where now I am writing, the loneliness of the Hermitage, 
 have for me a charm which only those can experience who, 
 living much in the throng of civilised men, yet strange to 
 their ways and feelings, are in dreams transported into the 
 midst of landscapes they have never with waking eyes 
 beheld. 
 
 ' Our Christmas morning walk did not take us into the 
 mighty woods of Brazil — my favourite hunting-ground 
 in fancy — nor over the rolling savannahs of South America. 
 There were times when snow or frost kept us within all 
 day. Invariably, if we had spent the early hours abroad, 
 we came home to our meal of deliciously-dressed herbs — 
 for I have implied that Mr. Mardol was a vegetarian, and 
 on the same principle was I brought up. When the dishes 
 were cleared away, we would sit round a blazing fire, kept 
 up in all its glory by Mrs. Mardol, to whom the warmth 
 was grateful and almost the only enjoyment in which 
 she displayed what her husband termed an unphilosophical 
 excess. He did not grudge the wood or the coals, how- 
 ever, and, as he sat there, sipping his glass of water, he 
 would tell me stories of his youth and his old companions ; 
 how some realised in humble station the meaning and the 
 joy of an earnest human life, and others, the many, had 
 been as thriftless and pleasure-seeking as though born to
 
 ta6 THE NEW ANTIGi . PABa l 
 
 high est. iic. The dispositions of men, he said, did not 
 correspond to the clei 'franks. But it was his way 
 
 to enlarge on the good he had known rather than to 
 
 dishearten me by dwelling on the bad Then lie would 
 11 his own adventures, which were amusing some- 
 times and singular ; and he seldom left off ere he had 
 
 drawn, with sharp strokes, in the manner of an engraving 
 rather than a painted scene, — for it had no colour, only 
 an admirable distinctness, — the sketch of some well- 
 known hero that had risen, by labour and genius, to be 
 great among his fellow-workmen and a power in the world's 
 development. The saints of his calendar were such men 
 as Franklin, Pallissy, Stephenson, James 'Watt, Ampere. 
 But he admired them less when they became rich and 
 famous than in their days of adversity. Of some he said 
 that they had more energy than light ; that, in accept- 
 ing wealth they were false to the brethren ; that the 
 founders of the golden aristocracy were too often thieves, 
 as those who had established the aristocracy of blood had 
 been pirates and robbers. He was never long without 
 coming back to his favourite theme, and I was never weary 
 of it. 
 
 ' I must have been about twelve years old, when, as the 
 short afternoon of Christmas was closing in, and the blaz- 
 ing fire made a mixture of light and shade on our parlour 
 ceiling, a ring came to the side-door, and Mr. Mardol, 
 pausing in the story he was telling, — I remember it was the 
 life and adventures of Victor Jacquemont, the French 
 traveller in the Himalayas, — rose from his chimney-corner 
 and went to open it. We had no servant, not even a girl 
 to run errands. It was my business to do such commis- 
 sions for Mrs. Mardol, and very willingly I did them. 
 In a few moments the old man came back with some 
 one I had never seen. Mrs. Mardol, however, did not 
 look surprised. Her husband seemed intimate with the 
 man, whose peculiar appearance, to confess the truth, I 
 did not like. He shook hands with Mrs. Mardol, sat 
 down in the chair she offered him, and asked in a quick 
 but courteous tone, whether the candles standing on the table 
 might not be lighted. I disliked him even for this little
 
 chap, x COMPANIONED BY DIVINER HOPES 127 
 
 thing. I was fond of watching the uncertain dancing 
 shadows on the ceiling and the tongues of fire that leaped 
 among them, before the lights came. He seemed to be 
 intruding on the poetic interval I had enjoyed at Mr. 
 MardoPs knee ; to be ending my time of poetry altogether. 
 I cannot tell why this notion came into my head; but, as Mrs. 
 Mardol said to me once, I was always fancying some- 
 thing. And so I fancied this, not guessing what the 
 stranger's business might be. The candles were lighted ; 
 my teacher threw himself back in his chair ; and the un- 
 known guest, beckoning me to him, drew the lights where 
 they would fall full on my face and leave him in shadow. I 
 looked at Mr. Mardol ; he smiled encouragingly, and said, 
 " You need not be afraid, Ivor ; our friend will do you no 
 harm." But I was afraid, although, by a strong resolution, 
 I kept down the trembling that came upon me. How well 
 I remember what ensued ! 
 
 ' " My boy," said the stranger, " should you like to be 
 a gentleman?" I stared at him. "A gentleman," I an- 
 swered when my sense of politeness returned ; " I don't 
 know what you mean by a gentleman." 
 
 1 " Well," said he, " to be rich and wear fine clothes, a 
 new suit every day if you liked, and to drink wine, and eat 
 venison which you had killed yourself, and have servants, 
 and horses, and carriages ? " He spoke in an amused 
 voice, and smiled, not unpleasantly I thought, across at 
 Mr. Mardol. He had not long to wait for his answer. 
 
 ' " I should like a horse," I said, " very much, if I had 
 caught it myself with a lasso, and tamed it." I did not 
 speak of breaking it in, because I was not learned in the 
 terms of chivalry. 
 
 ' " But," I went on at once, " I have clothes enough, 
 and Mr. Mardol says it is wrong and cruel to be rich. 
 And I don't want to kill anything, or to eat dead animals, 
 or to drink fire-water. And," I concluded, out of breath, 
 though not so incoherently as it sounded, " if all men are 
 equal, how can a good man have servants ? " 
 
 ' To my astonishment, the stranger bent down and kissed 
 me. " You have been well taught, my boy," he cried, 
 laying his hand on my shoulder ; if you really think as you
 
 128 THE NEH ANTIGONE PARI i 
 
 say, there is small fear of your becoming a gentleman. 
 
 But let me trj you. 1 have left u carriage round the 
 
 corner ; will you come with me and live in a beautiful 
 
 e, and have all the things I told you about?" Ili^ 
 
 eyes kept looking slea<lily into mine while he spoke. Do 
 \iiii think (I am addressing the acute lawyer who cross- 
 examined me not long ago) that the prospect dazzled or 
 attracted me? Quite otherwise. Nay, I did not loathe 
 the temptation, I despised it. And I despised him. 
 Why did he come to spoil our Christmas evening? I did 
 not believe in the devil ; but, as this man sat looking into 
 my eyes and telling me of unknown riches and a glory that I 
 associated with blood-guiltiness, I felt, for the first time in 
 my life, that the evil power, whose tokens I saw everywhere 
 in misery and hunger, had drawn nigh to me. 1 would 
 have run to -Mr. Mardol and hidden myself in his arms ; 
 but the stranger held me, saying, " Why don't you answer ? 
 Will you come ? " I released myself from his grasp, and 
 sobbed out, " Let me alone, I do not want anything of 
 yours. 1 wish to be poor. I mean to be poor as long as 
 I live. He caught me round the neck and kissed me 
 once more. "Never mind," he said soothingly, "never mind. 
 Did I not warn you that it was only a trial ? It is true I came 
 in a carriage, because I am in weak health, and cannot face 
 the piercing weather on foot. And I live in a larger house 
 than Mr. Mardol quite approves. But I am not rich ; and 
 I do not want you to be rich." 
 
 ' " Then," I answered immediately, " why do you not 
 speak the truth ? It is wrong to make believe that you 
 could give me the things you said, when you hadn't them." 
 He laughed a good deal before replying. " I did not say 
 I had them, but that you might have them, my boy. 
 However, let us leave this. I am going to propose something 
 which I mean in earnest ; and I hope you will be a good 
 boy and say yes where I want you to do so ? " He raised 
 all manner of wild hopes within me. I looked at him with 
 eager eyes ; I felt the tears coming into them ; and I could 
 hardly see him for crying, as I said tremulously, " Will you 
 take me to my father and mother ?" Such were the words 
 in which my heart relieved its pent-up sorrow. At last the
 
 chap, x COMPANIONED BY DIVINER HOPES 129 
 
 promise of Christmas Day was to be fulfilled. The home 
 I longed for could not be all a dream. As though it were 
 near at hand, hidden only by a curtain that instant to be 
 drawn away, I divined its presence. Children . on every 
 side of me, though in want, though with scantiest raiment, 
 and oftentimes only sleep to still their hunger, had love to 
 keep them warm ■ while I, poor outcast, was owned by 
 none except for charity. Must not this unexpected friend, 
 if he cared for me as he said, have brought the best of 
 news ? Who was so wretched as to lack the love of kith 
 and kin, save only me? Shaken with childish sobbing, I 
 repeated, " Take me to my father and mother ! " ' 
 
 vol. 1. K
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 CHASE NOT THE RAINBOW 
 
 Again there came a pause in the writing. Thoughts and 
 emotions from the long past strove within Ivor's bosom ; 
 and, leaning his head on his hand, he sat for a while in 
 painful meditation. Then, taking up his pen, he went on 
 with the story. 
 
 ' The man seemed thunderstruck. He started violently, 
 putting his hand to his heart as if he had been shot. 
 "Your father and mother?" he repeated with surprise; 
 " no, I cannot take you to them. When or how did it 
 come into your head that you could have any father and 
 mother except these?" and he pointed to the good old 
 people who sat in anxious silence, waiting — as I have 
 thought in later years when meditating on the doings of 
 that night — to be informed of things about which they had 
 no more knowledge than I. The stranger turned to Mr. 
 Mardol with a somewhat haughty gesture. " You do not 
 instil into the boy," he said, " I am sure you do not, idle 
 fancies of this kind. Is it his way to talk of a possible 
 father and mother ? " Mr. Mardol answered calmly, " I 
 have told him that he is no child of mine, and there I have 
 left the matter. Never until this evening did I hear him 
 talk of his unknown parents." — " Right, right," said the 
 stranger ; " you rebuke me. I know well that you have 
 dealt with Ivor wisely, and have brought him up according 
 to our agreement" Then, falling to a steady perusal of 
 my tear-stained countenance, he said in firm but gentle 
 accents, " Ivor, you must put away impossible notions. To 
 vex yourself about parents whom you have lost is foolish.
 
 chap, xi CHASE NOT THE RAINBOW 131 
 
 It can bring you nothing but trouble. I am your guard- 
 ian, although you have never seen me till now ; and Mr. 
 and Mrs. Mardol, who have taken such care of you, will 
 give you a home as long as you wish to stay with them. 
 But you are called to a task, in which the ties of kindred 
 would be simply a hindrance. You know in part what I 
 mean. You have now to learn the rest. Can you attend 
 while I am talking ? " 
 
 ' For I stood absorbed in my disappointment, hearing 
 every word, yet feeling that I was thousands of miles away, 
 roaming in the pathless desert, and, with cries that tore the 
 heart, calling on my unknown, on my dead parents, to have 
 pity on me. I was alone, utterly, helplessly alone ; cut off 
 from my teacher and kind Mrs. Mardol by the sudden 
 thrusting in of this new-comer, who styled himself my 
 guardian, and who appeared in my childish eyes hard and 
 unlovable. His question ended my reverie ; he saw I was 
 attending. Then he explained, rather as to an equal than 
 a mere boy of twelve, that he wished me to interrupt my 
 apprenticeship with Mr. Mardol, and to spend three, if not 
 four, years at a public school. "Not," he continued, "at 
 Eton or Harrow; I could not enable you to enter if I 
 wished, which is not the case. But you shall go to a real 
 public school, nevertheless, where you may learn Greek and 
 Latin, and mix with English gentlemen." 
 
 ' I was again stirred to rebellion. " What have I to do 
 with gentlemen ?" I cried. " I do not want to be a gentle- 
 man, but an engraver." 
 
 '"Would you not like to learn Latin and Greek?" he 
 inquired. My answer was prompt. " Not if they will 
 make me a gentleman. Mr. Ashwell " — he was an eloquent 
 stone-mason of my acquaintance, great at lecturing and a 
 man I liked to listen to — "Mr. Ashwell says that Latin 
 and Greek train men to be slaves of the aristocracy, and to 
 believe worn-out lies. He says no sensible father would 
 let his children learn them." At which reply I saw a 
 gleam of pleasure on Mr. Mardol's wrinkled features. He 
 was of the same opinion as my stone-mason. But the 
 smile on the stranger's face was due to another feeling. I 
 could see he was a good deal surprised. "You are the
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAM i 
 
 quickest boy I have met of your age," he went on to say ; 
 •■you appear to have a genius for cat* hing up what is said 
 
 around you. So much the better. Mr. Ashwell, however, 
 IS right and wrong. The classics have be< ome tlie studies 
 of slaves, but they were written by free men. Do you 
 know nothing of Plutarch's Lives?" I had read them all, 
 in English, and I told him so. " Very well," he answered, 
 '• then you ought to understand that the classics, too, are 
 held captive by the institutions which tyrannise over man- 
 kind. Not only the nations, but their history, their past, 
 their very literature, must be set free and restored to its 
 right owners. Mr. Ashwell speaks like the unwashed 
 barbarian he probably is. We need men of a type less 
 common, who believe in the old learning as in the latest 
 science. You, Ivor, must be acquainted with both. And 
 there are reasons why you should know what the inside of 
 a public school is like. Will you go?" 
 
 ' " Might I come back afterwards to learn engraving ?" I 
 would not give up what I so intensely delighted in. He 
 assured me that such was his intention ; when I could go 
 on with my studies by myself, I should return to Mr. 
 Mardol's workroom. If I showed no aptitude for Latin 
 and Greek — but it could not be, I was too fond of modern 
 languages, as he knew, not to feel interested in the ancient, 
 which were so much nobler. The stranger talked more 
 eloquently than even Mr. Ashwell ; and my ear detected, 
 in his accent and choice of words, a refinement that in Mr. 
 Ashwell it would have been vain to seek. He must 
 belong, I fancied, to the washed and scented revolutionists, 
 the less common sort, whose ranks he invited me to join. 
 I did not feel reluctant if, in the end, I might become an 
 engraver. At my age, it is true, three or four years seemed 
 an eternity. What might not happen in them? But I 
 was told that the time would run by faster than I could 
 imagine ; that it was really almost too short ; and that I 
 should spend my holidays with Mr. and Mrs. Mardol. They 
 acquiesced in the arrangement. And, though I shed tears 
 at the thought of entering on a new world without guide or 
 companion, what could I do but consent ? The stranger 
 was affected on leaving me. He said I should see him
 
 chap, xi CHASE NOT THE RAINBOW 133 
 
 again, but not until I had spent a term at school. And so 
 the day was fixed, and he went out into the freezing weather 
 of Christmas, to his carriage, I suppose, round the corner. 
 I was glad to see him go. I spent the long hours of that 
 night in feverish dreaming. All I had heard or imagined 
 during the day came back, strangely confused, in sleep. I 
 seemed to find in the wilderness my long-lost parents ; but 
 while I clung about my mother's knees with sobbing affection, 
 or held forth my arms to clasp a father whose face I dimly 
 discerned, the vision melted, and I was standing by an 
 open tomb, wherein lay a dreadful shrouded figure. Bend- 
 ing over it, with sardonic joy in his looks, I beheld the 
 stranger, and, on beholding him, fled. Ever and anon I 
 awoke, crying bitterly, and the pillow wet with my tears. 
 The night seemed as though it would never end. Time 
 after time, with change of scene and attitude, the man that 
 called himself my guardian came before me as the murderer 
 of those I held dear. His icy breath froze the blood in 
 my veins ; I shrank at his touch, but could neither escape 
 nor resist him. His single face made my world and filled 
 me with loathing and dismay. 
 
 ' Why it should thus have affected me I cannot tell even 
 now, when I know him so well. But early impressions 
 are indelible. Mine are, at least. Mr. Felton has never 
 done me harm ; I am his debtor for much good. Never- 
 theless, to dissociate him from the visionary terror of my 
 dreams that night is impossible. I admire his daring and 
 resolution ; and there are times when I could almost love 
 him but for the resistance of something within. I shall 
 not love him now — that is certain ; the age when affection 
 can be commanded, if ever it can, is past. On my grati- 
 tude, respect, and service he may count; I can offer him 
 no more. 
 
 ' My first days at school ! ah me, how miserable they 
 were ! Mr. Felton's solicitor, who took me down from 
 London, told me I should be homesick, but I must not 
 mind, it would pass in a week or two. He little understood 
 that the worst home-sickness is that of a child who has 
 no home. If I felt lonely when Mr. and Mrs. Mardol took 
 care of me, it was a thousand times worse here. I had the
 
 134 THE NEW ANTIGONE part i 
 
 sense of a man with the tender heart of a child. My 
 wretchedness was not the simple though piercing misery 
 of a dog that has lost his master ; it was poisoned and 
 made incurable by thought I did not in anyway resemble 
 the ordinary English boy, to whom leaving his parents' 
 house is a trial for which, in the society of other boys, he 
 finds compensation. I had left the whole world in quitting 
 Mr. Mardol and his friends. I liked many things of which 
 boys are passionately fond ; but I liked, I cherished with 
 enthusiasm, others of which these had not the faintest 
 imagination. In spite of the venerable architecture, large 
 teaching staff, solemn routine, and gentlemanly surround- 
 ings that gave the school a name, I felt, when I could take 
 notice of it all, like a civilised man among barbarians. It 
 was a new world, but oh, how inferior to the old ! Let me 
 think of it again to-night ; let me recall the condemnation 
 I passed on it then, lest for the sake of a beautiful face I 
 fling myself under the dominion of it now. 
 
 ' An unreal, a fantastic world, wilder than many dreams ! 
 Here were five hundred boys, trained, as Mr. Ashwell, the 
 eloquent stone-mason, said, to be slaves of an institution and 
 to believe in worn-out lies. Not that their minds received 
 any training ; it was only their characters that were moulded 
 on a certain plan. I saw none with a love of learning ; 
 enthusiasm was not -scorned, for it did not exist within the 
 school precincts. Masters and boys were immersed in 
 routine ; and they had but one standard, of vague outline 
 but exceedingly definite in practice : they all aimed at being 
 English gentlemen. This did not keep the boys from 
 schoolboys' sins. They lied to their masters, and some- 
 times, though seldom, to one another; they were cruel, 
 selfish, and spiteful ; they believed in no religion, and they 
 had little morality. I had been educated hitherto on such 
 a different system that every day increased my astonish- 
 ment. I cannot have seen things so clearly as I do now, or 
 have been aware of my own reflections. But I did reflect 
 and did pass judgment ; a rnind quickened by early contact 
 with other minds is not slow in perceiving contrasts so great 
 as that between the people I had left and the people among 
 whom I had come. Strange as I felt to the ways of the
 
 chap, xi CHASE NOT THE RAINBOW 135 
 
 place, a solitary in the crowd of eager, thoughtless boys, I 
 observed incessantly what went on around me. 
 
 ' I could not help looking for a friend, but it was long 
 ere I found one. What point of contact was there between 
 me and all these boys ? They did not read ; they could 
 talk only of trivial subjects. They knew nothing of the great 
 causes about which men were contending. They had never 
 been thrown upon the current of life. Their very sins 
 against the moral law had less in them of the human being 
 than of the unreasoning animal which fulfils its desires and 
 has never heard of a law. Mr. Mardol spoke to me of the 
 True, the Good, the Beautiful, the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number, the essential sacredness of duty, the 
 wisdom of obeying the higher Nature which is eternal and 
 unchangeable. Do not say that I could not understand. 
 I did understand ; and the proof is that I put questions to 
 which Mr. Mardol could not always find an answer. But 
 that inability, so humbly confessed in the presence of a 
 young child, did not abate the boundless reverence with 
 which I listened. In my thoughts, he was the interpreter 
 of Nature's laws, the Orpheus by whose song my slum- 
 bering spirit was awakened. I obeyed him with utter sub- 
 mission, and the deepest feeling of my soul was reverence. 
 
 ' Here I found as little reverence as enthusiasm ; a 
 teacher that should speak of higher things than grammar 
 would have been laughed at ; nor do I remember on any 
 one countenance a look to which in my other life I had 
 been accustomed, manifesting the presence of the highest 
 aspirations. It is a look impossible to mistake. Its absence 
 made these men commonplace and the life around them 
 dreary. I could go to none of them for comfort. They 
 did not invite me to do so ; they were peremptory and 
 distant in their relations with the boys ; and I should as 
 soon have thought of opening my troubles to the stone lions 
 that ramped above the main entrance as to these frigid 
 pedants, whose souls were in the routine of their school and 
 their domestic concerns. They remained no less strange 
 to me when I had lived my four years under them than at 
 the beginning. They were not cruel, but indifferent ; not 
 unlearned, but blind to the meaning of their books because
 
 136 THE NEW ANTIGONE i'aut i 
 
 little acquainted with life; not inhuman, but quite, quite 
 ignorant of the depth and scope of the word humanity. I 
 thought them fitter to be playing cricket or rowing on the 
 
 river than to teach others how to live. Reserved though 1 
 was, the extraordinary questions I sometimes put were a 
 surprise and a puzzle to them. I was told to keep silence; 
 but never did one of them stoop to answer me seriously. 
 A leading article of their creed, I soon found, was that boys 
 have no understanding except for their games, and a few 
 clever ones for the lessons in the school-books. I learned 
 fast, and more than one master complained he did not 
 know what to do with me. Why did my guardian send me 
 to a place where my time was wasted, and I was bidden, 
 under penalties, to spend three months in learning what I 
 knew at the end of three weeks ? Of course he had his 
 motives. But I went through suffering which might have 
 been spared me. Did it require all those weary months to 
 give me the true idea of an English gentleman, or to prove 
 by experience that our inheritance from Rome and Athens 
 was shamefully misused ? The conviction was soon stamped 
 on my mind, burnt into it, rather, as with encaustic. To 
 make me more of a democrat was impossible ; the trial I 
 now went through had a different but no less enduring 
 effect — (yes, Ivor, it must and shall endure) — it was for 
 ever to hinder me from adopting the principles or habits 
 of the class to which my school-fellows belonged. The 
 wealth which they took for granted I renounced with pas- 
 sionate scorn ; the intellect they despised I came more and 
 more to believe in ; the love of mankind, which they did 
 not even know, I resolved to make the ruling principle of 
 my conduct. What they called honour I saw was partly 
 a brute instinct, partly the far-off reflection of Roman 
 patriotism and Stoic virtue, by no means equal to the 
 original. Did I see that at sixteen ? Mr. Felton, who had 
 a peculiar power of making me think, helped me to see it. 
 What can change me? 
 
 'The boys were gentlemen in the making. With much 
 that was agreeable, they had nothing that was pathetic 
 about them. I could have liked one or another, as I 
 might have been fond of a high-spirited, beautiful animal ;
 
 chap, xi CHASE NOT THE RAINBOW 137 
 
 but how different was that affection from the heart-piercing 
 pity, the unbounded tenderness, I had felt at the sight 
 of my poor little neighbours, — children of my own age 
 or younger, living on stinted fare, without amusements, 
 without green fields or flowers, shivering in the cold, and 
 trembling when the dark night came on because they had 
 only one another's company in the lonesome street, — forlorn, 
 unfriended creatures, the recollection of whom makes my 
 heart bleed even while I write, and tells me that this love- 
 trouble of mine is trifling indeed compared with the anguish 
 that nightly haunts our cities. Be still, be still, spirit of 
 compassion ! I will serve, I am serving in the army of the 
 poor. Do not blind me with tears until I have written 
 the memories that are to save me from degradation, from 
 moral ruin. 
 
 ' No, there was none to share my thoughts. I made so- 
 called friends. I was not insulted, nor was any special 
 injustice dealt out to me. I played and laughed, and was 
 on good terms with most of my companions, and learned to 
 speak as they did, lightly or unfeelingly as the occasion re- 
 quired. I never forgot that I was distinct from them in 
 origin, belief, profession, prospect, disposition, — in every- 
 thing that may make one human being unlike another. The 
 ingrained conviction that these boys were heirs of injustice 
 helped me ; so did their quiet assumption that the world 
 belonged to them ; so did the tone in which they implied 
 that to be low-born and base were the same thing ; so, above 
 all, did the frequent return to my old teacher and Mrs. 
 Mardol when the holidays came for which I yearned. 
 At the close of a dismal term I saw with fresh and ever- 
 growing delight the familiar workroom, and handled the 
 burin once more. 
 
 ' The time would not pass quickly. I counted all the 
 days and all their hours, gaining relief only from my books, 
 in which were things high and heroic, if I could have been 
 taught them by men who had felt the heroism or aspired to 
 the height. My evenings, too, when I could be alone, were 
 spent in a pleasant occupation ; for I did not lay aside my 
 pencil. But I must have broken down in health and spirits, 
 or pleaded for release from captivity, but for one thing.
 
 TBB NEW ANTIGONE PAWfl 
 
 Rupert came t<> be my friend. Rupert, not quite my own 
 . with his bright looks, ardent feelings, quick impulsive 
 
 i|able of anger 
 
 ready to I and forget, sensitive, engaging, — 
 
 what a d over my solitary life when he K rew 
 
 to be a part of it, when his sunshine brought out in the 
 
 • wintry landscape all manner of unexpected colouring, 
 
 n tints, and comfortable cheering prospects! It was 
 the love of drawing that occasioned our friendship; but 
 I should always have worshipped him, though in silence, 
 tor his nature, how different soever from mine, was essen- 
 tially that of the artist. 
 
 'Until I became the confident of his thoughts I had 
 never known what a light, ethereal creation the human 
 spirit may be. I seemed to find in him, young as he was, 
 the ideal charm which is revealed in the Greek statuary, as 
 in the noble unaffected verse which corresponds to it in the 
 ( ',reek tragedians. The friezes of the Parthenon were known 
 to me from the earliest I can remember. My master often 
 took me to see them. He taught me how to admire their 
 unparalleled perfection ; for, much as he dreaded the in- 
 fluence of the classic training, he neither ignored nor 
 misunderstood the greatness of antique art. He was a true 
 artist himself, transferring a picture with astonishing insight 
 and a< < ura< y from canvas to steel or wood The Greek 
 poets I was beginning to read of my own accord, for I 
 would not wait until these indolent guides gave the signal. 
 Thus, in a moment, spring burst upon me out of the heart 
 of winter, the world grew white with blossom, the soft rains 
 fell with music and light in them on the tender meadow 
 
 LSS — truly meadow sweet, and enamelled in pearly dews 
 to my young vision. Friendship, art, poetry, all the Graces 
 came, and with them hours of pleasant musing, of endless 
 converse, of laughter and passionate delight, and a love I 
 could in no way express, yet was ever expressing. Rupert 
 was my first, my only friend ; and how fond he was of me ! 
 We quarrelled, not often, but yet we did quarrel; for, if 
 I was patient, I could also be vexed, and he was headlong 
 and impetUOUS. How vehement were our disputes, how 
 full of anguish our estrangement, how proud we were in
 
 chap, xi CHASE NOT THE RAINBOW 139 
 
 demeanour, and how deeply pierced within ! Such quarrels 
 were like thunderstorms — violent, all-threatening. Then a 
 little word, a look, a hand stretched out, broke the spell ; 
 not a cloud but rolled away below the horizon, and all the 
 air was sweet and fresh, with the singing of nightingales in 
 every covert, and strange new flowers springing about our 
 steps. 
 
 ' Only a boy's friendship ? Ah, golden hours, full of life 
 and wonder, when, like virgin-snow, the unsullied feelings 
 took on them rosy tints, and sparkled and shone pure and 
 bright under the great sun as it rose into the heavens ! 
 
 1 1 had known what it was to pity children, — that serious, 
 thoughtful tenderness, which seems to befit old age, not 
 boyhood, — but never until now had I imagined a love sur- 
 passing pity, made up of worship and delight, of joy and 
 absolute surrender, of exquisite satisfaction and new desires. 
 I was beginning my acquaintance with the Old Testament, 
 which at Mr. Mardol's I had not thought of looking into. 
 How often I dwelt upon the one verse that, giving back this 
 fresh experience, as in a looking-glass, was to me a reflection 
 of the eternal truth ! " And it came to pass," said the story, 
 " when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that 
 the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David ; and 
 Jonathan loved him as his own soul." I would think of 
 him often as David, sometimes call him by that name. 
 For he too was ruddy and of a fair countenance. He could 
 do nothing that was not perfect; I loved the least trifle that his 
 hand had touched, finding a pleasure not only in his presence, 
 but in having near me any sign that he would come again. 
 In every friendship, says the proverb, one loves and one 
 suffers himself to be loved. In our friendship I was the 
 lover. I asked only such a return as the god makes to his 
 worshipper, something tender and protecting, and, above 
 all, leave to express my devotion. It is so long ago. Our 
 regard has in nothing diminished, but the charm of its 
 springtide could not last. It has yielded to a more ener- 
 getic feeling, which seems to me the abiding element of 
 manhood, and a constituent of all our passion when youth 
 is gone. The fresh, wet colour, innocent but warm, has 
 now a deeper tone, a more enduring consistency ; it is fixed
 
 THE NRH r GONE pabt I 
 
 and will not I sprii are not eternal, but 
 
 its life is ; and summer ami harvest <1<> but unfold it to 
 perfection. And yet, and yet, — ah, golden hours, what 
 
 1 I not give foi a single one < . t" them, that hour of re- 
 conciliation when our nightingales were singing in i 
 brai 
 
 ■ Ail too quickly now did the days fleet on, as they swept 
 down the river of time. I counted them fur the pleasure 
 they had yet in store. Rupert, like myself, was an orphan ; 
 he did not spend the holidays at home, but either in his 
 guardian's family or with friends to whom he was always 
 welcome With the courtesy of his class, he put no ques- 
 tions as to whence I came. I gave him to understand 
 that I had lost my parents ; that my name was not my 
 own ; and that I was not going to a university like most of 
 our companions, or, like himself, on the Continent to study. 
 He never said, " What, then, do you propose to do ?" But 
 he entreated me to take him for my brother in heart and soul. 
 I promised, and I have kept my promise. The strange 
 thing was that I loved him so well, and felt in such a 
 heavenly new world when he was by, that I did not 
 remember one of the controverted points on which I ought 
 to have examined him. I did not ask him to accept 
 I democracy, or vegetarianism (which latter, from necessity, 
 I had been compelled at school to surrender), or the hatred 
 
 iy-life, or the worship of Nature. He was gentle to 
 every one : he could not be hard hearted when he stooped 
 to care for me. But I thought neither of my old associates 
 nor of the questions they were agitating as I looked at his 
 dear face and walked by his side. Long after I came upon 
 the magnificent saying of Novalis, "Were there only two 
 lovers in the universe," and so on. How deep it went 
 into me ! I remembered the time when, for Rupert and 
 me, there were only two lovers — we two, in all the world, 
 and we wandere ! as in a happy dream. Life could have no 
 
 ems for us; we desired nothing save that our dream 
 might never end. D ic secret of regeneration lie there 
 
 for these half-dead institutions? Is love the last word in 
 the development of the race, as it surely is in that of the 
 individual? But men do not understand. They have so
 
 chap, xi CHASE NOT THE RAINBOW 141 
 
 little inspiration, so universal a sense of distrust. They 
 are cautious, and therefore cold. They pretend to be 
 guided by justice, by an abstract formal balancing of mine 
 and thine, which speedily becomes injustice when the 
 stronger holds the scales. The universal makeweight, I 
 perceive, is the sword of Brennus. 
 
 ' I went home, but thought day and night of my friend. 
 I worked easily and spoke with less shyness than before ; 
 and my secret thoughts were altered. The longing for 
 father and mother, though unappeased, was dormant. I 
 knew it might stir when my last term had ended and I 
 had bidden Rupert farewell. Neither would I mind the 
 great problems in which I had taken such interest. Time 
 enough, I said, when Rupert is away. Mr. Felton observed 
 the change, questioned me, looked over a letter of my 
 friend's which he asked me to show him, and with a grave 
 smile asked me what I knew of the boy's position. I knew 
 very little, except that he was of good birth, that his parents 
 were dead, and that he meant to be a painter. All this I 
 repeated ; but, in my own mind, Rupert was the being I 
 loved, who had no antecedents and no place in this lower 
 realm ; he came to me out of heaven. What else he might 
 be I neither knew nor cared. Mr. Felton let me alone. 
 He saw how it was, and would not come between me and 
 my first friendship. 
 
 ' I can see now that the experiment of school had its 
 dangers. However, it succeeded. Much as I loved Rupert, 
 I was not tempted to prefer the English gentleman's view 
 of things either to Plutarch or to Plato. These boys were 
 Macedonians, not Greeks. It might have been difficult to 
 climb from their level to the higher doctrines ; but the 
 only change for me would have been a descent, and that 
 in the region of the intellect I hold to be impossible. I 
 am yet convinced that English life is founded on chimseras. 
 Its rank, respectability, wealth, and religion are phantoms, 
 not realities. Mr. Mardol, who had none of these, was 
 superior beyond comparison to the teachers at whose feet 
 I was sitting. For I was astonished, and have since been 
 amused, on finding that Mr. Mardol applied a religious 
 standard, and made me do so too, where these nominal
 
 TB V ANTIGONE tart i 
 
 christians dreamt only of their conventions. At school 
 1 kept my feelings on this and the like matters to myself; 
 even Rupert did not know them. The conformity expected 
 of me was by no means troublesome. Nobody asked 
 whether I thought of eternal realities, or believed in them. 
 1 went to chapel like the rest; unlike the rest, I listened 
 to sermons which, in their complacent dulness had a 
 harm for one to whom the manliest popular 
 speaking in London was accessible and long had been so. 
 I was much too young to analyse, but perfectly capable 
 of feeling the difference. I heard the preacher in the 
 pulpit tamely rehearse, for the hundredth time, a gospel 
 which was not so real to him as to me were the figures of 
 the heathen mythology in his everyday lessons. I knew 
 the poetical worth and grandeur of Apollo ; he did not 
 know the historical worth or grandeur of his Christ. There- 
 fore, he droned out a burden of so-called saving articles 
 and went his way, satisfied to have spoken what he had 
 spoken before, any time these twenty years. Of religion 
 he knew nothing. On the other hand, my friend Mr. 
 Ashwell, the eloquent stone-mason, rugged as he was in 
 speech and bearing, insisted on a creed for which he would 
 have laid down his life, or taken that of any preacher — 
 a creed which absorbed his being and filled his daily 
 thoughts, shining out to him as the certain salvation of 
 mankind. Now, Mr. Ashwell did not stand alone. I 
 knew a multitude of others, equally convinced and eager to 
 spread their teaching, though not so eloquent. The old 
 religion, as seen at school, seemed to me an effete babbler 
 on Sundays, and no better than a forgotten corpse the rest 
 of the week.' 
 
 1 But, Ivor, you reason more than enough. Go on with 
 your story. You left school as you came, a revolutionist ; 
 you corresponded with Rupert ; you saw Mr. Felton once 
 in a way and satisfied him that you were striving to unite 
 the noble past of mankind with as noble a future ; you 
 earned your bread honestly, and repaid Mr. and Mrs. 
 Mardol's affection by tending them in their old days and 
 closing their eyes when the hour struck. You laboured in 
 the cause, and did not abandon it in the pursuit of worldly
 
 chap, xi CHASE NOT THE RAINBOW 143 
 
 phantoms; you fell in love neither with rank, nor with 
 riches, nor with respectability. You were loyal and true 
 until a certain morning, when, as you gazed foolishly into 
 a beautiful face, your beliefs and principles melted like 
 frostwork in the sun ; and you fell in love with Lady May 
 Davenant.' 
 
 ' Ah, spare me, stern monitor ! I will confess and have 
 done with it. Yes, it is too true. Convinced that I had 
 nothing to fear from love, that Rupert's friendship left no 
 room for it, I came into the neighbourhood of fire and was 
 scorched before I knew. Pity and pardon my inexperience. 
 How could I anticipate that feelings which had never shown 
 a sign of existence would leap out of the soil, full-armed 
 and mature, at the glance of a woman which meant nothing 
 for me and yet was infinitely captivating ? But is it not 
 shameful that I waited to catch the plague until I had left 
 my work-a-day world and was admitted within this high- 
 born circle ? Could I never, then, have fallen in love with 
 a mechanic's daughter ? I never did, nor thought of such 
 a thing. It is only, I suppose, King Cophetua that weds 
 the beggar maid, not a man whose rank is about equal to 
 her father's. I have seen beautiful, though ragged, damsels 
 in the haunts of the poor ; could I have asked one of them 
 to share my affection ? Not I. Cophetua had a greater 
 mind than the engraver's apprentice. Or was it that I 
 sought a companion who would understand me and be 
 my radiant polar star in what I dreamt of achieving ? That 
 may be the explanation. May Davenant has, I think, the 
 heart of a woman and the mind of a man. I like her 
 resolute bearing, the proud carriage of her body and 
 straightforward look, the cordial grasp of her hand. Then 
 how abashed she can suddenly seem, eyes cast down and 
 the colour mounting, as if in the midst of her imperious 
 strength she remembered that she was a maiden and there- 
 fore needed a stronger arm. I beheld in her a highly-culti- 
 vated yet unspoilt nature, the finest breeding combined with 
 as fine a play of impulse and passion, — no wonder I began to 
 think there might be happiness in love. Let it serve for my 
 exculpation. No, she would not dream of marrying beneath 
 her, as the world calls it. For me she cares not at all.
 
 II 
 
 THE NEW AN'JJ n 
 
 When I talk she looks at me with undaunted it is 
 
 only while she is talking herself] or Lord Trelinghara inter- 
 
 r Rupert throws in a hasty word, that the fit of 
 
 blushing conies upon her. To indulge an affection like 
 
 this would be chasing the rainbow. It may he difficult to 
 mre: but, Ivor, confess that it is impossible to attain. 
 Some other man will appear to make her happy, if he has 
 not come already. Her -latitude for the restoration of the 
 canvas may give you a place in her memory among car- 
 penters and drawing-masters. You will bid the Hermitage 
 farewell, go hack to the mighty prison of London, live 
 where no great lady comes or would venture her dainty 
 footstep, and find in Rupert all the joy that affection is to 
 bestow on you. Good-bye, Lady May; the rainbow has 
 melted into mist' 
 
 He flung down his pen, and once more, walking to the 
 window, drew the curtains. As he did so a flood of light 
 came into the room. He had been writing many hours; he 
 was cold and stiff; and the morning, with its steely clear- 
 ness wherein there seemed neither the warmth of sunshine 
 nor the solemn brilliancy of the stars, chilled him yet more. 
 He turned to the hearth where, when he began to write, the 
 fire was blazing. A heap of white ashes lay in the fender, 
 and not a spark glowed among them. 'The fire is out,' he 
 said to himself with a mocking smile, ' and so is my love 
 for May Davenant Each has done its work. What more 
 do I want ? ' And his thoughts went back to the solemn 
 words whispered as he stood face to face with the stars at 
 midnight. ' What is love but a handful of dry heather, 
 set on fire and cast into the waters of death.' He would 
 not live for it ; he must aim at the larger good of immor- 
 tality which, transcending passion, in some unknown way 
 realises perfection.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SPECIOSA MIRACULA 
 
 Ivor Mardol has made such frank confession in the fore- 
 going pages that I need not recount the history of those 
 bewitching days when he proved himself less a contempla- 
 tive than a common mortal. He had dreamt dreams and 
 suffered moments of misery. Sometimes he had lingered 
 an hour after breakfast about Rupert's easel and unwittingly 
 performed the office of duenna, which the Countess had 
 openly renounced, saying she was tired of sitting so long at 
 the same window. Nor had he spent as many hours as 
 were anticipated in his island-dwelling. There, as he bent 
 over the canvas, he had been glad and sorry that it did not 
 vex him with a lovely face ; so distracted he could never 
 have made it whole. But he had envied Rupert. And 
 now ? His eyes were purged of glamour, he saw that Lady 
 May's indifference to him had been complete all along. 
 She, a heroine of the old order, could not recognise a hero 
 in this saint of the new. On hearing Glanville's description 
 she had called Ivor romantic. She hardly thought him so 
 after a month's acquaintance. His clear intellect, astound- 
 ing erudition, frankness, and simplicity, made him as in- 
 teresting as he was amiable. But to her the finest thing 
 about him was his worship of Rupert. For she had not 
 come to the stage of burning jealousy where even the 
 friendship of a third person is resented. But things were 
 going fast that way. The passion that consumed her was 
 growing to a deadly white flame ; and all beings, save her- 
 self and the artist, were becoming shadows and nonentities 
 to her. How could she bestow a thought on Ivor ? 
 
 VOL. I. l
 
 , 4 6 TB 'GONE i'aiit i 
 
 II, '. • .. it now, and was resigned His countenance 
 <lid not betray him ; and his Diary was a good, it" a stern, 
 friend in those long hours at the Hermitage. He found 
 that he must not quit Trelingham. 'I he Earl bi gged him 
 iv, and Rupert insisted. To their entreaties 'Join 
 Davenant joined his own. I or, as if to demonstrate that 
 not love but friendship must form his happiness, Ivor and 
 .; heir of Trelingham had become the closest of 
 mpanions. n, who was now himself again, had 
 
 intended to return to Foxholme, but the Earl would not 
 let him go. He persuaded him, in fact, to make the Court 
 his home during the autumn and winter. There were deeds 
 to be examined, accounts rendered, and other legal business 
 transacted before his coming of age ; and it would be 
 -ant to do these things at Trelingham rather than in 
 London, which was a place Tom abhorred. He could 
 never stay there above three days without losing his spirits ; 
 being most unlike his fashionable mother, who declared life 
 in the country impossible. So the young man remained, 
 and gave his time first to fishing and by and by to hunting, 
 for he was fond of both. This, I fancy, is rare in the 
 civilised sportsman ; and, indeed, as they are habits derived 
 from quite distinct sets of savage ancestors, they are not 
 likely to be united in the same individual. 
 
 Now, Ivor was a follower of Isaac Walton's, and Tom 
 Davenant, rowing one afternoon in August to the Her- 
 mitage for some fishing tackle he had left there, had 
 found the philosopher equipped as for an expedition, and 
 delightedly offered to show him the resources of the Yale. 
 [vor was already acquainted with them, but he submitted to 
 be led up stream and down, while his guide pointed out the 
 deep pools and shady nooks under sun-baked stones where 
 the trout were lurking. They spent a delicious afternoon. 
 The stream was whipped, the basket filled, and Ivor's know- 
 of the ways of that pretty river excited Tom's highest 
 admiration. Thus did the wild huntsman and the London 
 
 raver make friends. They did not say much about 
 
 their feelings. But when Ivor was not in the house, Torn 
 
 pretty sure to be away: and many an hour they passed 
 
 by lakelet and stream, during which their conversation
 
 chap, xii SPEC/OS A MIRACULA 147 
 
 ranged wider than might have been fancied. Ivor had not 
 begun as a fisherman, he told Tom, but as an explorer. 
 The sight of running water fascinated him, and he had spent 
 his holidays in following the course of our English streams, 
 going down with them through the varying landscape till 
 they were lost in the sea. It was from lingering on the 
 banks in all sorts of weather and studying the river life 
 that he had come to understand the pleasure there was in 
 angling. ' Cast a line into the waters,' he said, — and Tom 
 listened as to inarticulate music, — ' transform yourself for 
 the while into pike or salmon, and forget your too busy 
 reasoning, you will find after a few hours that all manner 
 of dim faculties within are bestirring themselves, unsus- 
 pected kinships with the lower creation coming to light; 
 you dream, and the spirit of the place floats silently near; 
 it speaks in the only language that can be uttered in 
 these depths, vague, elemental, soothing, and you recover 
 a little of the freshness that made childhood a wonder 
 and a romance.' Thus Ivor explained the final cause 
 of fly-fishing; not to catch trout for supper, but to 
 get back the lost sense of Paradise and be one again 
 with the spirit of the watery realms from which, some for- 
 gotten morning millions of years ago, the first amphibian 
 crept daringly on land. He said, now and then, to his 
 scientific friends that while he agreed with them in going 
 forward, he thought it would be fatal to man's happi- 
 ness if he did not go backward too. In his metaphorical 
 way he added, ' Though harvest means the golden grain 
 which is waving in the sun, you will not get a second 
 unless you bury the seed in the earth out of which it 
 sprang. Go back to the amphibian if you would go on 
 to the angel.' His friends looked gravely at him and did 
 not smile. They thought it more respectable to say as 
 little as might be of the amphibian now he had become 
 such a distant relative. But these were chamber-philo- 
 sophers, not students in the open air. They little under- 
 stood what a revolution is preparing for their science, as 
 well as for the political systems against which they are con- 
 tending. ' Man will rule over Nature,' said Ivor, ' only when 
 he is at home in every part of it and knows it from within.'
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE pakt i 
 
 Th I ned a second friend, to whom, after Rupert, 
 
 leaved with his whole heart They had in common .1 
 deep njoyment and freedom in the open air, and 
 
 the unconscious poetry that lingers about the sedges by 
 
 the river. Perhaps there was something else that bound 
 them — an innocent mind, a pure ami simple heart; for they 
 both unworldly. Tom could understand where he- 
 could not speak, and he grew greatly attached to the 
 stranger, I [e consulted him on other things besides fishing: 
 what he ought to do at Foxholme, whether he could look 
 after his tenants without doing more harm than good, and 
 kindred subjects on which he would never have spoken to 
 Lord Trelingham. Would Jvor come and stay with him 
 after he was twenty-one? Ivor smiled, but made no pro- 
 mises. He was not his own master, he said. 
 
 Their intimacy delighted Glanville, surprised but did 
 not displease the Earl, and slightly amused Lady May. 
 In the bosom of the Countess it excited some innocent 
 wonder. She neither liked nor disliked Mr. Mardol ; to 
 her he was a species of inferior artist, who came about the 
 place as other men did to put up stained -glass or aesthetic 
 woodwork. She wished he would not persuade Tom to go 
 fishing so often, or spend the time after dinner out of doors. 
 It was stupid when Tom came in merely to dine, and to 
 stroll about afterwards with a male companion instead of 
 staving to be worshipped in the drawing-room. For her- 
 self, she had made several flying visits to town, and meant, 
 after Tom's birthday, to spend a season in Paris. But she 
 could not forego the opportunities of seeing him which 
 Trelingham afforded. It was her second home, and she 
 would stay until the young man went. Thus eagles, wrens, 
 and turtle-doves reason, after their kind. 
 
 Glanville, meanwhile, was falling into a mesmeric sleep. 
 He had no defence against the sorceries of Lady May, 
 no other love to resist an ardent nature bent on making 
 him its own. He felt the pressure of an invisible hand, 
 silently but surely compelling him to his knees. He 
 could not pretend indifference to Lady May. The strange 
 fierce beauty of her chain ter e» ited him. Her con- 
 ■ tion was singularly animated; her voice had charmed
 
 ohap. xii SPECIOSA M1RACULA 149 
 
 him from the first ; and the loneliness of her position 
 appeared to him deserving of the sincerest pity. She 
 spoke of the great relatives with whom she had passed 
 her time during her mother's frequent illnesses. Among 
 them all she had not one friend. Little by little she told 
 Rupert all she dared. He saw more clearly than she 
 did the peril of these confidential dialogues. But it was 
 hard not to return her confidence and treat her as an 
 intimate friend who would be delighted to know all about 
 him. When the conversation was over he regretted that 
 it had begun ; he accused himself of sentimentality, of 
 being led away by his feelings, and indulging in what 
 the French call effusion. Nevertheless, a morning seldom 
 ended before Lady May had taken up the thread of 
 sentiment again, while appearing to be merely absorbed 
 or unhappy, and Glanville had suffered another of the 
 silken meshes to be woven about him. Now he was 
 under the enchanter's spell ; he fancied he could move 
 when he desired, that he had only to will ; and he was 
 forgetting that to will under certain circumstances is the 
 whole, but an insuperable, difficulty. A single word would 
 break the spell ; but how was he to utter it ? On the con- 
 trary, he began whispering to himself that such confidences 
 were very pleasant ; that he knew where to stop; that there 
 was no reason why he should not be Lady May's best 
 friend ; that he had not thought she could be so fascinating ; 
 that if he did care a great deal for her it would do no 
 
 harm ; that he woke up one morning with something 
 
 like a guilty conscience and began to deliberate whether 
 he could stay at the Court and not ask Lord Trelingham 
 to consent to their marriage. Was he so sure, then, of the 
 lady's consent ? He was no coxcomb ; and yet he was 
 sure. By a thousand tokens May Davenant had con- 
 vinced him that he was the most interesting man she had 
 met. To confess it in direct terms was neither possible, 
 nor becoming, nor necessary. He knew it. Even now he 
 did not say to himself that she was in love with him ; but 
 he felt no anxiety. The question he had asked in his own 
 mind, as he walked up and down the front terrace on a 
 certain afternoon, seemed now to have an answer. Could
 
 t 5 o I III-. NEH ANTIGONE PAW i 
 
 he live without one who captivated his feelings, who would 
 
 be happy to share his life, who was capable of splendid 
 
 a ? Her position might demand an alliance with 
 
 ik ; but her extraordinary gifts made her worthy to be 
 the helpm nius. 
 
 inville did not speak much that morning; hut he 
 ten at Lady May, and the glance of suit inquiring 
 meditation, which had never heforc lighted on her, Stirred 
 her heart with an expectant thrill. She could not meet his 
 eyes, but a gentle blush, a sense of overwhelming diffidence, 
 which gave to her motions a distracted and yet not un- 
 
 ceful hesitation, betokened that love, waiting so long fora 
 respon :iow certain that it would not he withheld. The 
 
 morning was still and autumnal ; but in Lady May's heart 
 rose the delicious feeling of spring. She was no longer 
 miserable ; the clouds were dispersing, and the sun was 
 coming out. She felt that love was answering love ; and 
 while her own was intensified, it was humbled too. Had 
 she done that which was unmaidenly ? had there been a 
 lack of reticence, a boldness in speaking of what she had 
 thought and suffered? She hoped not; she trusted not. 
 but all would be well now. These first green buds were 
 like the promise of a glorious summer ; they gave her in- 
 expressible delight. Nor was Glanville quite destitute of 
 similar feelings. He knew that she was pleased and happy ; 
 confidence between them seemed natural enough now, 
 and he was sure it would last. He did not think Lord 
 Trelingham could resist an only daughter's wishes. His 
 own success had been too brilliant and unmistakable to 
 allow of the difficulties being raised which are commonly 
 brought forward in such cases. He would finish the 
 Madonna of the Seraphim before taking any step. There 
 must be no chance of an abrupt termination to the task 
 he had begun. But, on the day after he had restored 
 the picture, he would demand the hand of Lady May. 
 That, and that alone, should be his recompense. Nor 
 
 lid he give occasion to malice by attempting to gain 
 the lady's consent before her father's. It should not be 
 said of him that he had taken the Earl at a disadvantage. 
 
 i his affection been as strong as he imagined perhaps
 
 chap, xii SPECIOSA At MACULA 151 
 
 he had not behaved so punctiliously ; he might have found 
 himself saying more than he intended, and betraying a 
 secret that lovers cannot easily keep. Anyhow, he resolved 
 to wait. 
 
 The last sitting was over. Glanville, thinking himself 
 much enamoured of the lady, paid her no compliments ; 
 but, with the delicate flattery of the artist, spoke of the 
 expression, temper, and make of soul which went with this 
 or that detail in the copy he was taking from nature. He 
 felt satisfied that the task was done, and, as he thought, 
 not unworthily. There remained the more difficult enter- 
 prise, to transfer the features of Lady May to the original 
 canvas, now set up at the end of the gallery and waiting 
 the master's touch. Curtains drawn round it concealed 
 from profane eyes the havoc that remained, though Ivor 
 had smoothed away crease and hollow, making, by the 
 aid of some secret in alchemy, a restoration so perfect 
 that the Earl wondered and Glanville was astounded. 
 The engraver would not allow any one else to view his 
 triumph. He insisted, mildly, but with the authority of a 
 benefactor, on hiding the Madonna of the Seraphim in 
 a kind of artist's sanctuary until it shone out in splendour 
 as before the morning it was ruined. Glanville agreed, 
 and, as he could not execute what amounted to a tour 
 de force in the light-handed way he had taken with Lady 
 May's portrait, it was resolved that the gallery should re- 
 main open, but the farther end be cut off and fitted up 
 as a studio, where Rupert, assisted by his friend, might 
 work unhindered. 
 
 With a mixture of pain and expectation, Lady May rose 
 for the last time from the chair in which she had sat and 
 dreamt over her life during all those mornings. She put away 
 the heavy crimson dress, sighing as she did so, and wonder- 
 ing whether the Madonna of the Seraphim would become 
 to her an intolerable memory or, as Dante sings, ' the be- 
 ginning and the cause of all joy.' The tremendous inward 
 conflict, the intense longing and ardour of resolution had 
 left her exhausted, like a medium who has with difficulty 
 succeeded in mesmerising a reluctant will. And was she 
 successful ? She did not know. Rupert's countenance
 
 THE NEW A A *abi I 
 
 told her so little. She saw him vanish with her portrait 
 behind the voluminous curtains of his improvised studio; 
 and she walked slowlj away, feeling like one that has wit- 
 nessed the fourth act of a tragedy and is uncertain how the 
 
 fifth will turn out Alas that the tragedy was her own! 
 
 Sh( ■ tant, iv. t sanguine. It was part of 'love's 
 
 fine wit,' that she anticipated on the day when the picture 
 
 restored the dinouement of these most wretched tin- 
 
 rtainties. She must live through the interval as she 
 
 could. It was not easy. Passion is one of the sleepless 
 
 . ; it watched by her day and night, banished repose 
 
 m her pill w, took the colour from her cheek, steeped 
 
 her very music in bitterness, languor, and excitement, in 
 
 delirious joy and quickly succeeding pain. She had been, 
 
 in earlier times, a bold horsewoman, somewhat to the scandal 
 
 of Lord Trelingham's acquaintance, but it was an exercise 
 
 she had foresworn and she would not return to it. Had 
 
 the chalet been untenanted she might have spent her 
 
 worst hours there, unobserved by the guests who were 
 
 constantly coming and going at the Court. But now she 
 
 felt like a wounded animal that has no place to creep into. 
 
 She knew not what to anticipate nor how she should act. 
 
 There was, in the whole world, no single creature with 
 
 whom she could take counsel; and the gnawing pain at 
 
 her heart grew, until she feared in a sudden frenzy of the 
 
 nerves to betray her secret and be disgraced for ever. 
 
 I )ay after day she wandered about the beach, choosing the 
 
 most lonely situations and walking on and on wherever the 
 
 strip of sand was wide enough to leave a passage at the foot 
 
 of the cliffs. She was not much the better for it all ; her 
 
 sleep after such prolonged exertion was broken and feverish. 
 
 She seemed to be living on wild hopes which would not 
 
 bear examination. Now and then a passing look, a word 
 
 from Glanville revived her. But that was little enough, 
 
 and there was nothing else. 
 
 At length the decisive morning came, towards the end 
 of October, when the still air seems tranquil, not melan- 
 choly, and there are frequent gleams of sunshine. Glan- 
 ville n absorbed in his work, not allowing him- 
 
 self a moment's leisure while daylight lasted. He could
 
 chap, xii SPECIOSA MIRACULA 153 
 
 think of nothing else. All the airy shapes that filled his 
 imagination had taken wings; he forgot even the motive 
 with which an artist is commonly credited — the love of 
 fame. One purpose took possession of him — to make this 
 picture as perfect as he might; to enter into the heart of that 
 dead Friar who had painted it and wrest from him the secret 
 of its loveliness. He felt that to restore was, in this in- 
 stance, to create anew. Rupert had learnt when he was 
 very young, what many artists have not discovered when 
 they lay down their pencil, — at twenty he said to himself 
 that the painter who has not lived in his picture will never 
 make it live to others ; that drawing and colouring are the 
 hands, but imagination is the eye and the soul. In de- 
 lineating the countenance of May Davenant he had seen 
 only the lady before him ; in reproducing it he forgot her, 
 and in spirit went back to the world of religious types and 
 ecstatic imaginations wherein Fray Raimondo had beheld 
 the Virgin of the Seraphim ere he depicted her to others. 
 The enthusiasm which dominated Glanville was not love ; 
 it was antagonistic to love ; but he might have made to 
 Lady May the excuse which Andrea del Sarto offered to his 
 angry wife — that he forgot her for herself. There was no 
 room then for a double worship ; he was living, contem- 
 plating, loving with Fray Raimondo, two centuries ago, in 
 a southern land and among a medieval populace. 
 
 There are dramatic painters no less than dramatic poets, 
 men who throw themselves into a mood, a character, a 
 whole epoch, with such intense realisation that the feelings 
 spring up in them which correspond with the scene they 
 are describing, and out of that vivid illusion they extract 
 truth and summon the past from its grave. When the 
 short afternoon compelled him regretfully to put down his 
 brushes, he still went on dreaming of San Lucar and the 
 monk in his cell, with the golden vision steadfast above 
 him. This man of the world became a child, a morti- 
 fied recluse, a seer at the gate of heaven ; for the time 
 being he was neither sarcastic nor melancholy. He would 
 not have chosen the subject ; he painted no Madon- 
 nas of his own accord ; but since it was given to him, 
 the instinct which made him an artist impelled him to
 
 154 THE NEW ANTIGONE part i 
 
 v the law of inspiration whereby he had succeeded 
 hithi 
 
 None but [vor Mardol saw the work advance. The 
 friends were much together and communicative as usual on 
 
 the points raised in its execution, But on other tilings 
 they were silent. Bach had a secret of his own which 
 concerned I May, and neither could utter it. (llan- 
 
 ville, indeed, looked forward to the marriage on which he 
 had, I will not say set his hopes, but made up his mind. 
 Yet he was no more excited when he thought of it than 
 if some one had told him that there would be rain in the 
 evening. Had he eared half as much as the lady who was 
 Waiting breathlessly for the fifth act to commence, he would 
 have found his tongue, and surprised Ivor with his elo- 
 quence. Then, too, he might have seen into the bosom 
 of his friend, whose thwarted affection, purifying itself like 
 an ascending flame, was not to be quenched, but trans- 
 formed into the rarest sentiment of chivalry. Ivor was 
 more tender than passionate ; the pity which was almost 
 born with him coloured his every feeling, even that friend- 
 ship for Rupert, wherein pity might have seemed to find no 
 place. Much more did it warm and melt his being when 
 the haggard looks of Lady May told him, the most obser- 
 vant and most unobtrusive of spectators, that she was suffer- 
 ing. It was a feeling which softened his disappointment 
 and took away the eagerness that, under other circum- 
 stances, would have prompted him to pour his confidences 
 into the ear of Rupert. A necessary reserve grew up be- 
 tween them, not weakening their affection, but marking 
 another stage in the friendship which had united them. 
 It was destined to exert a momentous influence on their 
 lives when the threads had grown more entangled. 
 
 So the morning arrived, bright and clear, on which 
 Glanville proposed to unveil the Madonna of the Sera- 
 phim. There were no strangers in the house except him- 
 self and Ivor, both of whom had by this time a false air, 
 as the French say, of belonging to the domain. Even Mr. 
 Truscombe had not been invited. Lord Trelingham, in 
 his rare visits to the gallery, chiefly during the earlier 
 sittings, had made various suggestions with regard to the
 
 ohap. xu SPECIOSA MIRACULA 155 
 
 tone and expression of the vanished countenance. His 
 memory for technical details and accessories was excellent, 
 and, thanks to it, Glanville had reproduced the style, if not 
 the actual peculiarities, of ornament and setting. The Earl 
 would not interrupt him while engaged on the picture 
 itself; but he came when Glanville was not working, 
 marked the changes that he judged indispensable, and 
 offered his advice with the respect due to a great artist. 
 It was generally to the purpose ; nor did Rupert pique 
 himself on knowing the original better than those who had 
 seen it. When the last colour was laid on, Lord Trelingham 
 took what he called a private view and came away delighted. 
 The painting was hung in its former place, the purple veil, 
 which still had Lady Elizabeth's name upon it, was drawn in 
 front ; and on the pleasant forenoon of the day appointed 
 the little family group stood before it in expectation. 
 
 Rupert was still in the enthusiastic mood of Fray Rai- 
 mondo ; only by an effort could he remember that he had 
 promised himself a reward which to-morrow he must 
 demand or renounce for ever. Lady May superstitiously 
 expected to read her fate in the unveiled picture ; and Tom 
 and the Countess, who were standing side by side, the least 
 concerned of all, felt vaguely that an atmosphere of unrest 
 surrounded them. Karina had not discovered Lady May's 
 secret ; she fancied more than she knew ; while of Glan- 
 ville she could make nothing whatever. His mind was a 
 sealed volume which required a mightier spell than hers 
 to unlock it. She whispered to her cousin that there 
 ought to be an overture before the curtain drew up ; but 
 Lady May did not answer. The Earl looked graver than 
 usual, for he was thinking of that other morning, when the 
 young Alice and Edgar Valence exchanged, in the presence 
 of this same Madonna, the pledges that had bereft him of 
 a friend and a sister. His eyes turned more than once 
 towards Lady May, inquiringly, anxiously, as if he were 
 struck with her resemblance to her unhappy aunt. 
 
 There was no overture, nor was any needed. When 
 Ivor drew aside the veil a sight as beautiful as ever graced 
 the eyes of mortals broke upon them. The picture, as they 
 remembered it after the storm, was blurred in a hundred
 
 l5 f-, Till- NEW .1X1 Id' i'aut i 
 
 .mil the countenance of the Virgin had disappeared 
 under dust and defilement I now! It was a new 
 
 creation The seal of age could not remain intact j 
 fresh colours, though exquisitely blent with the old, took 
 something Of its two centuries from the painting. But 
 there was no crudeness, no offensive novelty ; a light and 
 delicate touch had given radiance to what was dim and 
 effect to what was faded. The splendour of the vision 
 came back, the heavenly dyes of angelic raiment, the 
 brightness of the martyrs' crimson, the golden emerald 
 of the far-off gleaming gates. Most wonderful of all, the 
 countenance that had been lost was visible once more, 
 drawing all eyes to it, in calm unconscious beauty, not 
 looking down towards earth, but already enlightened, as 
 it should seem, with the glory that falls from the Great 
 White Throne. It was not a likeness of any human face ; 
 if it resembled Lady May, the expression transcended all 
 that had ever shone upon her features. Instead of the 
 proud, self-centred look, there was unspeakable innocence, 
 humility, gladness, a pure light on the brow, a tenderness 
 in the gentle eyes, a majesty blent with meekness in the 
 pose of the head, which bore its diadem of glittering stones 
 as if they had been flowers. The sense of eternal triumph 
 might be discerned in the movement of that glorious pro- 
 cession, as it swept through the air and mounted towards 
 the stars of God. Quitting the world of clouds it had 
 attained the region of transparent light ; nor was there a 
 reminiscence of pain or grief on any countenance. The 
 martyrs seemed springing to a new and divine life out of 
 the wine-dark tide into which they had been plunged ; the 
 cherubim, with the rose of everlasting youth upon their 
 wings, soared upward like lambent fire. 
 
 Not a word was spoken for some minutes. In the 
 highest human achievement there is ever something which 
 appears to be more than human, and before which praise 
 and criticism are alike trivial. What struck Lady May 
 with astonishment was that she could not recognise herself. 
 That serene countenance was not her own. She had never 
 
 erished the meek thoughts that looked out of those eyes, 
 nor loved humility and patience, nor resigned herself to
 
 OHAP. xii SPEC/OS A MIRACULA 157 
 
 sorrow, like that maiden who was ascending into a realm 
 of peace she should never know. Whence had come the 
 artist's inspiration ? If her dissatisfied spirit had passed 
 into him, if the influence she strove to exert had made a 
 conquest of his being, he might have painted as splendid 
 a Madonna, but it would not have been such as this. 
 ' No,' she said, ' he could have painted no Madonna. I 
 am only fit to be the type of a different woman — a sinful, 
 ambitious, despairing creature, for whom heaven and its 
 glory are a legend.' She read in the beautiful painting 
 a condemnation of her hopes. If Glanville's imagining 
 was of this lofty kind, he would never stoop to her. Was 
 he, then, a religious fanatic, or where had he seen the 
 innocent loveliness here depicted so truthfully ? Morning 
 after morning he had fixed his eyes on her, as she sat 
 before him, only at last to create a vision in which she 
 could claim no part. Rupert's genius was her rival ; he 
 could always evoke phantoms whose surpassing beauty 
 would make her's seem poor and common. It was a bitter 
 disappointment. She could not speak ; her very heart grew 
 chill and heavy, and her lips turned pale. 
 
 Lord Trelingham came to her relief. He enlarged on 
 the likeness and unlikeness between old and new ; what 
 had been of necessity put in, what, on the other hand, it 
 was impossible to restore. He praised Glanville for having 
 produced exactly the effect which must have been intended 
 by Fray Raimondo. Neither did he forget Ivor's share in the 
 restoration. He turned the picture this way and that to show 
 how smooth was the surface ; he made the Countess view 
 through a glass the extraordinary way in which the colours 
 stood out from it and were at once solid and transparent. 
 The delicately-painted foreground, the middle distance, the 
 perspective, were all discriminated and discussed ; while 
 Lady May endeavoured to recover her voice, and Tom 
 Davenant listened respectfully without comprehending half 
 a sentence. Karina knew more of painting than might 
 have been expected ; she had travelled along the famous 
 picture-galleries, and had painted a little herself. She, there- 
 fore, kept Lady May in countenance, and atoned for her 
 shortcomings as duenna by saying now all that was required
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE paut i 
 
 in commendation of Glanville, and encouraging lord i 
 ingham t<> i his discourse. Rupert was not a man 
 
 ipe alter Battery. He knew that the Earl's praise was 
 
 sincere ; the Countess did not talk nonsense, though her 
 
 remarks were acute rather than profound ; and Lady 
 
 intinued silence gave token that she was too much 
 
 ted by his triumph to speak. When at last she mur- 
 mured a word or two, though lie could not catch what she 
 said, he answered smilingly. His own enthusiasm was not 
 yet exhausted. He left them commenting on the picture, 
 and went out for a solitary walk in the Chase. 
 
 He did not return to luncheon. The dinner-hour came 
 and he was still absent. What could have detained him? 
 Ten o'clock struck, and eleven; it was close upon mid- 
 night and he had not come. Lady May, restless and 
 impatient, asked herself whether the suspense would never 
 end, the denouement never arrive. What was Rupert doing ? 
 or had anything befallen him ?
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SWEETEST EYES WERE EVER SEEN 
 
 When Rupert left the picture-gallery he descended behind 
 Trelingham Court into the Park, and, after walking some 
 distance, struck into a little-frequented pathway, bordered 
 with evergreens, which led in the opposite direction to the 
 moor and came down finally to the river Yale. Sunshine, 
 still lingering about and penetrating through the branches, 
 made a chequered pattern before him as he walked ; the 
 foliage stirred under a light inconstant breeze, the sound of 
 the sea broke upon his ear when he paused ; and he felt 
 that he might now, without offending conscience, take a 
 holiday. He had been working hard with brain and pencil 
 for several weeks. He had thought and dreamt of nothing 
 but the picture. It was at length finished. He could 
 stretch out his arms like a man who has had the fetters 
 taken off them. He was free, and the great work would 
 do him honour. Mind and brain were now at rest ; he 
 might wander as he pleased and forget yesterday to make 
 himself the readier for to-morrow. A chapter of his life 
 was closed. 
 
 That sense of finality, of complete severance from the 
 past, which comes on the conclusion of an undertaking in 
 which we have long been interested predominated over all 
 others. He saw the curtain fall on the dramatic morning- 
 piece which might have been styled A Lady's Portrait. 
 All that he had done, all that was associated with the 
 Madonna of San Lucar, receded to a distance; it be- 
 came as fixed and cloudlike as the ridge of mountains we 
 may see every day from our window but never think of
 
 160 Th V ANTIGONE tun I 
 
 travelling towards. And the figure <>t Lady May receded, 
 ■d on, and became a reminiso ing him no 
 
 more than the painted Madonna herself. Had he been 
 in love? He smiled. Was there love in a fancy which 
 could not endure a change of conditions, which (led 
 
 with the Crowd Of momentary shadows that swept by 
 
 him and left no trace? What he felt now was a sunny 
 satisfaction, restoring him to his former sense of freedom. 
 The mesmeric trance into which he had fallen was at 
 an <.-n<\. He could go whither he chose, and take with 
 him neither regret nor longing. Rupert felt that he had 
 ceased to be his own master for a little interval ; but the 
 servitude could not last. He was delighted to be free ; and 
 with a light step he strolled on till he came to the river. 
 
 At the place where he paused the Yale was moving 
 over sand and jutting stones, which broke the tiny stream 
 into a hundred glittering rivulets, and gave a sure footing 
 if one were tempted to cross. The other side, thickly 
 red with tall trees, looked pleasant in the sunshine 
 and not hard to climb. It seemed to lead upwards to 
 open country, to a view over the moor which Glanville 
 had not enjoyed. He stood a moment considering, then 
 sprang lightly from stone to stone, and began to ascend 
 the steep. It proved more difficult than he had fancied; 
 the ground was broken, the brushwood grew at the most 
 irregular intervals and made his advance fatiguing. But 
 there was a zigzag path, wide enough for one, which led 
 along the side of the valley and might take him to the 
 top. His thoughts were agreeable; the morning had many 
 hours in it yet, and why should he not ramble on? He 
 went forward, plucking a leaf here and there, or breaking 
 off a withered branch ; stopped sometimes to get a glimpse 
 of the river where it was (lowing beneath him, and fell into 
 a poetic reverie which brushed with passing wing a thousand 
 associations, old and new, but was not awake enough to 
 dwell upon any of them. 
 
 1 le had been advancing for nearly an hour, and still the 
 track did not turn, but ran irregularly on, as if meaning to 
 come out at the end of the ridge. On his right, which was 
 the way he wanted to go, the steep grew higher and more
 
 chap, xni SWEETEST EYES WERE EVER SEEN 161 
 
 rugged ; the trees huddled close together, and walking 
 became no easy task. Should he retrace his steps ? 
 
 He went a few paces forward. There was a nicker of 
 sunshine among the leaves and a bit of blue sky showing 
 itself ahead ; perhaps there might be an opening where he 
 saw it. The wood seemed to grow thicker than ever, but 
 he scrambled through, and found himself in a narrow, tor- 
 tuous bridle-path which descended from the high country, 
 and, skirting the impenetrable side of the thicket, wound 
 away in the direction towards which Glanville had set his 
 face. He remembered the map of the region, and judged 
 that it must be making for Toxenden. He had no wish to 
 get so far. Looking again, he saw that a grassy opening 
 stretched down towards the river, and he determined on 
 exploring that way. He disliked going back on his own 
 footsteps, but did not mind an hour's extra walking in 
 search of adventures — pedestrian adventures, ending in 
 muddy boots, which was all he could hope for in civilised 
 England. He went over the grass and found that the 
 opening continued. It was not long before he saw the 
 gleaming of water to his left ; but, instead of a sparkling 
 thread, it seemed a broad sheet. He broke through the 
 covert, and in surprise looked down upon ' the shining levels 
 of the lake.' In front rose the smiling Hermitage. He 
 had come to it by a pathway which was hardly used, and 
 which had never before been traversed by him. 
 
 Although the sun was not so warm nor the sky so bright 
 as when for the first time he beheld the chalet, it was an 
 exquisite morning, and he stood awhile to contemplate the 
 picture. Doors and windows were open as then, inviting 
 him to enter. He did not suppose Ivor would be there ; 
 for he never lunched at the Hermitage when he had gone 
 up early to Trelingham Court. But Rupert said to himself 
 that he might as well take possession of the Pompeian 
 kitchen and improvise a classic, though a lonely meal, 
 before ending his expedition. He should find a skiff in 
 the boat-house. He opened the door and looked round, 
 expecting to see what he wanted ; but, if a rowing-boat had 
 ever been there, it was gone. He found instead — and it 
 made him laugh when he saw it — one of those odd-looking 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 16a THE NEW ANTIGONE PABT l 
 
 contrivances which represent the first untutored effort 
 man at shipbuilding, which arc less advanced even than 
 a canoe. They arc round, tub-like things, made of » 
 
 anil leather, roughly put together, and 1 fancy are (ailed 
 ( oral le& The instrument by which they are put in motion 
 is a short-handled spoon, of a good breadth at the extremity; 
 and they move along with great speed when a savage or a 
 knowing University man takes the command. 'Well,' said 
 Glanville, 'here is proof positive that the prehistoric has 
 been in the land, or, to speak more accurately, on the 
 water. I must really try my hand at this.' He sat himself 
 down in the coracle, ami with that mixture of courage and 
 wariness that we may observe in genuine athletes, so mani- 
 pulated the large flat spoon that he was neither upset nor 
 sent whirling round in a hopeless circle. As he sped 
 along, much cngros>ed in the government of his coracle, 
 he looked forward, and, not without surprise, perceived 
 that the proper civilised boat was lying at the bottom of 
 the steps which led up to the Hermitage. 'Then Ivor is 
 at home, after all,' he said to himself; 'but why did he 
 come round to this side ? Has he been exploring in the 
 wood like me ? And if he has, why did I not hear or see 
 him ? ' 
 
 He fastened the coracle, sprang out, and ran up the 
 steps, calling out as he entered, ' Ivor, Ivor ! ' There was 
 no response. Thinking he might be in the kitchen, Rupert 
 went thither ; but no Ivor was there. What could have 
 become of him ? He turned back and noticed that the 
 door of the study by which he had passed was half-open. 
 His friend might be engaged over some drawing and too 
 busy to answer. Throwing the door wide, he would have 
 called out again as he entered, but that a sight most 
 unexpected made him pause, draw back, and become fixed, 
 motionless as a statue, on the threshold. A young lady in 
 a riding habit, a lady he had never set eyes on, an angel 
 that must have dropped from the third heaven, stood with 
 a book in her hand quietly confronting him. Not a word 
 did she utter, and confusion held him dumb. Politeness 
 deserting him in his utmost need, he gazed for half a 
 minute or was it for half an eternity ? — into the calm,
 
 cuap. xni SWEETEST EYES WERE EVER SEEN 163 
 
 lustrous eyes that met his own. They seemed of a most 
 limpid innocence — beautiful, shining, starlike. Did the 
 lady look as steadily at him ? I am sure he did not 
 know. All he saw were the beautiful eyes, not any of the 
 meaning they may have had in them. He waited spell- 
 bound. 
 
 The lady did not blush, or seem greatly taken aback. 
 She smiled the least bit in the world — innocently, yet not 
 harmlessly. And then, in a low clear voice, still keeping 
 her book in her hand, still fascinating the thrice-bewildered 
 Rupert with her childlike eyes, she said, 'Are you the 
 tenant of the chalet ? And must I ask your pardon ? ' 
 
 'The tenant? No; really I — my friend Mr. Mardol — 
 I was expecting to find him ; is there any ' 
 
 Rupert stopped. He did not know how to go on ; his 
 eyes made his tongue falter. I think the young lady knew, 
 suspected, was at least half-conscious that he could not con- 
 tinue while she kept looking at him. She turned slightly 
 away, and took up his broken discourse. 
 
 'Then,' she said, 'you do not live here. I was afraid' 
 — she did not look in any way afraid, and I cannot believe 
 she was, although she said so — ' I was afraid it might be 
 like the fairy tale, and that one of the bears was coming 
 home.' 
 
 'The bears — the fairy tale ? I do not understand you.' 
 He was bewildered yet. She laughed now, and looked 
 prettier than before. ' If you are a stranger,' she said, 'and 
 not master of the chalet, you will allow me to take my 
 leave before any one comes. You appear not to know a 
 great deal about fairy tales,' she went on, as if enjoying his 
 perplexity ; ' but I have no time to explain. I ought to go 
 before the bears catch me. There is no saying whether 
 they would take me for their sister. Some of them ought,' 
 she added pensively. 
 
 ' If you mean,' answered Rupert, who began to remember 
 the children's story to which she alluded, ' that you do not 
 wish to meet any of Lord Trelingham's family, I think I 
 can assure you that they are not likely to visit the Her- 
 mitage at this hour. It is my friend, Mr. Ivor Mardol, 
 who lives here just now.'
 
 i6 4 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW I 
 
 11,: gloves were lying on a chair, she put down the 
 volume in her hand, took up the gloves, and began slowly 
 to put them on. Alter some deliberation, she said : 
 
 ' And is your friend a relative of Lord Trelingham's ? ' 
 
 'N',>! at all,' answered Rupert; 'he is an artist, like 
 myself, who happens to he Staying here.' 
 
 ■And who is painting Lady May's portrait, I suppose.' 
 She spoke like one to whom the name of Lady May was 
 familiar. 
 
 'No,' said he, wondering who the lady was; '/am 
 painting the portrait I should rather use the past tense, 
 for it is finished.' 
 
 'Then you are Mr. (dan. Hie, the other artist,' she re- 
 plied ; ' I heard my father speak of you. But I did not 
 know there were two artists at Trelingham.' 
 
 Rupert wondered still more. ' Mr. Mardol,' he said, 
 'is more properly an engraver, not an artist. But may 
 I inquire who it was that spoke of me?' 
 
 1 My father,' she repeated, 'Colonel Valence. Did you 
 not meet him in Trelingham churchyard the afternoon of 
 the great storm ? He told me that you had had some 
 conversation in the porch while it thundered and lightened. 
 He mentioned your name several times before he went 
 away.' 
 
 This was like opening a flood-gate. The notion that he 
 was talking with Colonel Valence'sdaughterawakeneda whole 
 train of questions in Rupert's mind. He forgot that the 
 lady was standing in the Hermitage, where apparently she 
 had no business to be, and that he himself was a stranger 
 to her. 
 
 ' I las Colonel Valence gone ?' he cried. ' I should have 
 liked — I was hoping to meet him again. Our conversation 
 was so extraordinary that I did not know what to make 
 of it, and it has puzzled me ever since. But I beg your 
 pardon, Miss Valence. It is impertinent of me to say all 
 this.' 
 
 1 Why, no,' she answered ; ' not if I could tell you what 
 my father meant, as I daresay would not be impossible. 
 He shart s his thoughts with me.' 
 
 ' Shares his thoughts with her !' said Glanville to himself;
 
 -hap. xin SWEETEST EYES WERE EVER SEEN 165 
 
 ' how many of his thoughts, I wonder ?' He mentally 
 compared the scarred and saturnine face of the old man 
 with the beautiful open countenance of his daughter. She 
 did not seem made for a philosophy in which the last word 
 was universal shipwreck. 
 
 ' Some of Colonel Valence's thoughts are very stern,' he 
 said aloud. 
 
 ' Too stern, indeed,' answered the young lady with a 
 sigh. ' I wish some one would convert him to a gentler 
 mood. But we live utterly alone ; and when he does mix 
 with other human beings, they are men like himself, of 
 earnest, daring temper. We pay a price for the new world 
 that is coming.' 
 
 She spoke with calmness and decision, looking as child- 
 like now in her serious utterances as when she was alluding 
 to the bears and the fairy tale. 
 
 'Do you hold that a new world is coming?' he asked, 
 with some astonishment in his tone, which Miss Valence's 
 ear detected. ' A new world ?' 
 
 ' Surely I do,' she answered. ' Are not the signs of it 
 everywhere ? I should have imagined, since you are an 
 artist, that you would be one of the first to think so, too. 
 Have you no share in the " prophetic soul of the wide 
 world, dreaming on things to come "? My father calls the 
 true artist a seer of the ideal which in other men lies 
 dormant. He is enthusiastic about art, especially painting. 
 It is the only enjoyment he has.' 
 
 Rupert was struck with a sudden thought. ' Has Colonel 
 Valence heard that I have been engaged on Lady May's 
 portrait?' he inquired. It occurred to him that Colonel 
 Valence would wish to be informed of the accident to his 
 Madonna. And what if he would, Rupert ? Do you think 
 that a sufficient excuse for renewing your acquaintance with 
 him, or for combating his philosophy, and looking at your 
 ease on the countenance of this young lady while you do 
 so ? Oh no ; it was nothing so hypocritical. Of course 
 not. But if the Colonel had endured such hardships to 
 bring the picture from Spain, it would be only charitable to 
 tell him about it. In the last few moments he had become 
 more amiable in Glanville's eves.
 
 166 THE NEW AA / /<.< :\7- iaki i 
 
 • l <ln not think he has,' she replied. 'The day after the 
 storm he went to London. He will not return tor a long 
 while. 1 [e sta) - verj littl< at I alside ni 
 
 'Is Falside your home?' Rupert did not reflect how 
 
 hew. ting all the proprieties. How dared he Ik- so 
 
 inquisitive ? I wonder Miss Valence was nol offended. 
 
 me seemed not to mind. Instead of at once insisting 
 
 on being taken to her boat, she answered : 
 
 ■ M\ father was born at Falside, and we have lived there 
 
 since my mother's death.' 
 
 ■ < >h, since Lady Alice's death ?' exclaimed Rupert, com- 
 pletely off his guard. ' But is not that a great while ago?' 
 
 • Lady Alice was not my mother,' she answered quietly ; 
 'she was my father's first wife.' 
 
 'And she lies in Trelingham churchyard,' said (ilanville. 
 'Was that why Colonel Valence came out on that bitter 
 afternoon ?' 
 
 'Yes,' she replied; 'he spends many afternoons there. 
 But do you know the story of Lady Alice?' she went on. 
 
 ' I happen,' he said, 'to have heard the beginning of it. 
 That is all. 1 know the romantic circumstances under 
 which Lady Alice left her home and married. But I know- 
 no tin >re ; the thread of the story has not been resumed.' 
 
 • There is little more to know,' she answered. 'Lady 
 Alice died in London, after eleven or twelve years of mar- 
 ried life. Then my father went abroad. You perhaps 
 have heard that he was engaged in the campaigns against 
 Don Carlos, and received his commission in Spain. He 
 has never been in the English army. He was a soldier of 
 liberty, not the defender of a state or a sovereign.' 
 
 'And did I.ady Alice leave no children?' 
 
 'No; I have neither brother nor sister. That is why 
 
 it would be so pleasant to find a sister in Lady May. We 
 
 are not relatives, of course, and she is a good deal older 
 
 than I. But when I see her driving near Falside, as she 
 
 times does, or wandering down by the shore, T am 
 
 n tempted to speak to her and beg her friendship.' 
 
 :lle thought, while she spoke, what a striking con- 
 
 would make. Lady May, although not taller 
 
 than the average, had a stateliness of manner which seemed
 
 CHAP, xiil SWEETEST EYES WERE EVER SEEN 167 
 
 to add to her height ; she was dark and almost foreign- 
 looking with her great piercing eyes, long eyelashes, and, as 
 the poets say in describing this type of beauty, her ebon 
 tresses, that naturally suggested a crown or a chaplet of 
 purple flowers to set them off. She moved slowly, and had 
 nothing of the tripping fairy in her motions. The expres- 
 sion of her countenance was earnest and impassioned. 
 And what was Colonel Valence's daughter like ? Rupert 
 found it necessary to study her features with great attention ; 
 he might be asked some day to paint her portrait ; or what 
 if he sketched it from memory when he went home, and 
 laid it up in his portfolio? There could be no harm in 
 doing that. He wondered, by the way, what her name 
 was. How could he find out without appearing over- 
 curious ? Hers was a slender form, graceful as Arethusa's, 
 or the mountain -nymph's whose home is among rocks 
 and streams, where all day long she roams, climbing, or 
 springing, or dancing, as best pleases her, seldom quiet 
 except when she has tired herself out with play. Her 
 countenance was clear and well-cut, of that exquisite pale 
 olive which is the least English of tones, resembling fine 
 ivory. And those innocent brown eyes, how softly they 
 gazed at the audacious painter ! how tender and steadfast 
 was their expression ! They had caught a golden-tawny 
 hue from the ringlets of sunny hair falling about her face, 
 among which the breeze coming in at the open window 
 played wantonly. Such a combination of light and dark 
 in the human countenance he had never beheld. The 
 exquisite shape might be matched, perhaps, did he know 
 where to look for it, in sylph or fairy. But could sylph or 
 fairy boast of that serious, calm, aerial loveliness which shone 
 out, so young and so unconscious, from the pale ivory 
 features and the soft eyes ? Not knowing w 7 hat had been 
 said or what he was saying, Rupert drew a step nearer, 
 and in a beseeching voice, as if he must fall on his knee 
 and worship whilst he spoke, the words came from his lips 
 in a half-whisper, ' Would you tell me — nay, be angry if you 
 will, but tell me — what, by what name may I remember 
 you ?' 
 
 The lady blushed almost scarlet now. Her pale cheek
 
 i68 THE Y/-.i: i . \ 1- paut i 
 
 showed .1 deep, passionate tinge, and even her forehead was 
 dyed in a faint rose-colour, which purple as she 
 
 answered : 
 
 - rl liov. you?' She had got no further when she 
 
 \ Rupert :it her f< et 
 
 ■ i >ii, forgive me,' 1"- said ; ' I could not — 1 did not know 
 what I was saying. For the world I would i snd you.' 
 
 There was something in his tone which united her. 
 No, he had not meant to offend ; he wi s only overcome, 
 fascinated, out of himself. How is it that love reveals its 
 presence? She could not speak for a moment; and her 
 voice when it came back was, like Rupert's, almost inarticu- 
 late. ' 1<! said: ' do not kneel there.' 
 
 And as he stood before her, ashamed, penitent, his eyes 
 seeking the ground, she went on, not looking at him — 
 • My name is llippolyta.' 
 
 'Ah.' he said, laughing passionately, 'I knew you came out 
 of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania should be jealous 
 of you.' 
 
 ' Again, sir !' she cried, going to the door; 'stand aside 
 and let me pass.' She would not even look at him. It 
 was all he could do not to fall at her feet again. 
 
 ' Not like that,' he exclaimed. ' Oh, not like that What 
 shall I do if you go away despising me? 1 am mad; I 
 have lost my senses. But I will not, I will not offend any 
 more.' She had reached the verandah. lie followed, 
 ran down the steps and began to unfasten the boat. 
 
 While they were speaking it had grown stormy on the 
 lake ; there was a strong backwater driven by the rising 
 wind, and the waves, though not large, seemed dangerous 
 for a light skiff, such as llippolyta had come in. She did 
 not appear to notice the weather; her face was still fin 
 and her eyes bright with tears. Rupert could have bitten 
 his tongue off when he thought of the liberty he had taken. 
 He felt more than ashamed — he was humiliated. A gentle- 
 man, he, Rupert Glanville, to have behaved so, to have 
 spoken such words! He turned with a deprecating look 
 towards llippolyta as she came slowly down the steps. 
 She could not pass him. She stopped. 
 
 •Miss • e,' he said humbly, 'this small boat is not
 
 chap, xui SWEETEST EYES WERE EVER SEEN 169 
 
 safe in such stormy weather. Will you allow me to fetch 
 the larger one, which is lying in the boathouse opposite, and 
 to row you to shore ? ' 
 
 ' I will allow nothing,' she answered ; ' I did wrong to 
 come here. Let me pass into the boat' 
 
 Glanville saw that the storm would be upon them ere 
 long. He said, firmly this time, like a man who is doing 
 what he knows to be right, ' I cannot let you risk your life, 
 Miss Valence. If you will not wait till I can bring the 
 safer boat you must allow me to take charge of this. A 
 very few minutes will see you on shore.' 
 
 Reluctantly Hippolyta consented. When there is danger 
 and a man commands, a woman does not find it easy to 
 disobey. She entered the boat and sat down, while Rupert 
 took the oars. Not a word more was spoken. Hippolyta 
 looked over the side of the skiff, away in the distance, as if 
 no Rupert existed. It was all she could do to keep the 
 tears from falling. A sharp sense of pain, almost of degra- 
 dation, filled her heart. Perhaps there was another feeling 
 too, which she knew little about, although it gave an edge 
 to the pain. She sprang out as soon as the boat touched. 
 But before she could quite flee away, Rupert was at her 
 side, bareheaded. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' he said in a low voice. His head 
 was bent. She saw that he was biting his under lip to keep 
 down some strong emotion. His breath went and came. 
 But she would not pity him. Half sobbing, with tremulous 
 indignation, breaking her sentences into short phrases, she 
 said, turning to the abashed and guilty artist : 
 
 ' I came out of childish curiosity, and — and I have been 
 punished. Tell Lord Trelingham, if you please, that I 
 wanted to see the chalet, that I did not know — and I had 
 never seen it, and my father said . . . but it does not 
 matter.' 
 
 Her voice broke down. She was fairly crying now. 
 Rupert did not dare to come near her; he could not leave 
 her in distress ; he knew not which way to look. Oh, 
 what a villain he had been ! But he must speak. 
 
 ' I would give my life that this had not happened,' he 
 cried. ' Miss Valence, I implore you, think no more of it.
 
 1 III NEW ANTIGONE PAKt i 
 
 Indeed, indeed, 1 meant no harm. I was Inside myself. 
 
 Cannot you forgive one who has never seen ' he stopped, 
 
 hew. nmitting himself again. Hippolyta listened, 
 
 like a child that leaves off crying when it hears a well-known 
 
 V0i< She could Control herself better now, and Rupert 
 
 • rrv. lie had really been carried away by a 
 
 sudden impulse, she resolved not to forgive him, all the 
 same. One more glance she gave at the artist as he 
 
 1, like a culprit or a penitent, speechless in the pre 
 sence of his offended goddess. And then she ran up the 
 
 :it till she was out of breath and compelled to rest 
 
 nst a tree. 
 
 Glanville lifted his \mc when he saw her depart, and 
 looked, and looked, all turned to gazing, until she dis- 
 appeared amid the thick undergrowth. Then, as if wings 
 had been added to hi and he were Apollo that had 
 
 borrowed the sandals of Hermes in pursuit of Daphne, 
 the young man followed, not knowing why he did so, 
 unless it were that another moment of the intoxicating 
 \ision seemed well worth flying after. Hippolyta had 
 run fast but not far. On the soft grass she beard no steps, 
 and when Rupert came in sight of her again he beheld 
 the gentle Amazon unfastening her palfrey — call it not, 
 I beseech you, either cob or pony — which was receiving 
 his mistress with manifestations of joy as she came up to 
 the place where he was tethered. Rupert, gliding behind 
 the friendly (overt of the trees, watched her every movement. 
 She was excited and out of breath, but evidently not much 
 frightened. From time to time as she stopped to put her 
 handkerchief to her eyes a pang shot through Rupert's 
 heart. Yes, she was crying still, poor Hippolyta; and this 
 rude swain did not dare to show that he was anywhere at 
 hand, still less could he venture on addressing her with 
 more apologies. What would he not have given to help 
 her to her saddle! He had lost the grace that might 
 have been his for a foolish word. Oh, wild human heart 
 .md hasty tongue, can nothing put a (heck upon you? 
 Hippolyta patted her steed, which was a small dark roan, 
 with beautifully- shaped intelligent head, — I do not quite 
 
 ■ . how veterinary persons would describe what I mean,
 
 chap, xni SWEETEST EYES WERE EVER SEEN 171 
 
 but the whole head, and not the eyes or nostrils only, 
 looked intelligent, instinct with a higher life than good feed- 
 ing and grooming could bring out. But neither were these 
 neglected, as the glossy sleekness of the creature testified. 
 Hippolyta, I say, patted his beautiful head, and, being utterly 
 unaware that there was a spectator of her actions, put an arm 
 round his neck and kissed him on the forehead. Rupert 
 bit his lip again. Young man, that is your punishment for 
 spying and gazing where you ought not to be ! Hippolyta 
 vaulted into the saddle with the lightness of a bird, gave 
 the reins a shake, and was off like an arrow. Hermes's 
 sandals were now of no avail. Rupert saw that she was 
 taking the road which led up stream, and, as he sup- 
 posed, to Falside. Oh, that he might follow ! 
 
 He did not move from the spot where he beheld her 
 vanish until many minutes were passed. Then, like a man 
 waking from a heavy dream, he shook himself, looked 
 round, and remembering that he had left the boat unmoored, 
 went with slow meditative steps down the glade. How 
 many hours were gone since his feet had trodden it first 
 that morning ? He could not tell. Reckoned by emotions 
 it might be a century or two. He forgot even luncheon ; 
 and, instead of returning like a sensible mortal to the Her- 
 mitage where good things were to be had for the cooking, 
 he simply fastened the skiff, which by a happy chance had 
 drifted into some low tangle of branches and thus been 
 kept from floating farther away. This done, Rupert 
 ascended the glade for the second time, and finding a 
 bleak and wild-looking country when he reached the top, 
 plunged recklessly into it. He would have given half his 
 genius, which was worth more than half the kingdom of 
 many monarchs, to come within view of Falside. But the 
 venture was too daring, and rather than yield to temptation 
 he set off in the other direction. 
 
 It had begun to rain, and he had much better have 
 returned to Trelingham instead of wandering on and on, 
 not taking note of the way he was going, nor observing that 
 the fine small drops, more like mist than wholesome rain, 
 were wetting him through. His whole mind was absorbed 
 in what had happened. Was it the one event of his life,
 
 ////• .\/-.li ANTIGONE i'\i. i i 
 
 the golden day for which he had been waiting since lie 
 knew the name of love, the unveiling of the face that in 
 • us he had beheld and longed after \ <>r was it an 
 irreparable mischance? 'Hippolyta, Hippolyta,' he mur- 
 mured to himself. ' < >h, senseless Rupert, did you think the 
 mid be without the wooing?' It w.i^ the most 
 unmanly thing he had ever done. 'And yet,' be went on, 
 'she ought to have known that I meant only to worship 
 her.' He smiled when the words, uttered half aloud, 
 Struck upon his ear. 'How could she have known what I 
 meant? She had never set eyes on me. Are my looks so 
 inncx hers? Childlike, divine Hippolyta ! ' He fell 
 
 delirious musing. He must see her, speak 
 to h< ). win her pardon, protest that he would spend 
 
 his life in atoning for the insolence of the morning. Yes, 
 it was insolence. To ask her name ! But she had 
 answered \ she told him it was Hippolyta. That could 
 never be undone. The bond between them was of her mak- 
 . after all. And she had spoken in a whisper, with what 
 heavenly shame in her accent, as though resisting the sug- 
 gestion which made her answer while yielding to it ! Love, 
 ah no, it was not love, but pity, modesty, the exquisite 
 compassion of Hippolyta, who was a queen yet a child. 
 In this way he babbled for hours — this great incontestable 
 genius, walking at random and getting wet to the skin, and 
 not minding, but with a heart all on flame, and love spread- 
 out his golden pinions till the gray heavens seemed to 
 melt and burn in their splendour. It was first love, the 
 true deity and no counterfeit, whose wine, held out with coax- 
 re and half-smiling, half-frowning glance, intoxicated 
 him when he put the cup to his lips. He rested now and 
 then for a moment, stopping to enjoy the unmatchable 
 emotion that had conquered him. But to keep still was 
 impossible. He must go forward, and utter his feelings 
 incoherently to himself as he went, smiling with a mixture 
 of tenderness and scorn at the expressions that alone would 
 e, wild metaphors taken from all things in 
 heaven and earth, the brief, sudden snai inebriation 
 
 cutti' ;t his speech altogether from time to time. He 
 
 not only a lover, but an artist whose intense fancy
 
 chap, xni SWEETEST EYES WERE EVER SEEN 173 
 
 penetrated his nature through and through, being the fine 
 spirit that made his genius what it was. He could not 
 love as the common man loves ; the passion he felt was 
 individual, characteristic ; it glowed with another fire than 
 that which draws man and woman to have one heart in two 
 bodies ; for it aimed at a union of soul with soul, of all 
 that was best in him with all that he imagined in Hip- 
 polyta. Do I say imagined? Well, be it so. But he 
 would have rebuked the word. In that strange, lovely 
 face, in those tender eyes, he saw the revelations of a 
 personality as choice and adorable as they were. Could 
 any spirit of clay inform such a tenement ? Thus he would 
 have argued. But while he wandered through the clinging 
 mist, absorbed in the contemplation of Hippolyta, beholding 
 her in memory with the vividness of intuition which a 
 new love bestows, he was far indeed from argument of 
 any kind. He was drinking deep at the fountain of per- 
 petual youth ; he was roaming through Eldorado ; the world 
 was a garden of roses, and he saw Hippolyta riding on 
 her dark palfrey over mead and mossy glade, turning 
 towards him as she fled and bidding him follow. 
 
 It is dangerous to be lost in thought, but even more 
 dangerous to be lost on a trackless down ; and this was 
 what had now befallen Rupert. Without noticing that he 
 had long since left the belt of trees which marked the high 
 ridge he had ascended, by degrees he exchanged one path 
 for another, until he was now actually travelling the oppo- 
 site way to that which he intended. Soon there was no 
 semblance of a track ; he was on the heather, guided 
 unconsciously by the figures of the great crags which 
 loomed up through the mist when he came near them. 
 But he did not stop to choose his direction. The tourist 
 of the morning, bent on adventures, was likely to meet 
 with one now ; for he had become no better than a 
 somnambulist, and might at any moment have plunged 
 out of his depth into the boggy streams which rise on the 
 moor and creep through the high grass with impercep- 
 tible motion. Fortunately, a strong breeze was blowing 
 the mist aside ; and the last short hour of the Octo- 
 ber day promised to be fair, and to be succeeded by a
 
 :74 THE NE\ i i 
 
 calm evening. As Rupert, somewhat exhausted with his 
 violent emotions and headlong walk, was sitting on .1 huge 
 boulder at the foot <>f the crag for which he had been 
 making the last ten minutes, a final gust scattered the 
 clouds right and left, the rain 1 I a long lai 
 
 sunshine, forming in the space which the mist had left 
 clear, took him up into its radiance. His face was towards 
 the sun and his eyes were too dazzled to make out any- 
 thin:; : but almost as the clouds rolled away he heard the 
 galloping of a horse near at hand. He did not look up; 
 the growing sense of fatigue had brought with it some 
 depression ; the wings of love were drooping, and he had 
 in to think more of the offence given than the return 
 of affection he hoped for. But the sound of galloping came 
 nearer ; the horse stopped within a few paces of where 
 he sat. And Hippolyta Valence, leaping to the ground, 
 exclaimed in a troubled and astonished voice. 'Mr. Glan- 
 ville, are you here? What has happened to you?'
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN FAIRYLAND 
 
 He made no reply. The apparition was so sudden, so 
 utterly unexpected, and the light, whether of the sun or of 
 Hippolyta's presence, so filled his eyes that he had not a 
 word to say. He looked strangely forlorn, in spite of the 
 air of distinction and the beauty of feature which made 
 him, when his feathers were preened, an Arabian bird 
 among artists. The lonesome moor, with its streak of 
 watery sunshine, the huge overshadowing cliffs, the shining 
 grass and thunderous purple of the heather, gave a setting 
 to the figure and appearance of Rupert which disclosed 
 more of the inward man, the melancholy, brooding spirit, 
 than was often visible. Hippolyta was struck silent. She 
 waited now, uncertain whether she ought to have accosted 
 him, until he should speak. 
 
 He rose with a fatigued expression, looked round, and 
 said, as if to himself, 'I must have lost my way.' He did 
 not seem to notice the young lady ; nor can I affirm that 
 during the first few moments he had distinguished between 
 the vision in his brain and the form that came galloping 
 over the moor. 
 
 ' If you were going to Trelingham,' replied Hippolyta, 
 ' you have certainly lost it. The Court is sixteen miles off, 
 and in the opposite direction to this.' 
 
 Glanville was fully awake now. ' I am much obliged 
 for the information, Miss Valence,' he answered in a con- 
 ventional tone, ' and shall be grateful if you can point out 
 the road. I have never been in this part of the country.' 
 
 ' There is no road,' she told him ; ' you are on the
 
 176 THE NEW ANTIGONE taut i 
 
 moor. And, if there were, you could not walk sixteen 
 miles before nightfall. The sun will be down in less than 
 
 an h<uir.' 
 
 •1 must get back,' repeal -1 Glanville. II re an 
 exploring glance over the country, hoping t<> sec a human 
 habitation it not a village or hamlet. It was all wild and 
 hare. Hippolyta had said truly; he was on the moor; 
 there was not the \. if a track He had been walk- 
 
 ing over the heather and did not notice it. What was to 
 be done ? 
 
 The young lady reflected, and seemed to have made up 
 her mind while he was looking about him. 'You cannot 
 get back this way,' she said, ' nor is it the slightest use 
 to attempt it. You would be lost in the mosses which 
 you have passed without seeing them, I suppose. But 
 Palside is hardly a mile off, and you can there be put on 
 the right road. Do come, Mr. Glanville,' she said in- 
 sistently, for he showed no sign of accepting her invitation. 
 
 Now he looked at her and smiled, though still in his 
 melancholy fashion. ' I will come,' he said, ' if you can 
 forgive me. Not,' he added, ' that you ought. I know 1 
 am inexcusable. But, if you will not overlook my great 
 fault, I must stay here until morning. I can make my 
 way back in the light.' 
 
 ■ Stay until morning, and be frozen ! No, indeed,' cried 
 Hippolyta, 'that you shall not. Come now, show that you 
 know how to be obedient to a lady.' She was smiling 
 without an effort, in the most kindly way. ' I do forgive 
 you. Artists are strange people. One cannot treat them 
 like the rest of mankind.' 
 
 ' You forgive me ! ' exclaimed Rupert ; ' I will follow 
 you to the end of the world.' 
 
 She held up a warning ringer. 'No, only to Falside,' 
 she said. 
 
 He helped her to mount, and, in a dream of sweet 
 intoxication, walked by her side as she rode quietly aloi 
 She did not ask him any questions. How he had got 
 thither was evident — by losing his way But what made 
 him, lose his way? If Hippolyta _uessed at the reason, 
 she kept her conjectures in her own breast. Occasionally
 
 OHAP. XIV IN FAIRYLAND 177 
 
 she glanced down at him ; but when he looked up, with 
 something of that half- foolish and wholly ecstatic smile 
 on his lips which betokens a young man's first sensations 
 of happiness, she was discreetly gazing over the moor. 
 She was glad she had forgiven him. He must have under- 
 gone a self-inflicted penance since she ran away from him 
 on landing out of the boat. Perhaps he had gone into 
 the rain and wandered all those hours to punish himself 
 for his rudeness. At any rate, he was too haggard and 
 woe -begone to be severely dealt with now. She would 
 really forgive ; nay, she would try to forget. 
 
 Rupert, thinking neither of the past nor the future, but 
 as happy as a dog following his mistress, kept on walking 
 mechanically, and did not even ask when they should 
 arrive at Falside. He did not want to arrive there. It 
 was enough for him to be near Hippolyta. Had she pro- 
 posed to ride to the other end of the rainbow which he 
 beheld spanning the moor, he would have said, ' Why not ? 
 let us go by all means. We shall perhaps find the golden 
 cup the children talk of now we are together.' I doubt 
 that her pony would have consented so willingly. When 
 they passed certain rocks and turned to the left, that little 
 beast shook himself and began to express a decided wish 
 to canter. Hippolyta pulled him in. ' No, Djalma,' she 
 said, ' you must be patient. Mr. Glanville would not care 
 to keep up with you at a trot after his day's expedition. 
 We shall cross your old friend, the Yale, in a minute,' she 
 said, turning to the artist. ' It rises a little way off, and 
 comes down into our valley on its journey to Treling- 
 ham.' 
 
 As she spoke they came to a narrow wooden bridge, 
 which Djalma crossed at a quickened pace, and a few yards 
 in front Rupert saw a good, well-preserved pathway leading 
 down between rock and wilderness into the hollow. Trees 
 began to peer up, there were breadths of cover right and 
 left a little farther on, and the sound of murmuring leaves 
 and waters filled the air. Hippolyta struck through the 
 wood like one who was familiar with every step of it : 
 Rupert followed close; and they came out after ten minutes' 
 slow riding upon another road, not so broad as the first, 
 vol. 1. N
 
 178 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAD 
 
 which, turning very abruptly, brought them to a garden gate 
 overshadowed with foliage. Rupert ran to open the gate. 
 He could see only a short distance in front, for the trees 
 overarched and came down so (lose that it seemed as it 
 they were entering another wood But soon they reached 
 .1 second entrance, < lear of trees, and flanked on either 
 Bide by a low wall, which permitted a view into the valley 
 and across to the neighbouring heights. It was a ravine, 
 at the head of which, on a projecting terrace near the water 
 fall, rose in picturesque beauty the gables of a double 
 cottage. 'That is Falside,' said Hippolyta, pointing with 
 her whip. ' You are welcome, Mr. Glanville.' She did 
 not wait for his thanks or his assistance, but dismounting 
 and throwing him the reins, she added, ' Will you kindly 
 hold Djalma while I go and call some one?' Saying which 
 she went rapidly up the path and disappeared round a 
 corner of the cottage. If Rupert could have made sure of 
 being unobserved, I think he too would have put his arm 
 round the pony's neck and saluted him on the forehead. 
 But he was prudent. No more risks through excess of 
 demonstration for him. Djalma, therefore, had to be con- 
 tent with much patting and caressing, which, like all beings 
 accustomed to adoration, he took as a matter of course. 
 He was wondering when the groom would come, and not 
 attending to Rupert at all. 
 
 When the groom did arrive he was by no means of that 
 spruce description which is usual in great English houses 
 like Trelingham Court. He was an old man with white 
 hair and an exceedingly wrinkled forehead, dressed in plain 
 rough clothes, more suitable to a gardener or man-of-all- 
 work than to the guardian of so beautiful and well -kept 
 a steed as Djalma. His eyes, which were very dark and 
 glittering, made it clear that he was some kind of foreigner, 
 to say nothing of the expressive gesture, indicating a doubt 
 or a question, as Rupert fancied, with which on seeing the 
 artist he turned to Miss Valence. She merely shook her 
 head and bade Rupert relinquish the reins, which he did 
 unwillingly, as one that gives up a beloved charge. 'Now,' 
 said Hippolyta, 'will you come into the drawing-room while 
 Djalma is taken round to the stable and Andres gets your
 
 chap, xiv IN FAIRYLAND 179 
 
 own room ready ? He was not expecting a guest, or you 
 might go with him at once.' 
 
 Rupert obeyed, not being clear in his own mind as to 
 what was proper or becoming. He said when they passed 
 the threshold, ' Is it not possible for me to go on at once 
 to Trelingham ? I ought not to trespass on your hospi- 
 tality. I thought you spoke of putting me on my right 
 road when we reached Falside.' 
 
 ' The way is plain enough from here,' answered Hippo- 
 lyta, ' but almost as long as your journey across the moor. 
 And if you could only see, Mr. Glanville, how tired you 
 
 look ' A thought seemed to flash across her mind 
 
 while she was speaking, and she examined his face with 
 no less attention than he had bestowed on hers in the 
 chalet. ' I do believe,' she went on, ' that you are more 
 than tired. Have you eaten anything since breakfast?' 
 
 Glanville entreated her not to trouble herself about so 
 small a matter. He had not, in fact, eaten or drunk since 
 the morning, and was beginning to feel the effects of his 
 involuntary fast. But Hippolyta, with the woman's feeling 
 that men are always ready to eat and cannot, like them- 
 selves, live on three grains of rice a day, was shocked to 
 hear it. She begged him to sit near the fire and not 
 stir till she came back. Then, running hastily out of 
 the room, she left him to his own reflections, which were 
 not disagreeable, but had lasted only a few minutes when 
 she returned, bearing the requisites for afternoon tea, as 
 Rupert would have said in any other drawing-room. Here 
 it was probably not tea, but ambrosia, nectar, the amrita 
 cup, — some enchanting draught with immortality among 
 its ingredients. Hippolyta set the tray down ; and, with 
 a smile, remarked to the artist : ' I cannot offer you wine, 
 for my father does not drink it or suffer it near him. 
 I fancy that tea will do you more good. Andres will 
 show you to your room when you have taken a cup and 
 feel warm enough to leave the fire ; and we shall dine as 
 soon as possible.' 
 
 Rupert was more and more embarrassed, though happier 
 than words can express. Was he to dine alone with Hippo- 
 lyta? The gods be thanked. But what would men, and
 
 illy women, ' It was like getting into heaven 
 by a forbidden <l<><>r. He could not refuse j neither 
 could I' ' that there were difficulties, that the world 
 
 had it> customs. Suggest such a thing to Hippolyta, 
 who moved about with the grace and security of a young 
 maiden in her own home, busy, unaffected, and the v. 
 picture of innocence! 'Oh, Mrs. Grundy,' he thought 
 with a sigh, 'how terrible and absurd is thy dominion 01 
 the souls of men!' 
 
 It did not appear that Hippolyta minded Mrs. Crundy 
 in any way. She was the princess receiving a shipwrecked 
 mariner into her palace : a beneficent Calypso, to whom 
 the rumours of the world did not penetrate, as she dwelt in 
 her sequestered island, amusing herself with divine songs 
 and a quick-footed St( ed 1 lad she no servants but Andn 
 The place seemed silent, buried in deep sleep. No footfall 
 was heard about it; no sound but the murmuring cascade; 
 no voice within or without. Neither did Hippolyta appear 
 to expei t attendance. Did she abide all alone, like this, 
 whenever Colonel Valence was absent ? She had described 
 him as living very little at Falside. It was an extraordinary 
 manner of passing her existence for a young girl, especially 
 one so bright and vivacious as Hippolyta. Was it imagin- 
 able that she liked or could endure it long? At this point 
 in his meditations the lady offered him a cup of the am- 
 brosia she had been preparing. It was very good. Rupert 
 felt like a new being when he had drunk it ; moreover, 
 he secretly resolved to look upon it as the enchanting 
 draught which henceforth bound him to exist under the 
 
 .ernance and in the toils of Hippolyta. It was her own 
 doing, and he would always plead it in excuse if she wished 
 him to become a stranger again, but that he thought im- 
 possible after the events of the day. 
 
 'ho you live at Falside by yourself?' he ventured to 
 ask. 
 
 ' It depends on my father,' she replied ; ' I see nothing, 
 and I desire to see nothing, of what is called the world. 
 No fashionable lady ever comes to me, and the only one I 
 wish to know is Lady May Davenant. but Falside, though 
 solitary just now, is not so for the most part. My father
 
 chap, xiv IN FAIRYLAND 181 
 
 calls it the refuge of the destitute. There is seldom a 
 month that some unfortunate man, pursued by the conti- 
 nental police, does not make his way to our retreat. The 
 room you will sleep in to-night has been a hiding-place 
 for the most distinguished revolutionists, from Mazzini to 
 Felix Pyat. So that it is no new thing, you see,' she added, 
 laughing, 'for me to receive an illustrious guest' 
 
 'You must have gone through a strange experience,' 
 said Rupert. ' But you cannot, I suppose, have seen the 
 older men who are Colonel Valence's contemporaries. 
 They have succeeded ; and now, if still living, they sit in 
 the high places of the world.' 
 
 'That is true,' she replied; 'I never saw Mazzini, for 
 example. Those I know best are the men of the latest 
 time, cosmopolitan and socialist rather than patriotic' 
 
 ' Do they interest you in life as much as they might in 
 a book?' Rupert could not refrain from this question, but 
 his curiosity was not altogether personal. Hippolyta did 
 not resemble the masculine creature to whom he would 
 have attributed a love of socialist theories or schemes of 
 revolution. 
 
 ' The men less than their doctrines, and not so much as 
 their adventures,' was her unexpected reply. 'Like the 
 saints of all religions, they are repulsive until you come to 
 know them. But I am quite willing to minister to their 
 wants. It is the only way in which I can help the good 
 cause. Some, too, have a strangely captivating elo- 
 quence, like Kossuth. But he and the Hungarians belong 
 to the aristocracy of revolution ; and now they have set 
 their crown of St. Stephen on the head of an anointed 
 king, I fear that they will think no more of their down- 
 trodden brethren all over Europe. Even Kossuth, with his 
 hatred of the House of Austria, is at heart a political revo- 
 lutionist and nothing more.' 
 
 She spoke warmly, and Rupert listened with admira- 
 tion and surprise. He did not pretend to feel much with 
 those that desire universal change. He was an artist, and 
 dreaded the advent of democracy. But he could have 
 worshipped any doctrine which came to him impersonated 
 in such a form. However, he was spared making his
 
 ,82 THE NEW ANTIGONE taut i 
 
 profession of faith : for Andres, coming in as Hippolyta 
 finished speaking, announced that the Strang* >ra was 
 
 ready. Glanville rose. He could think of more things 
 
 than one at a time, and lie had made up his mind, while 
 
 reflecting on Hippolyta's eloquence, as to what it behoved 
 
 him to da 
 
 • Mis. Valence,' he said, going up to her, 'I .can never 
 thank you tor such great kindness as you have done and in- 
 tend for me. But 1 am quite sure that I ought to return to 
 Trelingham. They did not know I was going any distance; 
 I meant to have heen at the Court for luncheon. And 
 I id Trelingham is so considerate, so nervous, too, since 
 the shipwreck, that if I stay out they will spend the night 
 in looking for me.' 
 
 He spoke reasonably, and Hippolyta was persuaded. 
 She insisted only that he should stay for dinner. Andres, 
 who was their coachman when they required one, would 
 drive him, not over the moor, but round by the good roads 
 on that side of the country. It would take time, but save 
 mishaps, and Trelingham might be reached before mid- 
 night. When these things were clear Rupert followed 
 Andres, who took him out of the cottage, and by a covered 
 way up some steps into another building, almost as large, 
 that stood behind it and contained kitchen, housekeeper's 
 room, and two or three guest-chambers. An ancient lady, 
 as un-English in appearance as Andres, — she was his wife, 
 — now took charge of Glanville, and led him upstairs to 
 a small and plainly furnished room, where she left him 
 without a word. It was the way at Falside to do every- 
 thing as silently as possible. All manner of strange gu< 
 (.line thither, many of whom spoke no English and bore 
 no particular name while under Colonel Valence's roof. 
 Whether Glanville was a refugee or an ordinary wayfarer 
 who had been lost on the moor did not signify to the 
 helpmate of Andres, nor did the good man enlighten her. 
 An old revolutionist himself, he had asked in dumb show, 
 on seeing him, whether Rupert was one of theirs. Hippo- 
 lyta had used the English fashion of shaking her head to 
 say no, and Andres, by this time somewhat naturalised, 
 understood, hut was not quite certain.
 
 chap, xiv IN FAIRYLAND 183 
 
 Rupert came quickly down again, and entered the 
 drawing-room. But he found no Hippolyta. He had 
 leisure to look about him now, for he had observed nothing 
 but Miss Valence's face and motions while she was making 
 tea. It was a library rather than a drawing-room, with 
 bookshelves round the walls, and otherwise somewhat 
 solidly furnished. But a nice disorder, and the presence 
 of flowers and needle -work, were signs that Hippolyta 
 made it her usual abode. On examining the shelves he 
 saw books in every European language, — some with extra- 
 ordinary titles, betokening new systems of philosophy or 
 of government, and a large number of modern poets and 
 novelists. Among the latter were works he had never 
 come across, which it surprised him to see in a lady's 
 collection. But he reflected that, in all likelihood, it was 
 Colonel Valence and not Hippolyta who studied these 
 daring romances. He could not associate her with the 
 books that were there. 
 
 She came in while he was looking at them. ' My father 
 is a great reader,' she said, ' and has taught me, too, how to 
 read. He prefers for enjoyment the ancient authors. So do 
 I, I think. They have a calming influence when one's mind 
 has been excited by the works of living men and women.' 
 
 'Do you read Greek, then?' inquired Glanville, taking 
 out a handsomely bound volume, the Antigotie of Sophocles, 
 which happened to be in front of him. 
 
 ' I suppose I may say yes,' was her answer. ' I have 
 been learning it for some years. I can read Antigone, and 
 know it almost by heart. What a noble character she was ! 
 Like some other Greek women she deserved to belong to 
 the new era.' 
 
 'Then you know these lines?' said Glanville, turning 
 to a passage I need not transcribe, for it is, like the land- 
 scapes round Vesuvius and the Campanian coast, a posses- 
 sion of modern times as of antiquity, — the marvellous scene 
 where Antigone, standing at first with head bent to the 
 ground in the presence of Creon, lifts up voice and eyes, 
 saying that neither Zeus, nor Righteousness, assessor of the 
 gods, had established among men the law which she had 
 violated in burying her brother.
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAar i 
 
 'Know them?' cried Hippolytaj 'how should I not? 
 I'Ihv sound in my cars as the very gospel of eternal right 
 
 tor woman.' And taking the volume from him, she read 
 in torn is of strong feeling the lines that come alter, at 
 once so calm and pathetic. 'Imagine,' she said, when 
 she had come to the end of the passage, 'can you imagine 
 
 a woman of our time, brought up as most are, saying 
 in the face of social ordinances, base, unjust, and cruel, 
 words like these — if the poor version I once made gives 
 their meaning? Antigone says to the King: 
 
 ' " Such mighty heraldings I never <li< ami ,! 
 Mortal, were thine as could prevail to break 
 
 •oils' unwritten ami unshaken laws : 
 Not "f to-day or yesterdiy an- thi 
 They 1: i iting, nor doth man 
 
 Behold the source when they to light have risen." 
 
 How often has the whole artificial polity of men seemed 
 to dissolve under the charm of an appeal like this to 
 nature, to the truth of things, against the untruths which 
 make the world poor and contemptible ! Antigone will 
 always be a type of the true woman. Do you not think 
 so?' 
 
 ' You ask a terrible question,' replied Glanville. ' Anti- 
 gone died in obedience to commands which she thought 
 to be from the gods. And you know they were nothing 
 of the kind. More is the pity ! Could it signify to Poly- 
 nices whether his dead body were eaten by kites and eagles, 
 or buried with libations ? Antigone died the martyr of a 
 custom.' 
 
 Hippolyta looked sad while he was speaking. 'Ah,' 
 she said, ' I did not think you would view her in that light. 
 She was the martyr of sisterly devotion, which is an eternal 
 law, not of custom. But have you no feeling, then, about 
 the grave of any one you have loved ?' Her voice sank 
 a little ; she was grieved. 
 
 ' Do not, pray do not misinterpret me,' exclaimed 
 Rupert eagerly. ' I think Antigone one of the purest 
 and most unselfish of heroines. Nor would I blame 
 her tenderness to the beloved dust of a brother. But 
 it is the way with us men to do battle for a cause rather
 
 ohaf. xiv IN FAIRYLAND 185 
 
 than for a person, or — how shall I say ? — for an em- 
 blem.' 
 
 ' And women — for what do they give themselves ? ' 
 she inquired, still speaking in the low sweet voice, with its 
 touch of sadness. Rupert fixed his eyes on her, not 
 daringly, but with a light shining out of them as he made 
 answer. 
 
 ' For love,' said he. 
 
 She was silent. She closed the volume and restored it 
 to its place. A moment after dinner was announced, 
 and they passed into the dining-room. It was not so large 
 as the one they had left, and looked out on another side of 
 the cottage. A bright fire was burning in the grate. 
 Andres, who had forgotten to draw the curtains, now shut 
 out the October night, which seemed raw and chill. 
 Hippolyta motioned Rupert to a seat at the bottom of 
 the table and took her place opposite him. She had 
 none of that trembling shyness that might have been ex- 
 pected in one so young. Evidently she had been accus- 
 tomed to receive guests and entertain them in the self- 
 possessed way she used towards the artist. He felt that 
 the tete-a-tete meant less than he had imagined. Hippolyta 
 had no need to keep him at a distance. She seemed 
 to have forgotten their meeting at the Hermitage alto- 
 gether. 
 
 But it was not so. After dealing with indifferent topics, 
 she came back to it of her own accord. ' I suppose,' she 
 said, smiling, ' it was a social ordinance that I should not 
 have taken the boat and explored a sacred dwelling like 
 the chalet as I did to-day. However, it was not a com- 
 mand of the gods ; and my conscience leaves me at 
 rest.' 
 
 Glanville was sure that Lord Trelingham would have 
 been delighted to show her over the Hermitage. It was a 
 pity that his own friend, Ivor Mardol, had not been there 
 to welcome her ; he was exceedingly proud of having 
 such a quaint habitation, and made a very tolerable 
 hermit, too. 
 
 ' Yes, ! answered Hippolyta, ' though I know Lord Tre- 
 lingham only by report, I have a great affection for him.
 
 186 THE NEW AA \7 fiXt i 
 
 Every one says he is the kindest of men. But a reconcilia- 
 tion between him and my lather lias long been out of the 
 question. 1 do not think my father bears him malic 
 and I daresa) Lord Trelingham would take his hand, if 
 it were offered, which it never will be. I could not have- 
 asked his permission to visit the chalet. Yet I have long 
 wished to sec the inside of it. Riding that way, it is 
 provoking to pass so many times in sight of a curious, 
 uninhabited house, with strange stories attaching to it, 
 and memories of my father and grandfather, both of 
 whom spent weeks at a time there when they were 
 young. I have often told my father I should like to go 
 over it.' 
 
 'And what did he say?' asked Rupert. 
 
 'Oh, he was indifferent. He tells me that I have no 
 part in the quarrel between himself and Lord Treling- 
 ham. Not being Lady Alice's daughter, I am really a 
 stranger to the Davenants, who perhaps never heard of 
 me. but I should not have cared to hurt his feelings 
 by visiting the chalet when he was at home. I shall tell 
 him, of course. At a distance he will have other things to 
 think of, and he will not mind.' 
 
 The dinner could not last long. Though no wine 
 appeared on the table, it was one of the pleasantest in 
 Rupert's life. He must go now; and Hippolyta, with the 
 thoughtless cruelty of a young lady who was not in love, 
 when she saw that he had no greatcoat or other defence 
 against the night air, insisted on his wrapping himself in a 
 soft woollen shawl which was assuredly no part of Colonel 
 Valence's apparel. The foolish young man was now quite 
 enough intoxicated not to recover from his state of delirium 
 so long as the remembrance of that night stayed with him. 
 Hippolyta, on bidding him good-bye, detained him for 
 a moment. ' If,' she said, ' when you are telling your 
 adventures at Trelingham, you will assure Lady May that 
 I have always wanted to make her acquaintance — I should 
 rather say, to have her for a friend — and that Colonel 
 Valence knows and does not disapproi will be doing 
 
 me a kindness, and,' she continued, with a little more 
 colour coming into her checks, 'you will atone for the
 
 CHAP. XIV 
 
 IN FAIRYLAND 187 
 
 impetuosity of this morning, which I forgive the artist 
 because — because,' she concluded merrily, 'he seems to 
 have no difficulty in losing himself.' 
 
 Rupert promised, of course. What would he not have 
 promised ? It was another link between them. He knew 
 from Lady May's silence, from her never mentioning Fal- 
 side or Colonel Valence's daughter, that no other way of 
 conveying it could be open to Hippolyta. So much 
 the better. It made him, in a sort, her representative, 
 her accredited ambassador at Trelingham. But one thing 
 remained which, in spite of his devotion or because of 
 it, he had not promised, which nothing short of neces- 
 sity should compel him to do ; and that was to mention 
 where and how he had met Hippolyta. Their meeting, 
 he said to himself, was in a realm with which strangers 
 and denizens of the everyday world had nought to do 
 — in the kingdom of poetry, in Fairyland. Should he 
 tell Lord Trelingham that he had dreamt a midsummer 
 night's dream on an autumn morning? Not though his 
 reward should be, — he stopped when he came to this re- 
 flection. For the sentence would have ended by bestowing 
 on him the hand of Lady May. He was sitting in the 
 dogcart by the side of the old coachman, Andres ; and, if 
 he blushed, the dark night concealed his shame. Twenty- 
 four hours ago and less he had been resolved to ask Lord 
 Trelingham for his daughter. Had the incident of the 
 morning not taken place he must to-morrow have been 
 uniting his fortune with that of a lady whom he did not 
 love, whom he had never at any time loved. What an 
 escape ! He knew the difference now. A single day had 
 sufficed to show him his delusion. Was he grieved on 
 Lady May's account ? Love has been denned as Pegoisme 
 a deux. Rupert was in love with Hippolyta, and for him 
 the Earl's daughter was merely a lady whose portrait he 
 had painted. I do not say he would have summed the 
 position in these harsh words ; but, it is quite true, the 
 first hours of love are like a deep delirium wherein the 
 patient sees only what imagination bodies forth. The 
 world of reality slips away into unfathomable waters and is 
 found no more. Lady May had ceased to mesmerise him.
 
 THE NEW ANTJ PART i 
 
 It was a pitch dark night. Andres had n his 
 
 instructions from Hippolyta, and drove warily along, neither 
 making a remark nor troubled at the artist's silen< e. I h 
 might have been travelling towards the centre of the earth 
 or through a succession of coal-pits for all that was visible 
 on cither side. ( danville, who had a horror of darkin 
 grew tired and fell into a dose which was perpetually inter- 
 rupted by the jolting of the vehicle over stones and rough 
 (Und, or stopping to ascertain where the road turned. 
 Several times Andres dismounted to make certain that they 
 were not passing the cross lanes from Falside to Treling- 
 ham. It was weary work, made endurable to Glanville 
 only by remembering that he was wrapped in Hippolyta's 
 woollen shawl, which he meant not to return, if Andres 
 could be got to overlook it, until he had an opportunity 
 of thanking its owner in person. What ridiculous image 
 and relic worshippers are all the slaves of Cupid ! How 
 could a woollen shawl make Glanville happier except by 
 making him warmer? And yet it did, and not in 'that way 
 alone. 
 
 It wanted little of midnight when they came to the 
 front terrace of Trelingham Court. Andres rang the bell, 
 saw Glanville safely down from his high seat, demanded the 
 shawl by a respectful but not to be resisted gesture, and 
 without waiting for fee or reward drove away in the dark. 
 Lord Trelingham and the rest of the family were in the 
 drawing-room, to which Rupert accordingly proceeded. 
 There was some little commotion, followed by anxious 
 questionings, on his appearance. The Earl had been 
 alarmed and at a loss what to do, for no one could tell 
 him in which direction his guest had walked out. Ivor 
 Mardol, who had not gone to the Hermitage that day, was 
 waiting for him, uncertain whether he should renew the 
 efforts he had made a couple of hours previously to find 
 him in the thick darkness. He had been searching on the 
 Yalden side of the Park. Jiut, of course, his search had 
 been in vain. To Lady May the date marked out for some- 
 thing notable had seemed to be ending in calamity; she 
 thought Rupert might have been drowned, waylaid, mur- 
 dered, she could not tell what. Her joy on seeing him
 
 chap, xiv IN FAIRYLAND 189 
 
 was proportionate ; but she dared not trust her feelings, 
 and spoke no more than she could help. Glanville, never 
 used to giving a long account of himself, now briefly ex- 
 plained that he had not walked in the direction of Yalden, 
 but had crossed the stream and lost his way on the moor. 
 A lucky accident had taken him near Falside, where he 
 had been given something to eat and enabled to reach 
 Trelingham. 
 
 ' Did you see Colonel Valence ? ' inquired the Earl, 
 scanning his face eagerly. 
 
 ' Colonel Valence was not at home,' replied Glanville. 
 
 ' Who was, then ? ' asked Lady May. 
 
 The artist, with a great appearance of sleepy distraction, 
 answered in two words, ' Miss Valence.' 
 
 ' Oh, Miss Valence,' cried Lady May, glancing towards 
 her father f ' then you will have a singular story to tell, I 
 am sure.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' said Rupert, feeling more and more 
 sleepy ; ' but whatever it is I will tell you to-morrow morn- 
 ing. Excuse me, Lady May,' he continued, ' the long 
 drive and the dark have taken away the little sense I had. 
 Will you allow me to bid you good-night ? I am ready to 
 fall down and sleep on the floor.' 
 
 They let him go. He looked as tired as he said. The 
 Earl would have liked to ask him about Falside, which he 
 had not seen, except in the distance, for several years. 
 And Lady May, on retiring to rest towards one o'clock, had 
 only one thought in her mind, but it kept her awake for 
 hours. He had seen Miss Valence ; what was she like ? 
 Was she the sort of person to captivate Rupert, who was 
 surely of a susceptible temperament, yet seemed on his 
 guard against the approach of love ? She could not be 
 certain that he cared for herself in any passionate way. 
 Would he care at all, would he care more for Miss Valence ? 
 An anxious problem. 
 
 Rupert fell fast asleep as soon as his head touched the 
 pillow ; and during the next eight hours paid equal atten- 
 tion, that is to say none at all, to Hippolyta and Lady 
 May. 
 
 And Hippolyta? It would be interesting to know her
 
 i9o Till. NEW ANTIGONE pabt i 
 
 thoughts after that passionate pilgrim had vanished into 
 the dark. Could Rupert's undisguised admiration have 
 
 kindled in her an answering gleam? Who knows? For, 
 after one brief interview, the heroine in Shakespeare found 
 herself inquiring, ' Even so quickly may one catch the 
 plague?' Certain it is that Ilippolyta, before going to her 
 room, sat down to read once again the concluding scenes 
 of the Antigone. 'Yes,' she said to herself with decision 
 as she came to the end, ' I was right It is the Gospel of 
 Woman !'
 
 PART II 
 
 A MOCK SUN 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE MEETING OF FAIR LADIES 
 
 It was natural that Lord Trelingham should ask next 
 morning how Rupert had been led to Falside. And just 
 as natural was it that Rupert should not know where to 
 begin. He would not mention his first encounter with 
 Hippolyta, and was thereby at a loss how to explain the 
 second. He kept, therefore, to the vague and the general. 
 He had never crossed the stream before, and, on the 
 completion of his picture, had been seized with an irre- 
 sistible desire to spend a morning in the open air and to 
 explore the country which lay across the high and woody 
 banks of Yale. He was not, like his friend Ivor, endowed 
 with a strong local memory, and the mist which came 
 down on the moor obliterated the usual landmarks. While 
 in this uncertainty, Miss Valence, who w r as riding home, 
 as he supposed, and who might have gathered from his 
 appearance that he was a stranger, came to his rescue. She 
 told him that he could not reach Trelingham before night- 
 fall, and very kindly offered him shelter and refreshment 
 at her father's house. He might have hesitated had 
 Colonel Valence been at home ; but in his absence no 
 subjects were likely to be handled in which a guest at
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE paw u 
 
 Trelingham could not join, and he had accepted M 
 Val lent offer. At tliis point Lady May in- 
 
 terrupted him. 'Was Miss Valence riding unattended?' 
 
 far as he knew, she was. 
 
 le must be an extraordinary young lady, 1 said the 
 daughter. 'It is now lour or five years since they 
 came to Falside. Miss Valence has no mother, and appa 
 rently never had a governess. She has no companion, 
 and but one woman-servant is ever seen about the place. 
 But Miss Valen< e rides and walks alone where she pleases, — 
 like a man or an American young woman. I have seen her 
 only at a distant e. Is she peculiar when you meet her?' 
 
 Glanville hardly knew; no, he thought not; he had no 
 opinion, except that Miss Valence seemed to have had 
 more experience of the world than he could have supposed. 
 And here he began to consider how he should give her 
 message to Lady May. Better now than when they were 
 alone. He must speak as not having received any special 
 confidences while at Falside. 
 
 ' Miss Valence,' he said, not without an inward thrill as 
 he mentioned her name, 'surprised me in some ways. I 
 did not know at first whether she shared the Colonel's 
 feelings. But it is evident that she does not Her father, 
 no doubt, sees that she can have nothing to do with his 
 first marriage. At all events,' he went on, directing his 
 words to the Earl, 'she spoke of you, I may say, with 
 affection. Nor is that all. She expressed a strong desire 
 to know Lady May.' 
 
 'Did she really?' cried the Countess, who had been 
 listening attentively. ' How amusing it would be to know 
 such an original girl ! Do let us call on her, May.' 
 
 Her cousin was astonished, not at Karina, who uttered 
 whatever came into her flighty brain, but at the message 
 conveyed by Rupert. She was not prejudiced in favour 
 of Miss Valence. Though her own views were un- 
 conventional and her principles daringly unlike those in 
 which, as the daughter of a pious English peer, she had 
 been trained, it did not follow that she approved of 
 ' American manners,' as she called them. Neighbours 
 who remembered Lady Alice's marriage, were slow to
 
 ciiak xv THE MEETING OF FAIR LADIES 193 
 
 mention the Valences when one of the Trelingham family 
 happened to be present. Yet she had heard and seen 
 enough to give her a disagreeable notion of Hippolyta 
 as a bold, hoydenish sort of young person, brought up 
 nobody knew where, and showing in her conduct a com- 
 plete indifference to the sacred usages of the class to which 
 her father at least belonged. Lady May was capable of 
 breaking with society to gratify a strong inclination ; but 
 she was not capable of riding out without a groom. Those 
 laws of the Medes and Persians which, concerned with 
 slight outward forms, are different in different countries, are 
 yet in each inviolable. Now Hippolyta had never borne 
 their yoke. She could not feel the enormity of the offences 
 she almost daily committed against those which govern 
 Englishwomen. Not a stain could be imputed to her ; in 
 word and deed she was white as the driven snow. And 
 yet the mention of her name in any drawing-room within a 
 circuit of a dozen miles was accompanied, on the part of 
 her own sex, with mysterious looks and frowns, which 
 implied that her reputation was a thing of naught. On 
 first coming into the country she was too young to be 
 introduced anywhere ; nor did Colonel Valence, who never 
 entered a drawing-room, seek female society for his daughter. 
 She had grown up alone, and seemed not to mind it. 
 But such an eccentric way of life made it impossible that 
 the ladies around should make acquaintance with her now 
 she had reached the age of nineteen. She was excom- 
 municated by universal though tacit consent. She was a 
 social outcast, to be owned by no class of her father's 
 fellow-citizens or their wives. Did she feel it ? Was she 
 aware of it even ? Impossible to say. If she suffered, 
 neither Colonel Valence nor any of their foreign guests 
 observed her suffering. She went to and fro, or stayed at 
 home and received her visitors, with much the same freedom 
 and straightforwardness which a young man of her own age 
 would have displayed. Her manners were, in this respect, 
 American. Most certainly they were un-English. Had 
 one of the younger revolutionists that sometimes came 
 happened to interest her in his views, she would have 
 written long letters to him and permitted or enjoined him 
 vol. 1. o
 
 19-j THE NEW ANTIGONE I ' " 
 
 to answer at equa] length, nor imagined thai she w 
 indulging an unfeminine intimacy. A uredly she had not 
 
 the shadow of a notion that sm h correspondent e implied a 
 
 promise Or prospect of their union for life. As a matter ot 
 
 •. she had no correspondent except her father; but she 
 might have had a score and Colonel Valence would not 
 
 have interposed. She did, indeed, write letters at his di< ta 
 
 tion to all parts of Europe, sometimes in cypher, and often 
 without remembering their contents. These things were 
 not all within Lady May's knowledge, but some of them 
 were : and she could not de< ide whether the message con- 
 veyed by Rupert was a fresh instance of Miss Valence's 
 boldness, or whether she ought to accept it in a friendly 
 spirit. Her first resolution was in the negative. She 
 could not take notice of Hippolyta ; it would be every way 
 unbecoming. 'Did you dine at Kalside ? ' she inquired of 
 Rupert. He admitted that he had done so ; and further 
 civil questioning made it clear that Miss Valence had pre- 
 sided at the dinner-table. This was dreadful in a maiden 
 of nineteen ; how could any lady that respected herself 
 visit such a hardened sinner, such an inexcusable culprit ? 
 So reasoned the Earl's daughter on hearing these confes- 
 sions, although for the honour of her sex she made no 
 remark. Rupert, likewise, came in for his share of censure. 
 But he was only a man, and men are easily led from the 
 right path when women are bold. Call on Miss Valence? 
 no, indeed. But the Countess would not leave her in 
 peace. When she expressed her decision in a brief but 
 energetic sentence, that lady, appealing to the Earl, who 
 tolerated her saucy ways with marvellous good-nature, said, 
 ' Don't you think, uncle, that it is very nice of poor Miss 
 Valence to want May for a friend ? She must be a great 
 deal better than her father. I don't like his looks at all. 
 But Miss Valence seems very bright and charming ; it is 
 not her fault if nobody calls at such an ogre's castle as 
 Falside. I daresay she does not know what people think. 
 Although,' continued the Countess in a wise tone, ' what 
 people think is often as silly as can be. I know I wish 
 there were not always a servant behind one to spoil things. 
 If 1 were Miss Va'ence 1 should enjoy riding about where
 
 chap, xv THE MEETING OF FAIR LADIES 195 
 
 I pleased, and doing what I liked.' She spoke with con- 
 viction, the lawless creature ! 
 
 The beginning of this little speech was more persuasive 
 than the end. Lord Trelingham smiled at the first words, 
 and did not attend to the last. 
 
 ' I incline to think,' he said, with a benignant glance at 
 his daughter, ' that your cousin is not altogether wrong. 
 It might be a kindness to Miss Valence, alone and un- 
 friended as she seems to be, if you made her acquaintance. 
 You could help her to understand what is expected of a 
 young lady in her position, and perhaps put an end to the 
 isolation in which she lives. What do you say, my dear?' 
 
 Lady May was still reflecting on the odd circumstance that 
 Rupert should have dined at Falside. She did not answer 
 immediately. Her affection for the artist had not yet been 
 quickened by jealousy. But she disliked the thought of 
 Hippolyta intervening at that moment. Why could fortune 
 not have waited till Rupert had taken the decisive step? 
 It was a most undesirable incident. If she declined to 
 call on Miss Valence, she must remain in the dark about 
 her so long as Rupert hesitated. There might, of course, 
 
 be no feelings on either side ; but still She must gain 
 
 time to think. ' Would not Colonel Valence make a diffi- 
 culty?' she inquired by way of answering her father. 
 
 ' No difficulty to me,' said the Earl. ' I have long re- 
 solved that if he or his came with overtures of reconciliation 
 I would meet them half way. There are reasons why I 
 could do no other. Lady Alice's fortune is still in my 
 trust. If she left no children, it should go to her husband.' 
 
 Rupert, who had reasons on his side to encourage the 
 intimacy, threw in a word. 'I believe Colonel Valence 
 leaves his daughter free to choose her friends. She said 
 expressly that he would not be displeased at her sending 
 the message I have had the honour to convey.' 
 
 'That is strange,' said the Earl. 'I should be glad to 
 think it implied kindlier feelings on his part. But since 
 he said so, you may be sure he meant it. Valence always 
 knew his own mind.' 
 
 Nothing more was said just then. A few days passed ; 
 and Rupert, still in a dream which was so vivid and absorbing
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE part u 
 
 that lie hardlj wanted to see Hippolyta, went silently to and 
 firo in the I'aik or spent hours by the sea, his imagination 
 busy on the designs which must be prepared for the (^reat 
 1 1. ill, his heart musing on its own happiness and inspiring 
 his genius with ever fresh lights. No said little or nothing ; 
 but the wat< hful eye of his hostess caught him smiling 
 often, fantastically, like Malvolio, whom, as I have remarked, 
 most infatuated lovers resemble in their gestures. The 
 change, unobserved by others, could not escape Lady May; 
 but the meaning of it was beyond her. Rupert never 
 uttered Miss Valence's name. Now that the tctc-a-tcte in 
 the picture-gallery had come to an end, these two seldom 
 saw one another alone, and at no time for more than a few 
 seconds. While others were present Rupert stayed; when 
 they went he found a pretext for leaving the room. All 
 this he did unconsciously, not being quite awake. The 
 question whether he had done Lady May a wrong was one 
 that, after the drive from Falside, ceased to trouble him. 
 The truth is that he scarcely thought of her at all. Years 
 of absence could not have made a wider gulf between 
 them than the hours he had passed with Hippolyta, or in 
 thinking about her since their meeting. He looked neither 
 before nor after. He did not even reflect on the difficulties 
 which might arise should Lady May call on Hippolyta and the 
 innocent Amazon give an account of her visit to the Hermit- 
 age. She was capable of it ; but Rupert never heeded. 
 
 Fortune favoured him, more perhaps than he deserved. 
 The next time he rowed to the chalet Ivor was at home. 
 Our philosopher had fallen into a habit of spending almost 
 every day by himself, and appeared at Trelingham merely 
 for dinner, being occupied, as he said, in the work which 
 Rupert had given him. Imagine the consternation of the 
 latter when his friend said to him, ' By the bye, an extra- 
 ordinary thing happened here not long ago.' 
 
 'What sort of thing?' said Rupert, looking up from the 
 couch where he lounged away his time on these visits. He 
 was alarmed and nervous at what might be coming. 
 
 ' Well, I should call it a ghostly visitation,' replied Ivor. 
 'Do you remember that afternoon you wandered across the 
 moor and got to Falside?'
 
 chap, xv THE MEETING OF FAIR LADIES 197 
 
 'Of course I do,' said Rupert impatiently; 'but do go 
 on. That has nothing to do with your story, has it?' 
 
 ' Nothing ; only it fixes the date. I did not return to 
 the Hermitage that evening, as it was midnight when you 
 came home and the notion of walking through the mist 
 was anything but agreeable. I slept in my old room, next 
 to yours. Some little matters kept me till the afternoon ; 
 but I had made up my mind to come back, if only for a 
 short spell, as I had been a whole forty-eight hours in the 
 society of human creatures. So I rowed over about three 
 o'clock. The result was a series of surprises. First, and 
 most extraordinary of all, I found the coracle from the 
 other side lying at the steps.' 
 
 ' Do you mean,' said Rupert, who felt he must make 
 an effort, ' that you found it in the boathouse on the 
 Trelingham side?' 
 
 • No ; here at the steps, I tell you. It was most extra- 
 ordinary. It could not have moored itself; and I ran into 
 the house, expecting to see a visitor, little as I knew who it 
 could be. There was no visitor, although I looked every- 
 where. If any one came in the coracle he must have 
 flown away again, using wings instead of oars, for there was 
 the boat, and there was not he.' 
 
 ' A ghost, surely,' cried the other young man, laughing 
 a forced laugh. He remembered his stupidity, and anathe- 
 matised himself for leaving the coracle behind. 
 
 'But was that all?' resumed he, after his laugh was out. 
 ' You talked of surprises.' 
 
 ' I did,' said Ivor. ' Look at this ;' and to Rupert's horror 
 and delight he held up a riding -glove which must have 
 been Hippolyta's. ' I found it on the chair by the door.' 
 
 ' Let me see it,' said the arch-hypocrite. He took it in 
 his hand. Ah, how much greater was the mesmeric influ- 
 ence of this poor dead thing than of all the lightnings that 
 shot from the eyes of Lady May ! ' Go on,' he murmured 
 dreamily. 
 
 ' Go on,' echoed Ivor ; ' that is all very fine, my dear 
 boy. But what am I to think of finding a glove here?' 
 
 'That it was lost by an angel,' said Rupert, still in a 
 trance.
 
 198 THE NEW ANTIGONE part n 
 
 ' I don't think it ran have been an angel,' answered his 
 friend laughingly : 'at all events, it was not an angel out of 
 the Christian heaven, for it brought me a message from 
 quite another quarl 
 
 ■ Brought you a message? Never !' cried Glanville, now 
 thoroughly awake and starting to his feet. Could Hippo- 
 lyta be in communication with his friend? Impossible ! 
 
 'But it did, all the same ; and that is why my time has 
 been so taken up. I must leave Trelingham in a few days.' 
 
 'You don't mean that this glove,' Rupert held it tighter 
 as he spoke, 'has to do with your leaving Trelingham.' 
 
 'No ; but this piece of paper has.' Ivor, from the table 
 where he was sitting, took up a folded half-sheet of note- 
 paper and held it out. Glanville scanned it eagerly, but 
 could make nothing of it. He turned it upside down with 
 no better result. ' Is it Russian ? ' he said, ' or what ? 
 I never saw letters formed like these, if letters they are.' 
 
 'It is a cypher,' replied Mardol, 'and tells me I must 
 go to London on business.' He looked serious and some- 
 what downcast. 
 
 ' I can guess the sort of business,' said the artist ; ' but 
 of course I will not ask you about it Poor Ivor ! are you 
 still convinced that you are in the right way?' 
 
 'Utterly convinced,' replied he; 'nor is it that which 
 troubles me. But I do not like to leave you so suddenly 
 and with such little prospect of returning.' 
 
 'Shall you be absent long?' inquired his friend, feeling 
 sad and yet relieved at the turn things were taking. If it 
 was this errand which brought Hippolyta to the chalet she 
 would not mention it to Lady May. 
 
 ' I do not know how long. But I daresay several months. 
 You will have to do without me in the Great Hall.' 
 
 'And if I want you ?' asked his friend. ' You know how 
 miserable I am when you vanish out of sight in this fashion.' 
 
 ; Write to Grafton Place. One of my working friends 
 will forward my letters.' 
 
 'It seems to me,' said Rupert, somewhat bitterly, 'that 
 you trust your working friend more than you do this brother 
 of yours. Why not give me an address where my letters 
 could at once reach you ? '
 
 chap, xv THE MEETING OF FAIR LADIES 199 
 
 ' Rupert, how can you say so ? ' cried the other, coming 
 up to him and putting his hand on his shoulder. ' You 
 know that in comparison with you I have no friend. This 
 is a matter of duty or discipline, not of affection. I do 
 not belong to myself. When I am summoned I must go. 
 I shall have no fixed address ; in any case I am bound to 
 secrecy. ' 
 
 ' Well, old fellow, I wish you well out of it,' said his 
 friend. 'You ought to belong to yourself; and as for the 
 secrecy which you have promised, it can bode little good to 
 any one. But you must do what you think right.' 
 
 ' Yes,' replied Ivor, ' I partly agree with you. But 
 I have promised and there's an end on't. What excites 
 my curiosity, however, is the way in which this notice came. 
 I saw, on entering, that my books were not in their usual 
 places, and on looking round I discovered a volume of 
 poetry on the table with this paper showing out of it. 
 Had I not been so hasty in coming in, I might have known 
 there was a message by the marks on the front-door. You 
 look surprised. But they are rubbed out now, and I don't 
 mind telling you that we find it useful to adopt such 
 signals — borrowed, I suppose, from the gipsies. But still, 
 I cannot account for the messenger's getting away.' 
 
 ' Perhaps he had two boats,' said Rupert, ' and left the 
 coracle to draw your attention.' He could not help laugh- 
 ing as he spoke at the thought of trying to mislead Ivor. 
 The fatal effects of love ! He was aware that the relations 
 between Colonel Valence and Lord Trelingham had never 
 been discussed before his friend. Ivor did not know the 
 story of the Madonna of San Lucar except in general out- 
 line, nor until the adventure on the moor had Miss 
 Valence been mentioned. Thus if the young man departed 
 immediately he might never know who had left the missive 
 on his table. Rupert felt certain it was Hippolyta. Her 
 bold visit was now explained ; and the circumstance that 
 she had held a book in her hand when she received him 
 so calmly was decisive. He would have liked to ask 
 whether his friend knew the Valences or anything about 
 them. But it was part of their silent compact never to 
 indulge in personal questions which might involve deceit
 
 2oo THE NEW ANTIGONE paw n 
 
 on Ivor's part. Rupert was in the dark, not as to his 
 friend's convictions, but as to the extent to which they 
 implicated him in dangerous d That Ivor would 
 
 not countenance assassination he felt sure. I hit there his 
 knowledge ended. So now he did not dare to mention 
 Colonel Valence or his daughter. J Jut Ivor was speaking. 
 
 ' Bring two boats and leave one ; that is an original 
 idea,' he exclaimed; 'it would not be unlike the strange 
 being from whom this comes.' 
 
 'Then you know the writing?' said Glanville. 
 
 ' I know it,' replied the other quietly; ' but I do not know 
 the glove, which ought to be destroyed.' He put forth his 
 unmerciful hand while speaking, and, to Rupert's poignant 
 grief, took the beloved object away. To protest would 
 have been in vain. With sorrowful eyes the worshipper of 
 Hippolyta beheld her divine glove (is it not so the poets 
 call it ?) weighted with a stone and flung into the mere. 
 A ripple on the waters showed where it had gone down, 
 and for half a minute Rupert detested his bosom-friend. 
 But, wise even in despair, he held his peace ; and the 
 adored name of Hippolyta escaped not the hedge of his 
 teeth. Ivor, as though he had accomplished a sacred duty, 
 turned the conversation to other things ; and his friend 
 when he grew calm believed that the peril on that side was 
 past. 
 
 How did it stand on the other, which was Lady May's? 
 When in the evening he returned to Trelingham one of 
 the first to greet him was the Countess Lutenieff, and she 
 did so in the triumphant words, ' We have called on Miss 
 Valence.' The young man's heart beat fast. He thought 
 it was the Countess's doing, and he did not know whether 
 to feel grateful or the reverse. He wished the acquaint- 
 ance had begun under better auspices. But he was mis- 
 taken. Not Karina, but Lady May had proposed to drive 
 over in the afternoon to Falside. This was the outcome of 
 her painful meditations. She would see with her own eyes 
 and hear with her own ears. To linger in suspense was 
 intolerable ; it was, indeed, killing her, as she said with 
 the exaggerated language of passion for which, in this 
 instance, ground was not wholly wanting. Once having
 
 chap, xv THE MEETING OF FAIR LADIES 201 
 
 resolved on the visit, she was restless till it had taken place. 
 To her fevered spirit even the hours occupied in driving 
 to Falside seemed an age. It was a delightfully still after- 
 noon, with that serious unruffled calm over earth and sea 
 which has the solemnity though not the bitterness of a 
 farewell to things mortal. The trees were bare, the long 
 lanes dry and leafless, the country silent as they drove 
 through it. Lady May, addressing no word to her cousin, 
 sat upright in her furs and looked eagerly onward, as 
 though to quicken the pace at which they were moving. 
 She would have given much to be tranquil, but it was not 
 in her nature ; and when the carriage turned at the steep 
 entrance to Falside, she almost wished that she had never 
 undertaken this trying visit. Could any good come of it ? 
 But self-control was too much a habit of her life to be 
 shaken even by a meeting with the woman on whose 
 attractiveness or the want of it her future perhaps de- 
 pended ; and only the sharpened attention of Karina could 
 perceive that in shaking hands with Hippolyta she was 
 inwardly agitated. 
 
 The supreme powers, indeed, had so ordered it that 
 their first encounter was agreeable. Lady May acquitted 
 herself of a delicate task with grace and courtesy, while 
 the quiet spirit of the afternoon seemed to have passed 
 into Hippolyta. Unaffectedly surprised and pleased with 
 Lady May's kindness, she was not so much the spirited 
 maiden who feared neither to ride alone nor to preside 
 at the dinner -table when her father gathered round it 
 his miscellaneous guests, as the child who is all shyness 
 and gratitude in return for a token of love. With charm- 
 ing simplicity she did the honours of Falside ; and while 
 not apologising for anything in their way of life, she spoke 
 as if taking for granted the peculiarities in her bringing-up 
 and in Colonel Valence's history, which would explain 
 whatever might seem strange. There was not a turn in 
 her speech nor a trace in her bearing that could be deemed 
 unfeminine. The Countess was particularly struck with 
 her ; she was so elegantly dressed and looked so beautiful 
 in the shades of colour she had chosen that all idea of a 
 female revolutionist vanished from Karina's mind. If she
 
 2<M THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW it 
 
 . learned, she kept it to herself; if unbelieving, as people 
 said, she was certainly not aggressive Her natural delight 
 on receiving them gained her visitors in no long time, so 
 that a stranger coming in might have taken them lor old- 
 
 blished callers. 
 
 And, pray, what did they talk about? You may well 
 ask, for it was a curiously intimate yet strictly defined con 
 \Lisation. Subjects there were in the minds of all three 
 which, though constantly suggesting themselves, could not 
 be handled. Lady May found it wisest, as it was most 
 natural, to begin with the occurrence that had given occa- 
 sion to their meeting — Rupert's adventure on the moor. 
 II. id the gentleman himself been in company he would 
 have praised Hippolyta's discretion — it was equal to her 
 other adorable virtues. For when, by the tenor of Lady 
 May's discourse, it was evident that he had said nothing at 
 Trelingham of their meeting in the morning, she fell in 
 with Rupert's policy and said as little. This was not 
 because Miss Valence deemed her conduct unmaidenly; 
 the thought never entered her mind. But if Rupert had 
 not spoken, there was no reason why she should speak. She 
 allowed the story to begin where he told it ; and keenly as 
 her visitors examined her countenance while she inquired 
 about him, neither the Countess nor Lady May perceived 
 a change in its exquisite calm or noted in her voice the 
 tremulousness that is born of love. The Earl's daughter 
 began to feel happier ; and her cousin, in whose fertile 
 mind a certain plan had been ripening, had to brush away 
 a sense of disappointment when it appeared that Rupert 
 Glanville excited no more interest at Falside than a young 
 man may to whom one has given shelter from the rain. 
 Hippolyta knew nothing of his pictures, and could ask 
 about them in a steady voice. Then she passed to a more 
 important topic, — her own isolation, necessitated, in great 
 measure, by the wandering life of Colonel Valence and the 
 principles on which he regulated his household. It was 
 impossible, she said with a smile, to receive friends who 
 could not forego the convenience of servants, or who would 
 be shocked by seeing their hostess performing what they 
 might deem menial offices. Nor did she complain of her
 
 chap, xv THE MEETING OF FAIR LADIES 203 
 
 exclusion from the world. She was not without interests ; 
 she had travelled with her parents in many parts of Europe; 
 and she had books and a horse. All she wanted besides — 
 she hesitated, and looked in a pleading, affectionate way 
 from one lady to the other— was a friend or two of her 
 own sex, who might remind her that there were other 
 things as sweet and precious as the service in which she 
 was engaged. Especially, she went on, it had been her 
 desire to know a little of Lady May, to be allowed some- 
 times to talk with her, and, sooner or later, to help towards 
 healing the feud which had lasted so many years. It was 
 daring, on her part, to make the request which Rupert had 
 conveyed. 'But,' she said, 'you would not blame a poor 
 sailor who was cast away on a desert island for putting up 
 his torn handkerchief as a signal to any ship that came in 
 sight. I had no other way.' 
 
 All this was said with extreme modesty and a charm of 
 manner which Lady May had been far from anticipating. 
 Hippolyta's strange beauty dazzled her ; while the combi- 
 nation of self-respect with straightforward feeling which 
 appeared in all she spoke, made it impossible to set her 
 down as the unwomanly creature she was deemed in the 
 neighbourhood. She asked for affection. Could it be re- 
 fused ? But while Lady May was reasoning, the Countess 
 had decided. With her birdlike lightness she had flown 
 to Hippolyta, and, kissing her on the cheek, cried out, 
 ' My dear, you are perfectly charming. You may reckon 
 upon us as your friends as long as we live. What a pity 
 we did not begin earlier ; but we must make up for lost 
 time, and consider that we have been friends these five 
 years.' Hippolyta returned her embrace, saying in a low, 
 earnest voice, ' How kind this is of you ! ' But she still 
 kept her eyes on Lady May, as though the Countess's affec- 
 tion by itself would not suffice. The Earl's daughter had 
 gone too far to draw back. Neither was she disposed to 
 feel uneasy, as before their meeting. She put out her 
 hand and took Hippolyta's with a firm grasp, while she 
 said, 'My dear Miss Valence, I am not much given to 
 making promises, and the Countess knows that I have but 
 few intimate friends. But you may always reckon upon
 
 - ■; THE NEW ANTIGONE i-akt ii 
 
 tat; and I will do my best to bring about the reconcilia- 
 tion you hare at heart. Will you come one of these days 
 and see my Gather? He will be so glad to see you.' 
 
 'Oh,' said Hippolyta, 'these arc words to make one 
 happy. I Have so wished to speak with Lord Trelingham. 
 
 I will come whenever you please ; and you may be sure 
 that in doing so I have my father's consent. I did not 
 press him at all. He gave it of his own accord.' 
 
 On this understanding they parted. Hippolyta promised 
 that she would come to Trelingham for a long day, as soon 
 as her household affairs permitted; and Lady May renewed 
 her assurances that she should be received by the Earl with 
 cordiality. At the gate, to which she accompanied them, 
 Hippolyta underwent a second embrace from Madame de 
 Lutenieff, and again shook hands with the less demonstra- 
 tive of her visitors. She saw them off, and walked back 
 with thoughtful steps and slow along the terrace, listening 
 to her waterfall as it leapt merrily down the rocks. Much 
 had been done, but much remained to do. Her purpose 
 in soliciting Lady May's friendship was indeed simply to 
 end the long disagreement between the families. She 
 could not comprehend her father's motive in keeping it 
 up, unless that he fancied the Earl unwilling to be recon- 
 ciled. But the Earl had relented, according to Lady May; 
 and why should Colonel Valence not do the same ? Their 
 political differences were not to the point ; they never had 
 met, nor were likely to meet, on this ground. For if Lord 
 Trelingham was a Tory of the purest type, her father repre- 
 sented a programme which at that date no English party- 
 would have dreamt of adopting. He despised the politics 
 of the polling-booth, and would have begun his reform by- 
 abolishing not only the Crown, but the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment with it. She knew that the two men could never 
 again be friends ; why, however, should they continue to 
 be enemies? The waters kept falling with their pleasant 
 ripple, and Hippolyta roamed about her garden till sun 
 down.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LA BELLE FILLE HEUREUSE, EFFAREE ET SAUVAGE 
 
 Such was the event of which Rupert heard from the 
 Countess when he came in ; and at dinner she dressed it 
 up in the grotesque fancies suggested by her imagination. 
 She had never seen any one like Hippolyta. She com- 
 pared her, as the artist himself had done, to a sylph, a 
 creature of romance, imprisoned by Colonel Valence at 
 Falside. They ought not to rest till she was delivered. 
 Glanville laughingly inquired whether a captive sylph was 
 in the habit of riding alone all over the country; and was 
 told in reply that Hippolyta's captivity was moral, not a 
 mere imprisonment of the body. She dressed with re- 
 markable taste for one who had never seen a fashionable 
 gathering ; but that might be inspiration like Rachel's, who 
 could have worn a tablecloth as if it were a princess's 
 robe. And her manners, though wild, were beautiful. 
 Therefore she must come out and be made known to 
 civilised people. The Countess would do her that charity 
 if no one else was willing, for she adored Hippolyta. 
 
 ' Do you think her a sylph, Lady May ? ' asked Glan- 
 ville. 
 
 ' She seems to me a young lady of most unusual loveli- 
 ness, and of great intelligence and decision. But I should 
 not call her a sylph, because I don't know what the word 
 means. It is one of those sentimental expressions that 
 my cousin has learnt from her French reading.' 
 
 ' You are always severe on my reading,' said Karina ; 
 ' but we cannot all be philosophers. A sylph is a beautiful 
 creature with great dreamy eyes, and wings folded up in her
 
 206 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt n 
 
 . so that she has only to spread them and she can fly 
 
 wherever she chooses. Don't you believe that Miss Valem e 
 
 ild fly if she liked ?' 
 
 ■she has character enough to do anything/ said Lady 
 May, 'and 1 am glad to have made her acquaintance. J Jut 
 we shall know more when she comes to Trelingham.' 
 
 It was evident that she had not spoken of the Hermitage. 
 Oh, wise Hippolyta, thought Rupert. Now he should see 
 her again; and the secret between them would give him 
 an advantage. All love-making is a contest in which not 
 a little depends on the given odds. Hippolyta was to some 
 extent in his power. And he was no longer in hers — 
 since she had kept silence when to speak might have put 
 him in the wrong. 
 
 He watched every day till she came. A whole week 
 moved on at the laggard pace of time when we are expect- 
 ing something to happen. Ivor finished his work, or at 
 least put it in order for Rupert to finish ; packed up his 
 belongings, and said good-bye to the Earl and Lady May 
 with a tranquil mien in which none could have discerned 
 the passionate regrets that filled his heart. Lord Treling- 
 ham begged him to come back as soon as he could ; the 
 Hermitage would be always at his disposal, and he might 
 rest assured of a hearty welcome. He smiled sadly ; no, 
 he thanked them, it was most improbable that he should 
 return. Circumstances, his way of life, imperative en- 
 gagements, forbade the hope. But he would call on them 
 in town ? He did not know; the future was so uncertain. 
 Then Tom Davenant said he must come to Foxholme; and 
 poor Ivor turned away his face because of the shame and 
 emotion that were gathering there. If Tom could only 
 know upon what errand he was departing, the last thii 
 he would have imagined would have been such an invita- 
 tion. He loved the young man. but they stood ranged 
 on opposite sides in the battle of life ; and the trumpet- 
 call which was sounding in his own ears sternly told him 
 that friendship must yield to duty. ' I will come indeed, 
 if I can,' he answered, ' but though I never should, believe 
 that the fault is not mine. We are all creatures of 
 circumstance.' Tom had, therefore, to content himself
 
 CHAP, xvi LA BELLE FILLE HEUREUSE 207 
 
 with the mournful pleasure of driving him to the station, 
 which he did with exemplary skill, at the same time assur- 
 ing Ivor that if he would not mind little deficiencies in 
 writing and grammar — his ignorance of which the young man 
 regretted, though too late — he, Tom Davenant, should find 
 solace in corresponding with him. His friend smiled and 
 said how grateful it would make him, adding that, in case 
 he delayed an answer for some weeks, it would mean that 
 he was gone from home. Characteristic of the man I call 
 it, that his sorrow on leaving these two friends, Rupert 
 and Tom Davenant, almost made him forget the love he 
 was renouncing. Nay, he thought more of the new friend 
 than of the old during those days ; for he expected to 
 meet Rupert again in London or abroad, but this might 
 prove his last farewell to Tom Davenant. He had lived 
 more than four months at the chalet. It was now Novem- 
 ber ; and the winter of his discontent took from him, or 
 made more piercing, the remembrance of those heavenly 
 days when first he came. Happy if he could forget 
 them altogether ! But no, they would be a lifelong re- 
 gret. Even as the thought crossed his mind he smiled 
 bitterly. Lifelong might not be so very long after all. 
 He was ordered to the front ; and those who are to face 
 cannon do not insure their lives at a low premium. He 
 would not disclose to the friend by his side, or even to 
 Rupert, how serious the danger had become ; I should 
 rather say, he could not, for they would have hindered his 
 going. But a certain steady light in his eyes and involun- 
 tary tension of the muscles betokened the excitement under 
 which he laboured. 'You are not very well,' said Tom 
 to him; 'can't you wait a few days?' Rupert noticed his 
 mood, was exceedingly gentle with him as on the like occa- 
 sions in their previous intercourse; but ventured neither 
 to ask a question nor to offer advice. He knew well that 
 Ivor did not brook interference. 
 
 So he went away and disappeared into the unknown. 
 Rupert, a few days after, requested that the chalet might 
 be assigned to himself as a studio and general storehouse, 
 for he did not wish to encumber the Great Hall as yet, 
 and his sketches took up room. But he never went across
 
 ao8 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-aut n 
 
 the mere till he had ascertained that Hippolyta would not 
 
 rail in the momin \. He was now assiduous in his polite- 
 ness to Lady May, upon whose spirits a dull tranquillity 
 
 had fallen, like yellow fog Stifling and blinding her. She 
 could not subdue the fascination of being with him ; ever 
 when he came into the room the others vanished from her 
 eyes and she looked at him alone, and brooded over his 
 slightest utterances. She did not fear Hippolyta much 
 now; and not to be jealous was comparative happiness. 
 There had come indeed an end of her confidences and of 
 his listening to them. But when would he declare him- 
 self? For he was surely bound by what had passed 
 
 It was a lovely morning when Hippolyta appeared at 
 Trelingham, in a low chaise which she drove herself, while 
 the silent old groom or gardener sat behind. She had 
 come to spend the day, but not to dine ; for she said in 
 her note that they must excuse her shyness if she felt 
 tempted to fly away again as soon as she found herself 
 inside the Court. Glanville, who had been lingering since 
 breakfast about the gate by which she was to enter and 
 saw her drive by, himself lying close in ambush, ran along 
 other pathways up to the house, and the moment he 
 decently could sauntered into the morning-room where 
 the three ladies were seated. That he blushed like a very 
 young man on meeting those brown eyes need hardly be 
 said; and if Hippolyta's countenance did not put on exactly 
 the same shade of crimson, it may have been simply because 
 hers was a pale ivory cheek and his was rather swarthy. They 
 were both a good deal embarrassed, which Lady May 
 ascribed to the circumstances of the adventure which had 
 made them acquainted. She said to herself that Miss 
 Valence, though she had sinned against propriety on that 
 day, had done so ignorantly, while Rupert was often con- 
 fused on coming into a room. They talked until the 
 Earl came about the scenery of Trelingham Park, which 
 Hippolyta did not know except on the outskirts. And the 
 artist sat and gazed at her. She was more beautiful than 
 ever. Lady May, whomhecould now contrast with his divinity, 
 seemed a majestic woman, allied to the dangerous creatures 
 of forest or jungle in whose composition there is more
 
 chap, xvi LA BELLE FLLLE HEU REUSE 209 
 
 fire than light. But Hippolyta did not belong to earth. 
 Fervent she might be in her feelings, quick to speak and 
 to move ; her beauty was not childlike, nor did it appeal 
 merely to the softer passions of pity and tenderness ; but 
 there was about her, all the while, an innocent directness, 
 a virginal simplicity, which made of her ' a thing enskied 
 and sainted.' When she answered Lady May her voice 
 had in it a tone of great affection, which changed to some- 
 thing bright and sparkling if the Countess addressed her. 
 But it was clear that she listened, even while joining in 
 the conversation, for a step that happily was not long 
 delayed. Every minute she had looked towards the door 
 in anxious expectation ; and when it opened and the Earl 
 of Trelingham came in, walking with the feeble gait which 
 was growing habitual with him, she rose at once and ran to 
 meet the old man. He took both her hands in his, and, 
 clasping them affectionately, led her towards the window. 
 There was little need to say that he welcomed her; his 
 emotion proved it better than words. After scanning her 
 face eagerly in silence, he let go her hands, and said, 
 'You do not remind me of your father, my dear child. 
 But so many years have elapsed since I knew his features 
 well, that I may perhaps be mistaken. It is equally brave 
 and kind of you to pay me this visit. My daughter has 
 told you, I am sure, how glad we are to see you and what 
 a hope we have that this may be the beginning of better 
 things.' 
 
 ' I know,' answered Hippolyta, ' and I wish I could help 
 more in the matter than, I fear, is within my power. Of one 
 thing pray let me assure you, for I am certain of it,' and 
 she stopped as if for permission. 
 
 ' Go on, my dear,' said the Earl; ' do not be afraid if you 
 have anything to say.' He too seemed overcome by her 
 great beauty and simple ways. 
 
 ' What I want to tell you,' she said, ' is that my father 
 has often spoken your name of late years, and never with- 
 out affection. I cannot imagine why he has kept, and still 
 keeps, aloof from his old friends ; but there is no ill-feeling 
 in it, of that I am convinced.' 
 
 ' Thank God,' said the Earl, ' thank God ! It is all I 
 
 vol. 1. p
 
 210 THE NEW ANTIGONE past n 
 
 want, — to forget the past, which cannot be undone, and die- 
 in peace with all men. As regards your father, 1 did for a 
 long while allow a feeling "i resentment to come between 
 
 him and me. It may have seemed unjust in his eyes that 
 any one should have contested his rights as a father over 
 the issue of his first marriage. But I went by the advice 
 of others and my own conscience. However, my poor 
 sister is dead, and you are Colonel Valence's only child, 
 and it is time the past was buried.' 
 
 ' My father has hardly ever mentioned Lady Alice in my 
 hearing,' replied Hippolyta. 'It was almost by accident 
 that I knew of his former marriage, and for months after 
 
 n'ng to Falside I was ignorant that we lived near her 
 family. My mother told me when she was very ill. I am 
 like my mother. She was Spanish, and could not bear the 
 English climate, although she did her best not to let my 
 father see the harm it was doing her.' 
 
 ' Was your mother Spanish ? ' inquired the Earl. ' Then, 
 perhaps, she brought you up in her religious views.' Rupert 
 waited with some curiosity for the answer. 
 
 ' My mother did not bring me up at all,' said Hippolyta; 
 ' she was an invalid most of her time. My father taught 
 me all I know.' She spoke with composure, and seemed 
 to have said all that she thought necessary. Lord Treling- 
 ham was too well bred to pursue the examination. His 
 melancholy looks, indeed, bore witness to what he feared 
 would have been the result. He blamed Colonel Valence, 
 but it was impossible to blame his daughter; and the sad 
 spiritual condition of so lovely and innocent a creature 
 filled him with indignation, which went far to counteract his 
 previous desire to condone the past Meanwhile, Karina, 
 whose eager spirits made her sometimes inconsiderate, in- 
 quired of Hippolyta, 'Do you never go to church then? 
 I don't think your father does, at least in the country.' 
 
 Lord Trelingham, with some severity in his tone, inter- 
 posed. 'My dear Karina,' he said, 'you must really not 
 cross-examine Miss Valence. These are matters of con- 
 science, about which we have no right to be curious.' 
 
 But Miss Valence was not offended. She replied at once 
 to the Countess. ' I have been in some of the great
 
 chap, xvi LA BELLE F1LLE HEUREUSE 211 
 
 churches abroad, when there was no service going on. But 
 otherwise I do not know what is done in a church. My 
 father did not teach me religion.' 
 
 This remarkable declaration, made in her natural voice, 
 which was gentle and sweet, came upon her hearers like 
 lightning from a clear sky. It startled them, although every 
 one present had supposed it already. But there are so 
 many things we know yet could not venture on putting into 
 words. The Earl was inexpressibly pained ; Lady May 
 looked across at Glanville to see what effect this confession 
 would have on him ; and the Countess felt frightened, as 
 though a snake had turned under her hand and bitten 
 her. Rupert moved uncomfortably in his chair. It was 
 a shock to him, certainly. He would have said, in the 
 abstract, that with these matters women had nothing to 
 do ; they ought to keep to the religion in which they were 
 born and leave speculation to the philosophers. But when 
 his eyes fell on the beloved features again the discomfort 
 vanished. Hippolyta sat, a picture of quiet beauty, untroubled 
 by the momentary silence which had followed her declara- 
 tion, and perhaps too little acquainted with the ways of the 
 world to comprehend how much it had astonished them. 
 She said ' My father did not teach me religion ' as she 
 would have said, had it been the fact, ' I was born 
 blind.' She was not aggressive or defiant, but natural and 
 innocent Thus it came to pass that even Lord Treling- 
 ham's horror, which was exceedingly great, yielded to 
 compassion, and he thought it more than ever expedient 
 to make her at home among good Christians who might 
 enlighten her. 
 
 But lest that terrible niece of his should ask more 
 questions, he turned the conversation to Miss Valence's 
 knowledge of the Continent, and they were soon deep in 
 the comparative beauties of the Alps and the Apennines. 
 Her parents, it was evident, had wandered fast and far, 
 seldom staying long in one place, and never making 
 the acquaintance of great families unless some member of 
 them happened to be ' tainted with democratic opinions,' 
 as Lord Trelingham would have called it, or, in Colonel 
 Valence's phrase, 'enlightened and liberal.' There was
 
 ;i2 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAST n 
 
 something even slightly ridiculous in the way that names 
 came up between the Karl and the young lady. If he 
 mentioned a noble house, she often knew it ; but when he 
 went on to describe the august head thereof or his equally 
 august consort, Hippolyta had never seen either, and owed 
 iier familiarity with the name to a scapegrace or scientific 
 young man, the grief of his parents, who had served with 
 Garibaldi in Sicily, or was famous in the Cretan or the 
 Polish rising. Lord Trelingham bore it very well ; this he 
 had expected ; and much as he might deplore the associa- 
 tions in which Valence had brought up his daughter, there 
 were too many great Englishmen on that side to allow of 
 unmitigated censure in the instance before him. The Earl 
 was by no means liberal, but he was something which is 
 perhaps as commendable in a world where we cannot have 
 all we should like, — he was good-natured, and quite incapable 
 of identifying individuals with the doctrines they held. He 
 therefore listened with patience and a degree of interest to 
 the remarks, which were rather pointed than voluble, of 
 Hippolyta on those revolutionary young men whose pedigree 
 he knew in Lombardy and Languedoc. He was led to 
 speak of his own travels, which had been extensive ; but, 
 interrupting himself suddenly in the midst of his recital, he 
 asked whether Miss Valence had ever been in Spain. Yes, 
 she told him, once, on the side of Barcelona. And Seville, 
 did she know that picturesque city? She had not been 
 there, nor had her father mentioned his early campaign 
 in its neighbourhood. Then she knew nothing of the 
 Madonna of San Lucar ? Nothing whatever, she replied. 
 He was astonished that so striking an incident of his first 
 travels had not been a favourite theme of Colonel Valence's. 
 However, it might help to soften him still more if he learned 
 how narrowly the picture had escaped destruction. He 
 would perhaps be touched on hearing it; for the sight of 
 the portrait long ago had affected him powerfully and even 
 brought him, one might say, from Spain to Trelingham. 
 
 Herewith the Earl invited Hippolyta to follow him to 
 the gallery upstairs. She rose, nothing loth ; and as he 
 evidently wished the rest to accompany them, a general 
 move was made. The Countess, again interposing as they
 
 chap, xvi LA BELLE FILLE HEUREUSE 213 
 
 went along, asked Hippolyta whether she knew what kind 
 of picture was about to be shown her. The young lady, 
 turning half round on the stairs, answered that she supposed 
 it would resemble those she had noticed in the great collec- 
 tions on the Continent. ' You must not imagine,' she added 
 innocently, 'that I have not studied the Christian myth- 
 ology. I cannot say, indeed, that I am familiar with all its 
 details.' Glanville fell back a step on hearing this language, 
 and Karina did not open her mouth again for some time. 
 She was daring herself, but she knew that ordinary people 
 did not speak in this way; and again the simile of the 
 snake occurred to her. Lord Trelingham was either deaf 
 or preoccupied, and took no heed of the remark. Perhaps 
 he was thinking how he could make the history of the 
 picture brief yet intelligible ; for, when they arrived before 
 it, he began at once to run over the main points as we 
 know them. He said nothing of Valence's motives for 
 leaving England, nor of what followed when he came back 
 to Trelingham. But how much of his narrative did the 
 stranger apprehend ? She stood like one spellbound, first 
 eyeing Lady May and then lost in the magnificence and 
 glory of the painting. The Earl ceased to speak, and 
 there was a long silence, during which Hippolyta steadfastly 
 gazed at it, never turning her head, with the expression of 
 one who would learn a thing by heart. By and by she 
 glanced towards Lady May, and going up to her, said in 
 a whisper, ' Is not that your portrait ? And when did you 
 live in that wonderful world?' The question was extra- 
 ordinary, but Hippolyta seemed in earnest. Lady May 
 smiled with a feeling of anguish ; she still felt the distance 
 between herself and that ideal of heavenly innocence. 
 
 ' The picture was painted long ago,' she replied, ' from 
 an ancestress of mine. I sat to Mr. Glanville when it was 
 restored ; that is all.' 
 
 ' And so,' Hippolyta said, ' it is only a piece of imagina- 
 tion. But how beautiful it would be if we could believe 
 that somewhere in the heights or the depths there was a 
 perfect human creature, one of ourselves, a woman, like 
 this ! Do you suppose there can be?' she asked of Lady 
 May.
 
 si | THE .\ \NTIGONl pam a 
 
 'I do not know,' was the answer, given somewhat im- 
 petuously ; ' tin.- medieval Christians thought so, as the 
 Spanish anil Italian peasants do Still' 
 
 'Yes,' said Eiippolytaj - I used to hear them sing and 
 
 speak of the Madonna, and I called it, as my father did, 
 mythology. But I was never so impressed with a painting 
 as I am with this. I should be glad if it were a true vision. 
 And yet we all say it cannot be. The peasants have their 
 beautiful things to believe in, and the philosophers have 
 none. That is what I am always hearing at home. It 
 makes me sad when I think of it. If the truth is not 
 beautiful, what is the good of it all?' She looked round, 
 expecting some one, as it should seem, to answer. But 
 they were too much astonished at such curious words on 
 the lips of one so young. 
 
 'Such questions are not fit for you,' said Glanville, 
 coming close to her. ' If you had lived with other young 
 ladies you would not think of them. I, at any rate, believe 
 that all true things, in the long run, will be found beautiful 
 as well.' 
 
 ' Then you disagree with my father ? ' she said inquir- 
 ingly. 
 
 ' I disagree with all gloomy creeds,' he answered. ' But 
 come away, and do not look at the picture again if it dis- 
 tresses you.' Lady May listened ; she heard something in 
 his voice of which she did not approve. 
 
 ' Oh, it does not distress me ; on the contrary,' exclaimed 
 Hippolyta, ' it would keep me looking at it all day. And 
 at last I should beg the wonderful figure to open its lips 
 and speak. What grieves me is, that with colours and a 
 piece of linen you can express so much beauty — at so little 
 cost — and yet the resources of the infinite cannot make 
 this real.' 
 
 The Earl put in his quiet word. ' If you wish, my dear 
 child, to believe it real, there is nothing to prevent you. 
 I believe it in my own way ; so do the multitude of 
 Christians, and not the peasantry alone. But come, as 
 Mr. Glanville says, for you are too susceptible, I see, to 
 sudden impressions.' 
 
 She left the picture unwillingly, and looked back more
 
 chap, xvi LA BELLE FILLE HE UR E USE 215 
 
 than once as they went to the door. The incident had 
 shown her in a strange and amiable light which endeared 
 her to the heart of Lord Trelingham ; while Rupert, mind- 
 ful of his own enthusiasm when restoring the Madonna of 
 the Seraphim, said to himself that this highly poetic tem- 
 perament had at once seized its meaning and reality — a 
 result which only days of study had brought about in him 
 the sensitive artist. Hippolyta was peculiar ; but where in 
 heaven or earth could he find a more exquisite creation ? 
 
 When, by and by, she spoke of returning to Falside, and 
 the Earl was taking her to the pony-chaise which had been 
 brought round, that kind-hearted old man said to her, ' It 
 was a great grief to me that Lady Alice left no children ; 
 but, although you are not my niece in blood, I trust you 
 will always look upon me as your sincere friend, and come 
 to Trelingham often. Your father and I were boys to- 
 gether, and I can never forget him.'
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 EAVESDROPPING 
 
 Three months passed quickly by, the happiest in Rupert's 
 life Winter by the Western Sea is often wild and stormy j 
 the days have little light in them, and the moist vapour 
 tilling the air seems to cling heavily about one, while hour 
 after hour the rain-clouds creep along the sides of the 
 valleys or hang on the wooded ridges above them. It is 
 a monotonous, dull-eyed season, the least favourable that 
 can be imagined to inspiration ; and only a brave spirit 
 will bear up against it or keep alert under its stupifying 
 influence. But the brave spirit was there. If light grew 
 scant outside, and work went on slowly in the Great Hall, 
 a radiance was kindling within the artist's fancy which 
 became larger every day, adding an energy to his step, a 
 (harm to his voice and expression, and for the while utterly 
 doing away with the melancholy that used to haunt him. 
 When he was called to his London studio, as happened 
 more than once, he went regretfully, stayed the shortest 
 possible time, and ran back again like a boy escaping from 
 school over the palings. He came to be looked upon 
 almost as a member of the Trelingham household ; and, 
 in turn, he seemed to love everything in and about it. 
 His unequal humour gave place to a cheerfulness which 
 was willing to amuse and to be amused. Nothing could 
 ruffle him ; and Lady May. in spite of herself, caught the 
 infection of his high spirits, while Tom Davenant declared 
 that if all artists resembled Glanville they were not half- 
 bad fellows. The Earl, though no judge of character, 
 became ever more thankful that Providence, through his
 
 u i a p. xvi i EA VESDROPPING 2 1 7 
 
 daughter's suggestion, had put him in the way of a great 
 painter and most agreeable companion, who knew how to 
 observe the delicate line of conduct traced out for him by 
 circumstances. Rupert's behaviour was, I must say, per- 
 fect ; he kept his distance, did not ask or encourage 
 sentimental conversations on the part of Lady May, and 
 displayed towards her and the Countess a courtesy in 
 which it would have been impossible to strike a shade of 
 difference. If he had in any way presumed, here to a 
 reasonable mind was satisfaction. 
 
 The secret of his content lay near at hand. For the 
 first time in his life he was in love. He saw Hippolyta 
 when she visited Trelingham ; he met her by chance as 
 she rode out, and watched her footsteps along the sands 
 where, on bright afternoons, she sometimes walked. He 
 professed an ardent desire to know the tracks over the 
 moor which lay on the other side of Yale ; and his explor- 
 ations naturally took him up the course of the stream, if 
 only to admire in its winter glory the cascade from which 
 Falside derived its name. At this time of the year he 
 found it more romantic, and the flood of waters more 
 plenteous, than he had expected. It was, indeed, not the 
 season for out-door sketching ; yet an hour of fine weather 
 would come occasionally, and he transferred to his port- 
 folio a number of rapid and, it must be allowed, masterly 
 views in which the waterfall dashed and foamed over its 
 moss-grown rocks, and the bare trees bending over it added 
 grandeur to the scene. Hippolyta's garden, lying on the 
 hillside and green as an Alpine meadow, could not well be 
 omitted ; nor a gable of the cottage, although it stood back 
 from the cascade, and was visible only at one point of sight. 
 The young lady was not always at home when these sketches 
 were taken; but Rupert, who, like all artists, had something 
 of the gipsy in him, would go up at the back of the cot- 
 tage and humbly demand from old Dolores, the nurse or 
 housekeeper, a glass of milk to quench his thirst. Dolores 
 saw him about the place, and did not mind ; while his 
 petition, delivered in a matter-of-fact tone and without 
 hesitating, seemed to imply that it was customary. She 
 gave the milk and said nothing about it to her mistress.
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE past ii 
 
 But as he happened once to he standing at the door in 
 his vagrant altitude taking slow draughts of that beveraj 
 
 Hippolyta came running out ; i quest of Dolores, and on 
 ing him changed colour and looked confused. She 
 drew back, and tried to cover her confusion with a laugh; 
 but it ditl not serve, and she had to look another way 
 while she begged him to come into the house and rest for 
 a tew moments. No, he would not do that; but would 
 she deign to criticise the sketch he was making of the 
 waterfall in this rainy light? He could not satisfy himself 
 that it looked natural, and the opinion of one who had 
 seen the cascade at all hours would be of service to him. 
 Hippolyta was always ready to be of service to anybody, 
 she threw on a shawl, and went down the steep pathway 
 which led to the water's edge. Rupert, all thanks and 
 eagerness, made her observe the clear yellow light that was 
 filling the sunset heavens, how it spread above the waterfall 
 and irradiated the high branches and slender tracery over 
 their heads, throwing a tawny reflection from the opening 
 to their left upon the pure white foam which crowned the 
 falling torrent. Then he showed her what he had made of 
 it ; and she, who could find nothing to criticise, — for it was 
 an admirable sketch, — praised it and him, of course in his 
 artistic capacity, which resulted on his part in a momentary 
 fit of intoxication. She knew the waterfall in all its aspects, 
 and was beguiled into talking about them, even leading him 
 to an upper walk where he might see how the Yale formed 
 its tiny rapids ere it plunged down the rocks. Glanville 
 hearkened respectfully, took out his pencil and dashed 
 down a line or two, declared that she was endowed with 
 the eye of an artist and ought to take lessons in painting, 
 and would havelingeredtill nightfallhad not Hippolyta quietly 
 observed that she must go back to her bread-baking or the 
 batch would spoil, and sped away like a roe-deer, leaving 
 him the helpless victim of her charms. He could not but 
 come again and complete the sketch. Hippolyta saw him 
 from her window as he sat in front of the waterfall. She 
 hesitated a while, and then went down through the garden, 
 and gave him a commission for Lady May. This little 
 action took no time to speak of, and Hippolyta returning
 
 chap, xvii EAVESDROPPING 219 
 
 to the house was seen no more by Rupert. Yet he walked 
 to the village where he had L ft his horse, and rode on to 
 Trelingham in a state of singular happiness. He rehearsed 
 his commission openly and unabashed ; if Lady May had 
 an answer to send he could take it, for he was going the 
 same way to-morrow. And it became an understood thing 
 that Glanville intended to exhibit a landscape, in which 
 the cascades of the Yale would be introduced, during the 
 course of that year. 
 
 At Trelingham, in spite of her untutored ways, Hippolyta 
 was everybody's favourite, unless I am to except Lady May. 
 She came often, as the Earl desired; and her bearing was 
 so frank and gentle that even the censorious neighbours, 
 who were shocked when they heard that she had been 
 'taken up' by Lady Alice's brother, began to admit that Miss 
 Valence, though a perfect savage in her habits, was inter- 
 esting. Not, indeed, that many of them came across her. 
 She begged hard to be introduced as little as possible, and 
 saw only those chance visitors from whom she could not 
 get away in time. When she was thus held captive she 
 spoke hardly at all, but her silence showed that she was 
 attending, and more than one imposing and frivolous matron 
 found in Hippolyta's dumbness a check upon the ' pribble 
 prabble,' to use Fluellen's excellent phrase, which passes 
 current as ' society talk,' and is thought the proper subject- 
 matter of a morning call. Poor Hippolyta, she was much 
 to be pitied ! She did not mean to be silent ; she was over- 
 whelmed at the kind of conversation on which people fed 
 their minds. Was the great world, which gave laws to the 
 rest of mankind, and boasted of its blood, and wealth, and 
 intellect, so like that deafening house which she had once 
 entered in the Zoological Gardens where parrots and cock- 
 atoos scream all day long, and each bird sharpens its beak 
 on iron wire ? Most of the ladies, she thought, and Tom 
 Davenant would have agreed with her, had very hard 
 mouths. For want of practice she could not vie with them, 
 and she sat and listened in blank amazement. 
 
 But she had been taught to observe, and she perceived 
 that the inmates of Trelingham Court were unlike their 
 visitors. She said to Glanville, whom she often found at
 
 220 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt n 
 
 her elbow win n she turned round to make a remark, ' It is 
 curious what an unworldly air comes over tliis place when 
 callers are shut OUt, — I mean the other callers besides myself. 
 1 suppose you, Mr. Glanville, are the nearest approach to a 
 man of the world under this roof, and you would not take 
 a pri/e,' she concluded, smiling at him in a way he did not 
 think of resenting. 
 
 ' You are quite right,' he said ; ' I hope I shall never win 
 much in that competition. Neither is the Earl an example 
 of what you mean, nor Mr. Davenant. But women of the 
 world now, do you discover none ? Lady May, for instance.' 
 
 ' No ; Lady May's position requires her to seem like the 
 
 : but it is all surface. She plays her part because it 
 
 been given her, but she is too noble, her gifts are too 
 
 splendid for it. Like you, she has the genius of an artist, 
 
 and should be a musician, or write poetry, or do something 
 
 extraordinary.' 
 
 ' And the Countess ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, the Countess ! ' said Hippolyta, laughing ; ' the 
 Countess is not so much a woman of the world as I am. 
 She is an amusing, a captivating child. There is not malice 
 enough in her composition to make a woman of the world.' 
 
 ' Not malice, certainly,' thought Glanville, ' but mischief. 
 I am not always pleased with her affection for Hippolyta. 
 However enthusiastic, I doubt that it is quite so simple as 
 it appears.' In which philosophic inference, not communi- 
 cated to Miss Valence, but the fruit of observation, we shall 
 perhaps see that Rupert was justified. 
 
 The only drawback to his contentment was that Ivor did 
 not write ; while if Hippolyta was not always happy, she 
 ascribed it, in Lord Trelingham's hearing, to the fact that 
 her father had sent only a laconic message when she told 
 him of her new friends, to the effect that she might please 
 herself in the matter. He subjoined, it is true, a hasty 
 postscript, but it contained merely these words, ' You know 
 that I bear no resentment towards Lord Trelingham.' This 
 was not all she wanted by any means ; although the Earl, 
 resolved upon looking at things in a Christian light, took it 
 as a concession and bade her not lose heart. He did not 
 inquire where Colonel Valence was ; and though she wrote
 
 chap, xvii EAVESDROPPING 221 
 
 frequently, she neither spoke of his doings nor expressed 
 anxiety for his return. No one could suppose that she did 
 not love her father ; but, though impressionable, her nerves 
 had been schooled from the first, and the Colonel's uncer- 
 tain and wandering life was too familiar an experience to 
 make her uneasy. Still, she was alone in the world, — a 
 perilous situation for a maiden of nineteen. Adviser she 
 had none ; her Spanish relatives, if such existed, did not 
 come within reach of her ; nor were the Trelingham family, 
 however amiable, of the kind to influence one who had been 
 educated on principles which the Earl abhorred, and which 
 Lady May, in spite of her varied accomplishments and real 
 intellect, could not have understood. It can hardly be 
 questioned, indeed, that if Lord Trelingham had realised 
 how far they were from being abstract theories, and what a 
 bearing they had on life, his compassion for Hippolyta 
 would have been vanquished by his dread of their contagion. 
 Rupert was destined to know a little more of them. 
 
 It was that difficult time of day, for an artist in a country- 
 house, which begins somewhere about four o'clock in winter 
 and lasts till the dinner-bell puts an end to it, when Glan- 
 ville, who had been at work in the Great Hall since 
 morning, and felt so tired that he did not know what to do 
 with himself, entered the many -windowed drawing-room 
 which was then empty, and walking across its wide expanse, 
 threw himself into one of the cushioned embrasures where 
 he could lie at ease and look out at the sea beyond. An 
 immense wood-fire was burning on the hearth, and Rupert, 
 to get away from the blaze, had chosen a window as far 
 from it as possible, drawing the heavy velvet curtains about 
 him so as to be screened and comfortable. He soon grew 
 tired of watching the misty waters ; his eyes closed, and the 
 young man fell into an innocent and refreshing sleep. How 
 long his slumber continued is immaterial to the story ; but 
 it was broken in upon by the sound of voices at no great 
 distance, and as he slowly came back to himself he heard 
 an animated conversation sustained by the three ladies, who, 
 though not resembling the withered hags of fable, were 
 weaving his destiny among them. It was dark on the ter- 
 race ; but through the aperture of the curtains he could
 
 NEW Ah . NB i'akt ii 
 
 erve the flickering light of the wood-fire and the figun 
 seated near it, — Lady May with a cup in her hand, sitting 
 upright ami addressing [Carina, who was in the act of layii 
 
 a hook on the sofa where she half reclined. Hippolyta, 
 buried in the depths of a huge arm < hair, was looking straight 
 into the Barnes, but, as her expression showed, had an ear 
 for the discussion that was going on. Animated it certainly 
 
 was ; with less refinement of manner it would have appeared 
 a downright quarrel. Lady May was speaking. 
 
 ' Vmi said the other day, Karina, that I was severe upon 
 your reading. That would he absurd in me. But I do think 
 your uncle would be scandalised if he saw this kind of liter- 
 ature in the hands of any woman.' 
 
 1 Oh, Uncle William is so precise,' cried the Countess, 
 ' he would not read such a book himself, of course ; but he 
 belongs to a past generation when English people read 
 nothing but the Prayer-Book and the Quarterly Review. 
 Why shouldn't I read anything that is clever? Besides, this 
 is not one of the new romances. It is an old favourite of 
 mine. Everybody in France knows Rousseau's Confessions, 
 or knows about them. What do you say, Miss Valence? 
 You, of course, read everything.' She looked at Hippolyta, 
 who did not stir, but replied : 
 
 ' What does your cousin say ? That is of more conse- 
 quence than my opinion.' 
 
 ' I say,' answered Lady May very decidedly, ' that no 
 woman can read the French literature of the last century 
 and not be degraded.' 
 
 ' Then you have not read it yourself? ' said the Countess, 
 in a tone of mocking inquiry. 
 
 ' Not much ; but I know many, both men and women, 
 that have, and whether they admire it or no, they are agreed 
 as to its character. What good can it do you, Karina?' 
 
 'What good? it amuses me. It tells me all kinds of 
 things I want to know, — how people dressed, and talked, and 
 ate, and travelled, and made love, and ran away from one 
 another, a hundred years ago, and ever so much more. It 
 must have been a very pleasant world, not like these horrid 
 days when if you do anything it is put in the papers. And 
 I adore sentiment, and virtue, and humanity, and all those
 
 chap, xvn EA VESDROPPING 223 
 
 things. I wish we could have a Petit Trianon and they 
 would let me keep cows, as Marie Antoinette did.' 
 
 'What tinsel and paste!' said Lady May indignantly. 
 ' Yes, sentiment and virtue in the mouth of Rousseau were 
 indeed exquisite. But how can you talk in that idle way 
 about their love-making ! There was no such thing as love 
 in the eighteenth century.' 
 
 ' Paul and Virginia ? ' objected Hippolyta, still keeping 
 her eyes on the fire. 
 
 ' Yes, in romance I grant. And Lotte also was a reality 
 when she cut bread and butter for the children; but Werther 
 was not when he wept and raved about her — he was only 
 Goethe the sentimental, describing his fancies, which were the 
 one kind of love he had experienced or knew anything about.' 
 
 ' I agree with you there,' said Hippolyta ; ' all Goethe's 
 love-making was sentimental egoism ; like the Spectre of 
 the Brocken it reflected himself.' 
 
 'And Jean Jacques, what do you think of him ?' inquired 
 the Countess. 
 
 ' I have read him too little to form a judgment. That 
 book on the sofa I began one day, but I could not go 
 on with it. I felt — it is hard to give another the exact 
 impression — as if, then, I had been imprisoned in a hot- 
 house, with strange flowers all round, the odour of which 
 was sickening and a deadly poison. I should not like to 
 breathe such a moral atmosphere long.' 
 
 ' How very astonishing !' exclaimed Karina; 'you talk 
 like one of the good people, like my uncle, almost. I 
 thought you did not mind such things.' 
 
 Hippolyta looked round now. She was very much 
 hurt. ' I mind them a great deal,' she said ; ' why do you 
 think I do not mind them ? I have never given you 
 reason.' She spoke very sorrowfully, not as if she were 
 angry or insulted. 
 
 ' My dear child,' the Countess cried, ' I am so sorry to 
 have hurt your feelings. I don't mind things when I read 
 them. But as you were brought up without religion, I 
 fancied you would not be prejudiced against Jean Jacques, 
 like my cousin.' 
 
 ' Prejudiced ! no,' said Hippolyta, ' that I am not.
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW m 
 
 Personally, I have an affection for him, his life was so 
 miserable and he seemed made for better things. 
 Jacques was not irreligious, even in your sense. But, as 
 for my education, I see you do not understand what it has 
 
 n. Shall I tell you?' 
 
 • I )o,' said the Countess; and ' only as much as you 
 choose,' said Lady May. They were both interested; but 
 Lady May was somewhat doubtful as to the propriety of 
 revelations which, innocent enough on the lips of Mi 
 Valence, might confirm the Countess in her evil ways. 
 
 ' It will not be so dreadful, I hope,' said Hippolyta, with 
 a smile at Lady May. ' I have been taught on principles 
 unlike your own, perhaps, but I have never done anything 
 that I knew to be wrong. My days have gone by harmlessly. 
 So now I may begin "The Story of Hippolyta Valence, 
 told by herself." There is no need of an introduction.' 
 
 Thus far the listener behind the curtain had felt assured 
 that he should only terrify a peaceful company of ladies by 
 appearing in their midst from his place of concealment. 
 But now he was in a frightful dilemma. To escape un- 
 observed was impossible, to stay where he found himself 
 was still more impossible. He looked across at the doors. 
 They might as well have been a thousand miles off; 
 neither to the one nor the other could he get without pass- 
 ing the ladies who occupied that side of the room in force. 
 He thought, as desperate men will, of impossible alterna- 
 tives — of opening the heavy window, and getting out on the 
 terrace ; but that, too, meant noise and discovery. If only 
 it had been the French window lower down ! There is a 
 fate in these things. Instant decision alone could save 
 him, and to decide instantly was out of the question. 
 Hippolyta had begun; he did not know what to do; he 
 must remain there imprisoned and trust to a kindly Pro- 
 vidence to interpose in his favour. Some one might come 
 in, or the ladies might depart without knowing they had 
 had an auditor. He closed his eyes, but sleep would not 
 come, even if, which I take leave to doubt, it had been 
 seriously invoked. After all, Rupert was human ; he had 
 
 'bed that Hippolyta should be his, and nothing he 
 might hear would shake his resolution. These confidences
 
 chap, xvn EAVESDROPPING 225 
 
 must have come after marriage ; there was no great harm 
 in hearing them before. Thus he argued, listening the 
 while to Hippolyta's voice, which sounded in his ears like 
 an evening bell in the distance, full of dreaming melody. 
 For even now he was not thoroughly roused, though sleep 
 had fled from him. 
 
 ' I was born,' said Hippolyta, ' in Spain, not far from 
 Barcelona, where, as I mentioned to Lord Trelingham, my 
 father and mother lived for some time after their marriage. 
 They were devoted to one another and to me. My mother 
 had little or nothing, however, to do with my education. 
 She was not strong, and her friend or servant — but we do 
 not call any one a servant in our way of speaking, — her 
 friend, therefore, Dolores, took charge of me and taught 
 me all she knew as soon as I was capable of learning. 
 She had never been out of her native country, and her 
 ways were primitive enough, as I saw by comparison with 
 those of English people when I came across them. But 
 this advantage they had, I could have lived among the 
 peasantry in whose neighbourhood I spent my earliest years 
 with no less comfort and happiness than any of their 
 daughters. I know the use of right hand and left ; I can 
 take care of myself and am not afraid to live alone or to go 
 anywhere I wish. It was, indeed, the main principle of 
 my father's teaching that a woman who needed service or 
 attendance was no better than a child. He thought Nature 
 had made us free by giving us eyes and brains and a pair 
 of hands ; that it is an evil custom which, by degrading 
 women to be mere playthings and ornaments, has enslaved 
 men. He was an ardent admirer of Shelley, and like him 
 he preached the emancipation of the whole human race.' 
 
 ' An admirable thing,' said Lady May ; ' but how did he 
 propose to accomplish it ? ' 
 
 Hippolyta answered immediately, ' By making the two 
 sexes equal and free.' 
 
 ' I should like that, indeed,' exclaimed Karina ; ' but the 
 men are too strong for us, and not easily persuaded. They 
 like their wives to be dependent on them for everything.' 
 
 ' The new creed finds a short way out of that difficulty, 
 at any rate,' said Hippolyta with kindling cheeks. ' If 
 
 vol. 1. q
 
 TBR XF.r. i\iit ii 
 
 marriage is Blavery, if it cannot be reformed, it must be 
 abolished.' The Countess looked horrifii 
 
 I idy May beckoned to her cousin to keep still. ' Karina 
 is interrupting you with her questions,' she said, 'but we 
 can ask questions afterwards. Your own story is what we 
 should be most interested in hearing now.' 
 
 ' I will go Oil with it,' said 1 [ippolyta. ' As I was remark- 
 
 my father held by the equality of the sexes, and would 
 
 have their education assimilated in most things. The boys 
 
 should he taught not to live like barbarians ; the girls to 
 
 their limbs and their understandings. He would have 
 them frequent the same schools and rival one another in 
 study. I dare say you know that he was a (ireck scholar 
 at the University of Cambridge. He loved to throw his 
 principles into the shape of the antique stories; and thus 
 he often warned me that he meant to give me the training 
 of those heroic women, the Amazons, who called them- 
 selves "equal to men." That is how I came by my name 
 H ippolyta. .My mother said I should never be tall enough 
 to suit such a splendid appellation, and wished me to be 
 called Titania, which is perhaps the prettier of the two.' 
 
 ' And did you go to school abroad ? ' asked Lady May ; 
 'you must have gone to America for the mixed education 
 Colonel Valence wanted.' 
 
 ' Xo, we lived such an unsettled life. Besides, my 
 father would not have sent me to a boarding-school. I 
 learned all that was necessary at home. My father in- 
 structed me in books of every kind ; he taught me history, 
 and gave me an enthusiasm for the great movement in 
 which he was playing so many parts. And my mother, 
 lying on her couch, could show me how to make my own 
 dresses, which I have always done since.' 
 
 'You wonderful being !' said the Countess. ' I thought 
 you must have gone to a very good couturnrc ; but it was 
 your mother, I suppose.' 
 
 ' I do not think she could ever have had the money,' 
 replied Hippolyta ; 'she was a poor girl of Barcelona, 
 whose father was shot by my father's side on the barricades; 
 and that was how he came to know her first, having to 
 inform her as gently as he could that she was an orphan.
 
 chap, xvn EAVESDROPPING 227 
 
 I liked to hear my mother tell the story over again, and 
 often asked her for it. Poor dear mother, I miss her every 
 day I live !' 
 
 Glanville did not scruple about listening now. He 
 felt touched to the heart. Hippolyta was not crying, 
 but her subdued tones were full of pathos ; and as if the 
 last words had stirred recollections which she could not 
 trust herself to utter, she became silent for two or three 
 minutes, while the Countess and Lady May exchanged 
 glances of surprise. Here was a revelation. Miss Valence 
 was a gentlewoman, then, only by courtesy; for her father 
 had renounced his station and her mother had none to 
 renounce. 
 
 ' Yes,' she resumed, ' I am of the people, and am 
 proud to inherit from my mother an affection for them, 
 which has been my chief happiness. She could not read 
 or write ; she had never gone to school and did not know 
 what was meant by the word history. But she could sing 
 the ancient ballads and songs of the peasants which are all 
 the history Spain possesses, and I learnt to sing them from 
 her. She had only one religion — my father; he was to her all 
 that the world could bestow of brave or admirable ; and 
 that idolatry came natural, as you may suppose, to me. He 
 was often serious, never harsh. He showed me the mean- 
 ing of poetry, gave me large freedom, and brought into 
 play as early as possible the powers of reason and con- 
 science, not of fear, servility, or custom. The time must 
 arrive, he said, when I should have only myself to depend 
 on. He would not leave me the property which had been 
 his ; it was to be thrown into the common stock of the 
 brotherhood. So that unless hand or brain could support 
 me I should fare ill.' 
 
 ' But that is monstrous !' exclaimed Lady May; ' what, to 
 leave his only child a beggar ! Excuse my vehemence,' 
 she added, ' I see you do not agree with me.' 
 
 ' I partly understand you, but how could I agree with 
 you, my dear Lady May ? I shall not be a beggar whilst 
 I have myself. Were I helpless in mind or body, the 
 question would be different. For such cases provision is 
 to be made in the new order of things.'
 
 Till NEW ANTIGONE PAW □ 
 
 'But, positively, you arc living in Utopia,' said the 
 1 '..ul's daughter \ 'cannot you sec that these are the idlest 
 dreams? l> I lonel Valence hope to pull the world 
 ther at its four i orners?' 
 
 'I suppose you would describe it so,' answered Hippo- 
 lyta. ' My father believes in a moral dynamite which will 
 leave only such things standing as reason cannot overthrow. 
 Whatever ought to succumb will succumb. Klse we should 
 be governed by dead men who have lain in their graves 
 for thousands of years. Regeneration springs out of the 
 
 pths ; it will be the people's doing.' 
 
 ' but, anyhow, it will not come yet,' persisted Lady 
 May, in whose eyes the frantic delusion of the whole busi- 
 ness was heightened by Hippolyta's composure. 'Come it 
 will not in our time, and how are you, and such as you, to 
 live?' 
 
 ' As for me, I am better able to make my way without 
 assistance than nine girls out of ten. I can scrub the floor, 
 and blacklead stoves. I can set type. I can speak and 
 write a certain number of languages, and make my own 
 dresses. Can you do as much, Countess?' she asked with 
 a pleasant glance towards the reclining beauty. 
 
 ' Heaven forbid !' said the Countess. ' I can speak 
 like a parrot any language I hear spoken about me. But 
 I have no't a housemaid's gifts nor a printer's.' 
 
 ' More is the pity,' replied Hippolyta. 'However, since 
 I can do these things, I do not mind facing the world. 
 Moreover, I have the comfort of thinking that I eat no 
 morsel which I have not earned.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Karma, ' I never earned anything, and I 
 never shall. But that does not signify. You would not 
 condemn me to starve like Ugolino, would you, if the 
 Revolution came ?' 
 
 ' \o ; I should keep you in a golden cage, as a beautiful 
 curiosity of the past,' said Hippolyta, ' and you should 
 subsist on the money taken at the doors.' They both 
 laughed at this sudden fancy, which was as novel to the 
 speaker as to the person that figured in it. ' But what did 
 you mean by saying it does not signify?' 
 
 'Oh, this,' said the other lady: 'I wanted to ask you
 
 ohai'. xvii EAVESDROPPING 
 
 229 
 
 whether there would be marrying and giving in marriage 
 when your father had his way. You said not, at the be- 
 ginning.' 
 
 ' I said, or at least I had it in mind to say, that there 
 should be no marriages of interest, or convenance, or with- 
 out affection on both sides. There should be no slavery in 
 marriage, no women shut up in a moral seraglio with the 
 bolts and bars of the law keeping them in durance while 
 their husbands were free. They should cease to be chattels. 
 Where there was love there should be marriage ; and 
 when love ended marriage should end too. I would 
 burn the body when the spirit was fled ; the coffin you call 
 marriage with the corpse of a dead affection.' 
 
 Lady May had become very thoughtful. She raised 
 her eyes and looked steadily at Hippolyta till she had done 
 speaking, and then said, with remarkable earnestness, ' Is 
 not that the doctrine of Free Love?' 
 
 ' If you like,' replied the young enthusiast, ' but I call it 
 Free Marriage.' 
 
 ' Where is the difference ? I can see none,' said Lady 
 May. 
 
 ' That would be a long story. Love ought to be free, 
 or it is worthless. But you understand by free love yield- 
 ing to every impulse of the passions, and I mean obeying 
 the true woman's heart and despising tyrannical laws and 
 usages. My father's motto has ever been, to distrust im- 
 pulse and to despise custom. They are his very words.' 
 
 ' But a woman has nothing to go upon except impulse 
 and custom,' said Lady May. ' It is exactly how I should 
 describe her life. Men, of course, have something else ; 
 they are strong, and can override custom and put down 
 their impulses.' 
 
 'And why should a woman not do the same? She is 
 strong in her affections, and she might be as strong in her 
 reason if she were shown how. At any rate, when I 
 learnt from my father that we women have a task and a duty 
 in the world of to-morrow, I did not understand him to be 
 encouraging caprice, or unbridled desires, or wandering 
 fancies. I have seen many households in travelling over 
 Europe with him ; and when they were unhappy, the
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-akt ii 
 
 . as he pointed out, was that women are only half 
 
 women, not so jur>t or truthful as nun because their for< 
 heads have been flattened and their minds kept childish. 
 The balance will never hang equal between the sexes till 
 their union is free and rational.' 
 
 • How come you to have thought so much at nineteen 
 on a matter like this?' inquired I.ady May. 
 
 ' because my father believes that knowledge is better 
 than ignorance. He pointed out the books I was to read ; 
 and my mother, who understood him and was of a singu- 
 larly apt mind, instructed me according to his wishes.' 
 
 'Then you do not approve of marriage, after all?' said 
 the Countess. 'You think it is a wicked custom. I sec 
 that you do agree with the French romances, although you 
 have not read much of Jean Jacques. How my uncle 
 would open his eyes if he heard you !' 
 
 ' I did not say all marriages were wicked,' answered 
 Hippolyta; ' only that the true marriage is the union of heart 
 with heart, of human beings who are free to give them- 
 selves and worthy of one another. Custom is nothing, 
 pledging the hand is nothing ; and passion, they say in the 
 stories, will not last. In my father's creed marriage is 
 the ideal of human life. It will be realised as it ought to 
 be with other good things that are waiting.' 
 
 1 But oh, my dear,' sighed the Countess, ' we cannot 
 wait. We get old so soon — ten years sooner than the men, 
 for they have the best of everything. Look at my Cousin 
 Tom, for example. He is just about my own age ; and if 
 we were equal, as you said in your very pretty sketch — 
 and I am sure I wish we were — but he looks ever so much 
 younger than I do.' 
 
 Hippolyta was inwardly amused. The Countess's tender 
 idyll was no secret to her ; but whether she thought it 
 should be realised in the golden age she would not say. 
 A long pause followed. Glanville, his mind filled with 
 conflicting thoughts, irritated, yet more in love than ever, 
 was hardly conscious that he might be discovered at any 
 moment, and that the consequences would be dreadful. 
 During the conversation, which had absorbed all their 
 attention, the ladies had neglected to tend the fire, and it
 
 chap, xvn EAVESDROPPING 231 
 
 was dying down into dull white ashes, with a spark here 
 and there glowing out of them. The sensitive Karina, 
 usually wrapt in furs, began to shiver and look round for 
 the explanation. ' Why, May,' she cried, ' the fire is gone 
 out ; we have forgotten to drink our tea, and it is quite 
 dark and dismal. I am half-dead with cold. Do ring for 
 lights.' 
 
 ' We had better adjourn altogether,' replied her cousin, 
 to which Rupert mentally added an amen. ' I don't know 
 what has come over us to be sitting here like the witches 
 in Macbeth. Now, my dear,' she continued, taking Hip- 
 polyta by the hand, ' since it is the first time you are 
 dining here, you had better come to my room and put 
 yourself in the hands of my maid. You would only get 
 nervous if I were not there to see after you.' 
 
 Rupert strained his eyes through the curtains, and held 
 his breath while the ladies were moving towards the door. 
 They were very slow, for they had shawls and wrappers to 
 collect in the semi-darkness ; and it was not until the open 
 door allowed a gleam of light to come in from the hall 
 that they could see what they were doing. At last, at long 
 last, they went. Glanville gave a sigh of relief; he waited 
 a moment till the coast was clear, and then pulling the 
 curtains aside, rose and stretched himself. He felt ex- 
 tremely tired and not a little excited. It was about 
 time, he said, that this strange conversation had ended, 
 for he could not have endured either his cramped position 
 or the thought of eavesdropping much longer. And with 
 these words he grasped the handle of the door. At the 
 same moment he felt some one turning it from the outside. 
 
 Aghast, he staggered back, the door opened, and Hippo- 
 lyta came running in. As the light fell full upon Rupert, 
 standing like a lost man in front of her, she stopped and 
 put her hands to her breast. A nervous woman would 
 have screamed, a silly one would have fainted ; but Hip- 
 polyta, possessed of the rare courage which answers at call, 
 did neither. Her eyes met those of the artist, steadily, 
 inquiringly. He was dead silent. ' You did not come in 
 just now ? ' she said. He replied in a faint voice, ' No ; 
 it was — I don't remember how long ago.' She blenched, but
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONL pam ii 
 
 kept looking at him still. 'And you heard what I have 
 been saying ?' — ' I heard all,' mis the low answer, 
 
 'Then,' she said, with the greatest agitation in voi< <• 
 
 and manner, 'oh, then, you despise me;' and as she 
 
 spoke she turned from him. lie caught her by the sleeve. 
 
 ' Despise you !' he < ried in a tune of the deepest low ; 
 
 ' I [ippolyta, 1 adore you.' 
 
 She plucked her sleeve from him and was gone. Hi 
 heard her step on the stairs, hut he dared not follow. 1 le 
 ^o overcome that he leaned against the wall to recover 
 himself. Was he ashamed or exultant, struck with remorse 
 or full of hope and courage? lie was all these at once. 
 For the notions that Hippolyta had learned from her father 
 he cared not a jot. Hers was a soul that turned them all 
 to favour and to prettiness ; she believed them because 
 they seemed noble in her eyes and came with authority 
 from the being she most revered. That she had laid bare 
 her very innermost heart in speaking with Lady May and 
 the Countess he was certain. She could never have been 
 so frank with him, even though he stood in the place of a 
 declared lover. He despise Hippolyta ! Good heavens, 
 why could he not this instant follow her and fall at her feet ? 
 But the die was cast. She had no choice now but to 
 understand. He would speak that evening, if it were 
 possible; to-morrow, at any rate. He had meant to wait 
 a little for fear of alarming the bird ere it was caught in the 
 snare; but events had proved too much for him. He 
 must venture all, and, if necessary, venture again anda^ain. 
 While he stood absorbed in meditation the first dinner-hell 
 sounded, and awoke him to the things of earth. He ran 
 upstairs with a quicker step than usual, wishing that for the 
 next four and twenty hours society and all that it inherit 
 could be dissolved, leaving him and Hippolyta to be their 
 own universe. At the bottom of his heart he doubted her 
 love as little as he doubted his own. ' Free love, free 
 marriage,' he repeated mechanically; 'yes, Hippolyta, it is 
 love that makes us free.' 
 
 He hardly knew what he was doing, and made sad 
 havoc among his dressing things during the next half-hour. 
 The fingers were hot and trembling with which he fumbled
 
 chap, xvii EAVESDROPPING 233 
 
 at his neckcloth ; he took up this and that which were 
 nothing to his purpose, looked about the room for what he 
 held in his hand, had just sense enough not to attempt 
 shaving — which, had he begun, this chronicle might 
 speedily have been ended — and was not in any way 
 ready when the second bell resounded in his ears. He 
 came in as the rest were seated round the dinner-table, 
 and took his place, which the fates had willed should be 
 next to Hippolyta. He seemed distraught, but I regret to 
 say that his distraction did not originate in a feeling of 
 shame for what had happened. This honourable man, 
 who for a long hour had listened behind a curtain to con- 
 versation which was not intended for any man's ears, could 
 be scarcely said to remember where he had passed the 
 afternoon. Some remnant of grace hindered him from 
 directing his eyes towards Hippolyta. He knew very well, 
 notwithstanding, both how she looked and what flowers she 
 wore in her beautiful golden hair. He knew that she felt 
 as uncomfortable and as happy as he did ; that the slight 
 quiver in her voice when she spoke — and she said but little 
 — had infinite meanings ; that her shyness equalled his, 
 although it was better concealed ; and when dinner was 
 drawing to an end he absolutely looked up and met the 
 tremulous smile on her lips with the shadow of an answer- 
 ing smile upon his own. 
 
 The Earl, unconsciously, was very good to them. 
 Knowing Hippolyta's unwillingness to say much in the 
 presence of strangers, he had invited her on a day when 
 the family were alone ; and as she appeared to be still 
 in terror he acted like a considerate host, and spoke of 
 things indifferent which required no answering, or narrated 
 incidents out of his own past, and had the gratification of 
 seeing the young lady's eyes bent on him while he dis- 
 coursed. For no reward in the world would she have ven- 
 tured to address Rupert except in monosyllables. Once, 
 I say, she met his gaze, and her lips fashioned them- 
 selves unwillingly into a smile. But that over, she was 
 glad to escape ; and when the gentlemen entered the 
 drawing-room Glanville learned that Miss Valence had 
 been too much fatigued to stay up, and was departed to
 
 THE xr.i. V£ r.\i;i 11 
 
 her slumbers. His apology, bis declaration of love or war, 
 must wait until the moon came out of the clouds again. 
 
 But Hippolyta had not gone home; that was his com* 
 tort. He should see her in the morning. She appeared 
 at breakfast; was tongue-tied as on the previous evenii 
 and exceedingly careful not to address the young man, 
 whose courage, dashed for a moment by her silence, re- 
 vived when he looked upon her calm and beautiful fa/ 
 She was agitated by no inward trouble, only absorbed and 
 mastered Could it be that she thought he would not 
 speak? He waited to hear of the arrangements for the 
 day. Hippolyta, still pleading fatigue, asked that the 
 expedition they had planned might be put off till the 
 afternoon, or till her next visit. Rupert was exultant. If 
 she staved in the house or in the Park he would find his 
 opportunity. And so it came to pass. The other ladies 
 went out riding. Miss Valence sat in the morning-room, 
 where the lights were pleasant until mid-day, and a cheerful 
 fire was burning. She had drawn her chair to the window, 
 and was writing at a small desk, bending over which her 
 figure was visible to any one that came that way along the 
 terrace, Glanville walked about in the air, trying to collect 
 his thoughts and cool the fever which ran in his veins ; but, 
 crisp as was the morning, and cold and clear in the stinted 
 sunshine the aspect of the distant waters, he could not 
 bring down his high beating pulse. And when he had 
 passed by the window where Hippolyta sat more times 
 than he could reckon, he summoned up heart of grace, 
 and walked boldly into the hall. In another moment he 
 was by her side. Hippolyta, in her extreme agitation on 
 seeing him there, stood up and had not a word to say. 
 They both coloured violently. 
 
 'Miss Valence,' he began; he could get no further. 
 She did not know how to rebuke or to encourage him, or 
 which of the two she meant. He waited until she resumed 
 her seat, then began once more. ' May I speak to you?' 
 he said, in the lowest tones of a passion-stirred voice. ' I 
 have an apology to make which ought not to be delayed. 
 I have a mind to unburden of its load. It seems as though I 
 were always doomed to offend you, and yet, — oh Hippolyta,
 
 chap, xvii EAVESDROPPING 235 
 
 he said, bursting out, ' you must, you do understand 
 that since I saw you at the Hermitage I have had no other 
 thought, day or night " 
 
 ' Than to offend me ? ' she asked, with her quick sense 
 of the entanglement into which this eloquent lover had got 
 himself. ' I am sure I ought to be very much obliged.' 
 But the taunt would not serve. Rupert was in too serious 
 a mood to be laughed out of his passion. 
 
 ' Don't,' he cried ; ' you are cruel. I hardly know what I 
 am saying ; but I do know, and I must try to make you 
 know, what I mean. Hippolyta, if you can return the love 
 I have felt ever since that day you will make me the hap- 
 piest man alive. Can you, Hippolyta?' 
 
 Her face was burning. She grasped the edge of the 
 writing-table to steady herself. Which way to turn she did not 
 know, but it seemed to her that unless she made a resolute 
 effort she should fall off the chair fainting. Rupert stood 
 looking down on the ground, motionless and silent. The 
 murmur of the waves came, like the sound of bells in the 
 air, faint and musical, athwart the stillness ; and neither of 
 them spoke. Slowly, however, Hippolyta gathered up her 
 strength as if for a supreme effort. She said to Rupert 
 in a steady voice where no vibration betrayed her feeling, 
 'Mr. Glanville, let me ask you one thing.' He raised 
 his eyes. She seemed perfectly mistress of herself as she 
 went on, ' Do you mean that you respect or despise 
 me?' 
 
 ' Oh heavens,' he exclaimed, ' is it possible you can 
 doubt ? Hippolyta, I worship the ground you walk on. I 
 never saw any one to compare with you.' 
 
 ' And yet you listened yesterday afternoon to a conver- 
 sation in which, if aught was said that as a matter of 
 principle could shock you, — and I suppose many things 
 shocked you, — I was the offender. I am well aware of the 
 views men commonly take, what they expect of a woman, 
 and what virtues they prize.' 
 
 ' But I am not such a man,' returned Glanville with 
 eagerness. ' Why do you not blame me rather for hearken- 
 ing where I had no right, than yourself for uttering senti- 
 ments which you learned in infancy ? '
 
 THE NEW ANTIGO pari n 
 
 1 Blame you?' she answered, as if the notion bad n<»t 
 
 i urred to her, ' be< ause I did nol think of it. I suppo 
 you an honourable man If you overheard me and ma 
 no sign, I daresay there was some explanation Oh no, I 
 did not blame you.' 
 
 'God bless you, Hippolyta,' he cried \ 'you arc the most 
 idmirable woman in the world. Was I to blame? I 
 should have been perhaps. I confess, but for the feeling of 
 intense and ardent love which made it impossible I should 
 hear and not love you still more. It was that, and only 
 that, which hindered me from at once coming forward 
 when you began the story of your life' And then, in few 
 words, he told her how he had fallen asleep and what 
 happened afterwards. She listened to him gravely, and as 
 though waiting lor the conclusion he would draw from 
 her yesterday's avowal. It was not long in coming. 
 
 'I am not given to philosophy or revolution myself,' 
 were his words, ' nor can I pretend to feel enthusiasm 
 about anything except art. But what does it matter? 
 If you will stoop to love me, Hippolyta, I shall be happy. 
 And if you will not? Oh, I cannot bear to think it. You 
 see how impossible it is that I should live without you.' 
 
 He drew nearer as he spoke, and the great flame of 
 his affection seemed to be rushing about her and hiding the 
 whole world in its divine radiance. In her own mind she 
 had surrendered already ; what was there to oppose to 
 Rupert's vehemence and sincerity ? But still, she would 
 have a clear understanding. 
 
 ' You know how I have been brought up, you have 
 heard what I think, and in spite of all that you profess to 
 care for me ? ' 
 
 ' Profess to care ? Are you not the very breath of my 
 existence? I am talking, perhaps, like a fool, like a boy. 
 But, Hippolyta, lay upon me any task, put my sincerity 
 to the test, do as you please with me now and henceforth, 
 and you will see whether my love is honest and true.' 
 His vehemence made him gasp for breath. 
 
 Hippolyta rose and put her hand in his. The maiden's 
 eyes were glowing with soft light; the flush on her coun- 
 tenance was beautiful to see. ' Rupert,' she said. Then
 
 chap, xvn EAVESDROPPING 237 
 
 she too paused an instant. How he waited for the next 
 word ! ' Rupert, I believe in you. Such as I am, since 
 you — why should I not say it ? — since you think of me 
 in this way I will be yours.' He took her other hand in 
 his with a convulsive grasp. But she drew herself away, 
 and continued, ' Only you must not come between my father 
 and me. I have promised to do his bidding in many 
 ways that for the present I cannot explain. Free I am not. 
 And, therefore, if you will not consent to wait until these 
 things are over and done with, say the word. Let all this 
 be as though it had never been. You could not guess 
 what a strange and difficult course is mine.' 
 
 'Ah no,' said Glanville, 'it shall never be spoken, the 
 word that would separate us. I am willing to wait. How 
 long, Hippolyta ? I can be patient if you love me.' 
 
 ' It may not be long,' was her answer : ' a few months ; 
 at the outside a year or two. My father has lately shown 
 more reserve in speaking to me than he was wont. But 
 I know the time is running out, and that a crisis is 
 approaching. Can you trust me to do you no injustice, 
 to do myself none ? ' 
 
 ' I trust you altogether, my darling,' he said ; and 
 there his great joy overcame him. 1'he strong man broke 
 down. Hippolyta was much affected. With a charming 
 mixture of affection and timidity she laid her hand on 
 his arm and said bashfully, ' Why do you cry ? Are you 
 displeased at anything I have said ? No, I see you are 
 not. I thought Englishmen never showed their feelings.' 
 She laughed very softly, with the tenderest playfulness in 
 her accents. Rupert caught her in his arms and for a 
 single moment held her there. But she slipped away from 
 him, and, leaving her unfinished letter on the desk, fled 
 out of the room. 
 
 Such was Rupert Glanville's engagement with Hippolyta 
 Valence. When they met again in private, which by favour 
 of the gods happened that very afternoon, it was decided 
 that they should keep their promises secret until Hippolyta 
 gave permission to make them known. This was not 
 Rupert's proposal, or entirely his wish ; for he felt, with 
 reason, that he could not have a better defence against
 
 j;s THE NEW ANTIGONE paht n 
 
 Lady May, nor put forward a more intelligible excuse 
 for his change of conduct towards her, than to announce 
 the en nt But Hippolyta, to whom he <li<l not 
 
 speak of the Earl's daughter, was apprehensive that a pre- 
 mature disclosure of what had taken place would thwart 
 her efforts to bring about a reconciliation between the 
 families. She knew how great was Lady May's influ 
 over Lord Trelingham ; neither had she waited until now 
 to discover that something in the nature of an enthusiastic 
 friendship, perhaps of love, existed on her side which had 
 not been returned by Rupert. She would be a rival, 
 sooner or later, — unsuccessfully, no doubt, but a rival still, 
 — for the hand of the artist. That need not signify once 
 Hippolyta had brought the Earl and her father into some 
 sort of agreement. But meanwhile, secrecy appeared to 
 her an absolute part of discretion. She was not afraid 
 of losing Rupert, his love would protect him, and she 
 had been too well used to deny herself pleasant things, 
 and therefore knew how to be patient. The gentleman, in 
 that submissive state which lasts till he reaches the altar, 
 and ceases as if by magic when he is returning down the 
 church after certain words have been spoken, yielded un- 
 complainingly. He was glad enough to have an assurance 
 of possessing Hippolyta at whatever time and under such 
 circumstances as she, in her wisdom, might determine. 
 You never saw a mountain-pard so tamed by kindness, so 
 subdued and willing to follow the hand that led him along, 
 as this fiery, clear-eyed, tender-hearted Rupert. His best 
 friends, always excepting Ivor Mardol, would not have 
 known him as he stood humbly attendant on the behest of 
 his newly-found mistress. Might he tell Ivor? he inquired. 
 Hippolyta reflected for a while, and answered between a 
 smile and a sigh that she did not doubt his friend, but it 
 would be as well to let nobody hear of it besides her father. 
 To him she was writing by the next post.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE CELTIC KING ARTHUR 
 
 So these two, opening the gates of Elysium, went down 
 into its heathery dells and fresh green woodlands side by 
 side. They had found one another amid the wastes of the 
 world, and might ramble where it pleased them in a golden 
 dream. They loved with the ardour of youth and the 
 intensity of exceptional natures. Hippolyta's strange edu- 
 cation had kept her innocent of the thousand artificialities 
 which too often spoil the best of women, making them help- 
 less, sentimental, or false, when they desire to be brave and 
 true. She was the most loyal of human beings ; her tem- 
 perament was steeped in poetry, and the sweet impulses of 
 the heart gave her slightest words a fascination. But where 
 she loved she could not be sentimental ; and Glanville, 
 who had sometimes felt wearied with Lady May's — how 
 shall I call it ? — too great effusiveness, was delighted with 
 a companion at once so charming and so sensible. She 
 told him much of her earlier life and her father's character 
 and principles. To Rupert Colonel Valence seemed an 
 enigma. He did not comprehend how a man who had 
 professed such a hopeless creed as he had gathered from 
 the Colonel's lips in the churchyard at their first and only 
 meeting could spend his life in forwarding Utopian schemes. 
 But Hippolyta, when this difficulty was urged, had much 
 to say in explanation. ' My father,' she remarked, ' does 
 take a sad view of existence. He thinks the forces of 
 Nature are terrible and often malignant. To struggle against 
 them, he says, would be as foolish as attempting to sweep 
 the stars out of the sky. They are high above us, and we
 
 77//: A'F.W ./.\7/</c PABTH 
 
 cannot reach them, though theii influence shapes our 
 destinies. But he will not allow that human n rnment, 
 
 or the ignorance of an oppressed multitude, or the distinc- 
 tions of ranks and birth, arc among the forces of Nature. 
 When we come to that Utopia Which jrou wise men of the 
 world scorn ' — she laughed and looked at Glanville, who 
 was delighted to be so mocked — 'we shall still be face to 
 fat e with the terrible unknown powers that we can neither 
 control nor appease. So my father says. But is that any 
 reason, he asks, why we should tolerate kings and kaisers ? 
 Thus he combines the deep melancholy, which seems to 
 grow upon him every year, with a burning zeal and such 
 incessant activity as will not suffer him to stay at home. I 
 feel it, but I would not hinder him from being noble. My 
 husband, when I have one, must be father and mother too. 
 Will he, Rupert, think you?' 
 
 I need not chronicle Rupert's answer. He was willing 
 that the Colonel should be always absent if they might be 
 together. And they were, sometimes with no third to 
 lessen their happiness, but oftenest in the company of their 
 friends at Trelingham. One day, in particular, about a 
 month after their engagement, Rupert, who spent many 
 hours in the chalet working at his designs, begged Lad;, 
 May and the rest of them to pay him a visit and see what 
 he had done. The ' rest of them ' included Hippolyta, 
 who now often dined at Trelingham, and occupied the 
 room which her kind host insisted on calling hers, and 
 which was kept for her use whether she came or no. 
 
 It was a morning in March, but that mild climate turns 
 March to April, and the promise of spring was in the air, 
 filling it with dewy freshness. The party was larger than 
 usual, and included not only the three ladies, but the Ear] 
 himself, Tom Davenant, and the learned Mr. Truscombe, 
 clergyman of the parish, whose devotion to King Arthur 
 had nearly sent Glanville home at the beginning of our 
 story. The naval expedition which crossed the mere con- 
 sisted of two comfortable skiffs and an outrigger for Tom 
 Davenant j and luncheon was to be served in the chalet at 
 the close of the exhibition. Glanville had expressly invited 
 Mr. Truscombe. They were very good friends, and, though
 
 chap, xvni THE CELTIC KING ARTHUR 241 
 
 wide as the poles asunder on all other subjects, had, 
 as we know, various thoughts in common regarding their 
 hero. 
 
 ' I must confess,' said Mr. Truscombe, as they stood 
 before the drawings, ' that I have never had patience with 
 the ultra-sceptics who look upon King Arthur as a myth : 
 
 " That gray king, whose name, a ghost, 
 Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain-peak," 
 
 as one of their poets describes him. In my two volumes 
 may be seen documents which prove not merely that he lived, 
 but when he was born, how long he reigned over Britain, 
 and the approximate dates of his twelve great battles with the 
 heathen from over sea, together with fragments of the laws 
 he enacted at Camelot, London, and York. As well, on 
 the strength of poetical confusion in the Song of Roland, 
 deny that Charles the Great existed as, on a like ground in 
 the Morte d' Arthur and similar epic treatments of our sub- 
 ject, refuse to believe that Arthur was one of our most 
 valiant monarchs.' 
 
 Glanville listened to the worthy man in respectful silence ; 
 and when he had concluded took up his parable. 
 
 ' You and I, dear sir,' he said, ' are of one mind as to 
 the essential point, which is that a medieval writer, like Sir 
 Thomas Malory, could understand, and therefore could 
 truly represent, no age but his own. The art of seeing 
 through the eyes of a dead or distant generation was born, 
 one may say, yesterday. It is only the modern artist or 
 historian that can picture King Arthur in his habit as he 
 lived and the world which he dwelt in. Suppose him to be 
 a real personage of the fifth or sixth century ' 
 
 ' No need to suppose, my good sir,' interrupted Mr. 
 Truscombe ; ' I have proved abundantly that he cannot 
 have been born later than ' 
 
 ' Quite so,' said Glanville ; ' I accept your data and do 
 not discuss them. For me, as an artist, the question is 
 how, if such a man existed, did he appear to the eye, what 
 type of race did he belong to, of what species was his military 
 apparel, his camp, his court ? On such points, I contend, 
 the writers upon chivalry are unsafe, or rather impossible, 
 vol. 1. R
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE PART n 
 
 guides. They knew nothing of the ages that went before 
 them. Fancy oik- of Arthur's knights bein ribed as a 
 
 near relation, cousin in some degree — 1 forget which — of 
 Joseph of Arimathea ! ' 
 
 The company was disposed to laugh, but not so Mr. 
 TrUSCOmbe. ' Ah, there,' he said, ' they may well have 
 been in the right l'"or Joseph of Arimathea came to 
 (llastonbury about twenty years, as I calculate, after the 
 Ascension ; and as he may have married in Britain ' 
 
 Glanville, who saw that he was on the very edge of an 
 abyss into which next moment the erudite but fantastic 
 Mr. Truscombe would drag him down, hastened to save 
 himself by timely admissions. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, ' yes. I am sure you have made your 
 calculations with admirable care, and I have not a word to 
 say against Joseph of Arimathea or Glastonbury. All I 
 meant was that the elements, the necessary ingredients of a 
 sixth century epic must be of quite a different cast from 
 those which were taken after the Crusades to construct the 
 legend — I would say the cycle — of Arthur.' 
 
 ' And what do you suppose the true elements to be ? ' 
 inquired Hippolyta, who was interested and forgot her 
 timidity while she was speaking. But she knew her face 
 was burning when she had got the words out of her mouth. 
 
 'Look at these drawings,' replied Glanville; 'I think 
 you will perceive in them a glimmering of my idea. I 
 do not pretend, however, to minute learning ; and I am 
 willing to go one mile even with Sir Thomas Malory, if I 
 am not compelled to go twain. I agree, for instance, that 
 historical reproduction is not the same thing as archaeology. 
 But there is a middle way between the realism we cannot 
 hope to achieve and a caricature, if I may term it so, bor- 
 rowed chiefly from what we see around us — from the stark, 
 staring present — and given out as an image of the past. 
 Nor, again, do I say that you may not, if you have genius 
 like Mr. Tennyson, array these old-world stories in the garb 
 of our century ; but then they cease to be epic or historical, 
 and become fables with a moral running through them. 
 One kind of reality or inspiration they lose to assume 
 another, and I have no quarrel with such a transformation.'
 
 chap, xvin THE CELTIC KING ARTHUR 243 
 
 ' But I have,' said Mr. Truscombe in his deep voice ; 
 1 it is tampering with holy tilings. The man who moralises 
 King Arthur into a fable will perhaps have as little respect 
 for King David.' 
 
 ' Anyhow, ' Glanville went on, ' if the House of Tre- 
 lingham is to be represented as descending from Uther 
 Pendragon, it will never serve to paint on these walls the 
 fancies of the late middle age. Now, I conceive that the 
 older epic is the more truly poetical. It has less mono- 
 tony ; it does not give you ever-recurring adventures of a 
 similar type, castles all built on one plan, enamelled mea- 
 dows with a fountain in the middle of them, tournaments 
 so much alike that to describe one is to know all, and a 
 small company of actors which may be reduced to a knight, 
 a damsel in distress, a villainous dwarf, and Merlin the 
 Enchanter. I feel the exquisite pathos of certain incidents 
 and the grandeur of certain quests. But none of these 
 things need be discarded, and much may be gained for 
 poetry, if we fill them with the rude, tumultuous warrior 
 life, and light this up again with the gleam of a declining 
 or a nascent civilisation such as did, in fact, shed a terror 
 and a glory over the Arthurian period. But, really, I am 
 making a speech. It will be pleasanter, perhaps, to see 
 what I have endeavoured to design.' 
 
 ' Yes, but you can go on talking,' said the Countess. 
 ' I know a little of the older poetry, which I began to read 
 during those terrible long nights in Russia when we sat as 
 still as mice, not having a word to say or anything to amuse 
 ourselves with except cards, which I hated. And I do like 
 the ballads and those strange old German stories, much 
 better than the Idylls of the King. They are so wild, they 
 make the blood freeze in your veins with horror and then 
 hot with a kind of war-dance. You know the tales I mean,' 
 she said, speaking to Lady May ; ' the Nibelung stories and 
 those gruesome ballads about swan's wings dropping blood.' 
 
 ' Upon my word,' answered Lady May, ' you will give 
 your friends a delightful idea of your character if these are 
 the things that please you.' 
 
 ' I understand Madame de Lutenieff,' said the artist, 
 'and I am glad to see that she understands me. The
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE pa«t n 
 
 battle for Britain between Saxon and Cymri cannot have 
 been child's play. It was " sword-play " rather, and " shield 
 lightnings," to quote a metaphor of the latest singers. 
 
 There ought to he the feeling of an everlasting Struggle in 
 pictures of the time. Again, there is the extraordinary 
 combination of Roman customs inherited during their st 
 in Britain with the ancient habits and traditions which 
 existed before their arrival and lasted when they were gone. 
 The Romans, the Cymri, the Saxons — add to these the 
 Celts who brought over sea other legends, other manners, — 
 allied to those of their British cousins, yet not the same, — 
 and arts, like that of working in fine gold and colours, 
 which have never been indigenous within the four corners of 
 this island. I daresay I am using terms rather loosely, and 
 Mr. Truscombe will set me right. But such has been my 
 notion, — the cycle of Arthur is of a more elemental period 
 than that in which it became famous, and the colours in 
 which it is usually painted are not its own. The legends of 
 Ossian and Cuchullain have more to say to it than Boiardo ; 
 it is partly Roman, but more than all it is Celtic, in its dim 
 enchantments, its fury of hopeless battle, its almost feminine- 
 tenderness of friendship, its fainting passion, its religious 
 ardours, all at length vanishing in defeat, and being found 
 no more.' 
 
 Mr. Truscombe was somewhat too literal to follow the 
 artist, and would now have been glad to ask whether he 
 believed in a real King Arthur or held him to be a coinage 
 of the brain. But, somehow, Glanville's eloquence daunted 
 the antiquarian. He was fain, therefore, to take up the 
 nearest of the drawings, which represented a pirate ship 
 disembarking its mailed hordes, and to put a few searching 
 questions on the subject of chain armour, regarding which 
 he was the first authority in Europe. Glanville replied ; 
 and the others looked at his designs. 
 
 On so genial a day, when the sun was bright and warm, 
 indoors and out seemed equally alluring. The party 
 scattered, — some remaining in the study to discuss the 
 drawings point by point, others lingering about the verandah, 
 or going down to the boats and paddling round the chalet, 
 which on every side presented a different but agreeable
 
 chap, xvni THE CELTIC KING ARTHUR 245 
 
 aspect. While they were thus occupied Rupert invited 
 Hippolyta to ascend the watch-tower. She looked round 
 for a companion, but every one was busy, and she ran gaily 
 up the stairs with him. The watch-tower was empty, and 
 the great window gave a delightful view of the long gorge 
 with its waving woods, the meandering silver thread which 
 marked the course of the Yale, and the clear-shining waters 
 with a circle of clouds above them which closed in the 
 scene. Side by side Rupert and Hippolyta stood, without 
 uttering a word, in that most intimate of companionships 
 which would be lessened, not added to, by speaking. 
 Their cup was full, was brimming over. Happiness had 
 come to them and seemed willing to stay. The breeze 
 which fanned their cheeks, the light which rested lovingly 
 upon their heads and appeared to caress them, was intoxi- 
 cation enough. They could have remained silent thus and 
 lost in a delicious sense of their nearness to one another 
 had not some movement on the waters below them broken 
 the spell. It was only Tom Davenant mooring his out- 
 rigger at the steps. Glanville smiled, and, as if remembering 
 the purpose that had brought him, went to a chest of drawers 
 in the room, and taking thence a square sheet of paper, as 
 it would seem, returned to Hippolyta and held it before her. 
 The young lady looked, drew back a little to see the object 
 more clearly, and took it in her hand with an exclamation 
 of delight. ' Oh Rupert,' she cried, ' when did you paint 
 this ? ' 
 
 He laughed mischievously. ' If you speak so loud what 
 will become of your precious secret, Hippolyta ? ' 
 
 ' True,' she said in a lower tone ; ' but I am so astonished. 
 How could you recollect me in my riding-habit, and paint 
 it all from memory. For you never saw me in this attitude 
 but once.' 
 
 ' How could I recollect ? Ask rather how I could 
 forget. I saw you day and night as you stood in the room 
 downstairs, your head turned expectantly towards the door 
 and a book in your hand. You pretended to be afraid, but 
 your eyes did not look it. Oh, it was easy enough to paint, 
 I can assure you, Hippolyta.' 
 
 ' Hush, you mustn't say Hippolyta,' she whispered, ' and
 
 346 THE NEW ANTIGONE taht u 
 
 keep y<»ur distance, sir. Yes, it is beautifully done. But 
 where arc my riding gloves? I don't look complete without 
 them.' 
 
 ' They were lying on a chair when I < ame in and dis 
 turbed you. Then you took them up, intending to go. 
 But you left one of them behind, all the same.' 
 
 ' Did I, indeed ? ' she said, with great calmness. ' And 
 1 suppose you found it. You must restore it, please.' She 
 was laughing to herself slightly. 
 
 'I wish 1 had found it,' said Glanville pettishly, 'but it fell 
 to the lot of Ivor Mardol to do that ; and the wretch threw 
 it into the mere.' 
 
 Hippolyta became interested. ' How do you know he 
 found it? ' she asked. 
 
 ' Because he showed it me. I held it for two or three 
 minutes. Then he took it away again, and said it ought to 
 be destroyed.' 
 
 ' Did he say anything else ?' 
 
 ' I don't think he said, but he implied that a message 
 had come with the glove.' 
 
 When Hippolyta heard these words she became very 
 quiet. She was thinking whether to leave matters as they 
 stood, or explain them to Rupert. When she had made up 
 her mind she said, with her eyes fixed on her own portrait, 
 ' And you told him who had brought the message ? ' 
 
 ' I told him nothing,' answered Rupert. ' I had not 
 your permission. Moreover, it was no concern of mine. 
 There are subjects on which Ivor and I have agreed that 
 confidence between us would be impossible, and we are the 
 best of friends notwithstanding.' 
 
 ' Well,' she said, ' that is right, and only what I should 
 expect from both of you. I do not know Mr. Mardol except 
 by your report, though of course I knew his name when I 
 came here that morning. I have never seen him. Rut I 
 may, without breach of orders, tell you what concerns 
 myself. I remember saying that my visit was due to 
 curiosity — and, in fact, it was. I had a message to give 
 your friend of great, though to me unknown, import. Nor 
 could I entrust it to another, or present myself at Trcling- 
 ham. In this difficulty I forget who told me that Mr.
 
 chap, xvin THE CELTIC KING ARTHUR 247 
 
 Mardol had taken up his abode in the chalet, which I had 
 often seen from the heights over there, but had never entered. 
 The thought occurred to me that I had better make an 
 attempt to see him here. I was curious about the place, 
 for, as perhaps I told yon, my father used to be its regular 
 tenant when he was a young man. Whether I saw Mr. 
 Mardol was of no consequence. I could make pretty sure 
 that he would receive my message once I was able to get 
 into his study. I came to the water's edge, examined the 
 state of the rooms by means of a pocket telescope I 
 carried with me, and arrived at the conclusion that there 
 was no one at home. I determined to hazard it, and 
 rowed across, being afraid only that somebody might 
 come from the other side and catch me before I disem- 
 barked. However, nothing of the sort happened. I 
 ventured in, left my message in such a way that it could 
 not be overlooked, and went, somewhat timidly I confess, 
 into the remaining rooms, like Bluebeard's wife when her 
 husband was gone out. I little expected that Bluebeard 
 would return from my side of the water ; and I was more 
 alarmed than you think when I saw you. Did you notice 
 any gesture I made as you opened the door ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Glanville ; ' I was too much taken aback to 
 notice anything, except that you were the most lovely 
 woman I had ever set eyes on.' 
 
 ' Quiet, quiet,' she answered. ' No, I soon perceived 
 you could not be the person of whom I was in quest, or 
 you would have given me the countersign. Dear me,' she 
 went on meditatively, ' when my father joined the movement 
 if any one had talked to a stranger, — and you are a stranger, 
 
 you know .' He held up his hand, as if to threaten 
 
 her, but she motioned him to keep still, and continued, 
 ' Talked, I say, of signs and countersigns, he would have 
 been judged a traitor and punished as he deserved. But 
 now we are coming more and more into the open ; there 
 will soon be little secrecy left.' 
 
 They heard Tom Davenant calling Rupert. ' The Earl 
 wants you,' he said, as they came downstairs. ' I think 
 there is some plan afoot about your drawings and my birth- 
 day, though the two things haven't much connection, one
 
 THE NEW ANTIGOA past ii 
 
 would think. It is all the Countess's doing. I wish she 
 ild let it alone she is too clever by halt' 
 On entering the studio they found the party collected 
 round Rupert's drawings, and Madame de Lutenieff in 
 earnest conversation with her cousin. She at once came 
 to the artist, and with enthusiasm in her accents said to 
 him, 'Oh, Mr. Glanville, I do so hope you will take my 
 side. I .mi sure as a painter you ought' 
 
 ' I shall have the greatest pleasure in doing so,' he 
 answered gallantly, ' as soon as I know what the discussion 
 is about. But Mr. Davenant has left that for you to tell.' 
 
 1 Mr. Davenant never comes to my help in anything,' 
 she said, with a reproachful look at that young man, who 
 instead of attending to her was considering the signs of the 
 times, so far as they could be studied from the window in 
 front of him. 
 
 ' I don't see the good of a dress ball,' said Tom, without 
 looking round. ' Why cannot people dance in their ordi- 
 nary clothes and not make themselves into a museum of 
 curiosities ? Fancy me got up like your Launcelots and your 
 Percivals, or whatever you call them ! They look absurd 
 enough on a stage, but in a ballroom where you know who 
 the fellows are they look twenty times more ridiculous.' 
 
 ' But then.' said Lady May, 'you profess to hate dancing 
 altogether and you don't want to keep your birthday, so you 
 are out of court. This is the case,' she continued, address- 
 ing Glanville: 'my Cousin Karina was struck with the 
 ensemble, to use her own term, of your designs, and thought 
 they would fall into admirable groups if we could get people 
 to dress up to them. She is very fond of dancing, — arc 
 you not, Karina ? ' The Countess made a gesture of 
 delight, but would not interrupt Lady May, who went on 
 to explain that among the festivities to celebrate Mr. 
 Davenant's majority — she looked at Tom as she spoke — a 
 dress ball would do much to enhance the general pleasure, 
 and there was the (heat Hall, with its frescoes begun, in- 
 viting them to illustrate the door from the walls, so to 
 speak, and to make a grand tableau vivant of the Arthurian 
 legends. It would be an original and quaint device, but 
 without Glanville's aid in designing dresses and sketching
 
 chap, xvin THE CELTIC KING ARTHUR 249 
 
 the groups it could not be carried out. How did it strike 
 him ? 
 
 Instead of answering like a sensible young man, Rupert 
 turned demurely to Miss Valence and inquired what she 
 thought. She laughed, and blushed, but would not reply 
 beyond saying that in these matters she had no opinion to 
 give. 
 
 ' But Mr. Glanville is quite right,' said the Countess ; 
 ' you ought to have an opinion, my dear. For you would 
 of course shine in our galaxy that evening.' 
 
 ' I shine in a galaxy ? ' said Hippolyta, laughing ; ' you 
 forget, Countess, that I have never been introduced to 
 society, and should most likely not be admitted if I wished 
 for such a thing.' 
 
 ' Oh, nonsense,' replied Karina ; ' you have the most 
 old-fashioned ideas. In the first place, there is no such 
 thing as society, in that exclusive sense of the word, now; 
 and in the second, it would not matter if there were. Make 
 your debut at Trelingham, my dear, and rely upon it you 
 will find no doors locked afterwards.' 
 
 Hippolyta smiled. ' Now that your door is unlocked 
 to me,' she said, addressing Lord Trelingham, ' I do not 
 think I mind whether the rest are shut or open.' 
 
 ' My dear young lady,' said he, taking her hand, 'you 
 will be most welcome if you come to this house, either 
 on the occasion my niece has mentioned, or any other. 
 Colonel Valence may have renounced society, but that 
 should be no injury to his daughter, and only those would 
 raise a question who do not know you.' 
 
 ' Well, and of course you will come,' said Karina ; ' that 
 is all settled. I will be your chaperon and — but have you 
 learned dancing?' she asked with comic anxiety. 
 
 Hippolyta answered, ' I am more of a Spanish than an 
 English girl, remember. Did you ever hear of one who 
 could not dance, or was not fond of dancing ? It is the 
 most exquisite enjoyment I know. But, indeed, I have 
 not danced in such fine company as this would be.' 
 
 'Never mind,' said the Countess ; 'you will probably 
 put us all to shame. However, is it decided, and does 
 Mr. Glanville promise his services ? '
 
 2 $o THE NEW ANTIGONE ia u i n 
 
 •\\w Glanville will promise anything, 1 replied the in- 
 fatuated artist. He had never till then thought of dancing 
 with Hippolyta. What a heaven of happiness was in store 1 
 How admirable of the Countess to propose it and of Tom 
 Davenant tocomeof age just at that time I To get any 
 further conversation of a sensible kind from Rupert was 
 for the rest of the day impossible. The Countess made 
 her observations; Lady May, whose suspicions had been 
 lulled to sleep, was not blind, and began once more to 
 feel the gnawing pangs of jealousy ; while Mr. Davenant 
 wondered that people should care so much about tiring 
 themselves to death in a hot and crowded assembly, and 
 would have given all the balls between now and next year 
 for a good day's fishing. 
 
 But the dress ball was decided on, and there were to be 
 tableaux representing King Arthur and his Table Round.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 TABLEAUX VIVANTS 
 
 In proposing, out of her own head, a dress ball at which 
 Miss Valence should be present, the Countess Lutenieff 
 was carrying out one of those schemes, so dear to the 
 impish character she affected, through which accidents of 
 a perverse kind are wont to happen. She was not very 
 learned or large-minded ; and, like most ignorant persons 
 of a quick-witted turn, she was subtle, preferring always the 
 crooked path to the straight, and delighted when she could 
 imagine that she made the puppets dance to her playing. 
 Since she had recovered from the shock of her husband's 
 death — it had taken her about six months, for she was 
 of an affectionate disposition — her one aim had been to 
 marry Tom Davenant, whom from a child she had wor- 
 shipped. This alone reconciled her to the English sky 
 with its everlasting gray tones, and the English manners at 
 once so self-satisfied and so chilling. But Mr. Davenant 
 was a shy bird, and would not stoop at her call. Nor had 
 she a falconer's voice to lure him back again from his pur- 
 suit of more interesting prey. He, like the rest of the 
 Davenants, was guided by a fine sense of honour, — too 
 fine thought the Russian lady, since it appeared to be 
 driving him on a marriage with his cousin. And its recom- 
 pense might possibly be the hand of Lady May in spite 
 of the six years which divided their ages. Nothing, said 
 Karina to herself, will make me secure on that side but a 
 violent passion on the part of Lady May for some one who 
 is not Tom Davenant. Might not Glanville be the man ? 
 She had hoped and prayed so while the painting went on
 
 252 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt ii 
 
 in the picture-gallery ; but that was now at an end. The 
 artist seemed to be dominated by a fresh sentiment in 
 which Lady May had no part, and as Tours birthday 
 drew near, bringing with it apprehensions of calamity, the 
 
 Countess sat down to consider what could be done. If 
 
 Glanville was not desperately in love elsewhere he would 
 fall a sure victim to her cousin, provided that May Davenant 
 cared to subdue him. Ami how make her care? A great 
 passion, Karina had read in her French authors, is only a 
 slight one thwarted by a great difficulty. Add jealousy to 
 liking and the thing might be done. Whatever else was un- 
 certain, it could not be doubted that May cared for Glanville 
 more than she did for Tom Davenant. If she married her 
 cousin, it would be from devotion to the name and ancient 
 descent she had been taught to revere. Let her be in- 
 fatuated about the artist, and her refusal of the cousinly 
 hand would follow as a matter of course. Miss Valence 
 had entered from the side-scene, therefore, just when she 
 was wanted, and her cue, in the language of the drama, 
 was 'green-eyed jealousy.' To promote that feeling in the 
 breast of Lady May was now her cousin's dearest wish, her 
 hourly and daily thought. The dress ball seemed to her 
 an inspiration of some good genius. There would be much 
 preparation, and at Trelingham a great deal of rehearsing 
 — so to call it — with these original costumes, which would 
 need to be carefully designed. And when the intimacy of 
 the preparations had stung Lady May like a gadfly, the ball 
 itself was to do the rest. She would see Rupert with 
 Hippolyta. She would be mad with disappointment and 
 jealousy, above all if her attention were directed that way; 
 and when her feeling had reached that height — good-bye 
 to Cousin Tom, concluded the Countess ; he will speak 
 only to be repulsed. Thus she thought, much musing; and 
 the unconscious puppets fell into their places, and waited 
 till she should pull the wires to begin their exhibition. 
 
 One point remained doubtful. Was there really any- 
 thing between Hippolyta and the artist, and if so, how far 
 had the attraction gone? To ascertain this was of the last 
 importance. Too little would be as fatal as too much. 
 Miss Valence went about in the most beautiful innocence,
 
 chap, xix TABLEAUX VIVA NTS 253 
 
 quiet and composed, like one that had not a care in the 
 world. When at Trelingham her bearing towards Rupert 
 was cordial and friendly, but disarmed suspicion ; and 
 though the artist was often in the neighbourhood of Fal- 
 side he never passed its threshold. The truth was that, 
 with Glanville's roaming habits and Hippolyta's constant 
 ridings unattended at what hour and in which direction 
 she pleased, these young lovers could afford to be on their 
 good behaviour at the Court. They met under every 
 variety of circumstance, and the romance of concealment 
 added not a little to their passion. It was not, however, 
 a very wicked way in them. Colonel Valence had taught 
 his child that she must search into her heart, follow where 
 it loved, and not fear the consequences. Though no reply 
 had come to her letter, she knew he would consent. He 
 must have got beyond the reach of correspondence, she 
 fancied ; that was all. 
 
 Not long after the ball had been determined on Miss 
 Valence was surprised one afternoon to see the Countess 
 Lutenieff ride up to Falside, enter the library, and ask her 
 dear Hippolyta for a cup of tea. She was all smiles and 
 graciousness, hoping she had not interrupted the interesting 
 work in which Miss Valence was sure to be engaged ; but 
 the lovely air and the absence of Lady May, who was visit- 
 ing some distant friends for some few days, had tempted 
 her to ride over the moor for a tete-a-tete, which she knew 
 would be delightful. Hippolyta put away her books and 
 papers, made her visitor welcome, and submitted to her 
 fate. She was quick enough to perceive that Karina had 
 laid her plan for an afternoon's talk, but on what subject 
 or to what end, in so flighty a creature, it was impossible 
 to conjecture. They sat by the open window, which was 
 a bower of exquisite creepers, and looked down the valley 
 over green meadows and cornfields where the blade was 
 springing. Hippolyta waited and wondered. But the 
 purpose which had brought Karina still lay hidden, sharp 
 and cruel as it was, like the sword of Harmodius wreathed 
 in myrtle. She touched many flowers of talk with her light 
 wings, flitted up and down from art to social systems, from 
 women to their dressmakers and the last new thing in
 
 854 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW ti 
 
 female frippery, coming nearer and nearer to the point Bhe 
 had in view, sweeping round it in circles that i rew 
 
 narrower. She could be wily and indirect when she chose, 
 although much of her ordinary conversation had the mali- 
 cious naivete of a precocious child's. And thus, without 
 quite knowing how they came to it, Hippolyta found herself 
 discussing Lady May's opinions on the subject of marriage 
 .i\\(\ her probable destiny. Nothing could be less reserved 
 or affected than the Countess while speaking of her cousin. 
 • And oh, my dear,' she said, ' I thought how providential 
 it was, the other day, that you gave us your own romantic 
 \i ws — delightful I <all them — when May was by to hear 
 you. It will, it must, 1 am sure, have done her good.' 
 
 'Inwhatway?' inquired Hippolyta, languidly. She did 
 not want these sentimental confidences, especially with the 
 Countess. 
 
 ' Ah, you know, a word in season does so much good. 
 you were warning my cousin against a temptation which, 
 with her present ways of looking at things, might well prove 
 too much for her.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! ' said Hippolyta. She would not encourage 
 the Countess. 
 
 ' Yes, indeed,' answered the other eagerly ; ' no less than 
 to make a real marriage </<' convenance where affection would 
 have no share, to sacrifice a consuming passion to interest, 
 or at any rate to opinion. You spoke so beautifully of obey- 
 ing the impulse of the feelings. I am sure she agreed with 
 you. Do you remember how little she seemed surprised 
 1 >y what were certainly bold views ? ' 
 
 'Yes/ said Hippolyta, feeling uncomfortable, though 
 she could not say why. What was all this about? Had 
 she any interest in it ? She must know more. ' A consum- 
 ing passion,' she said after a pause. 'That is very strong 
 language. And have you been told who is the object of 
 Lady May's devotion, or is it a secret ?' 
 
 'I have not been told,' replied Karina ; 'but to me it 
 is no secret. What should you say to Mr. Glanville?' 
 
 Ilippolyta's heart gave a great leap. The sword was 
 out and had gone through her. 'Mr. Glanville?' she 
 echoed under her breath. It was impossible to go on.
 
 chap, xix TABLEAUX VIVANTS 255 
 
 The Countess waited, like some savage beast that sees its 
 victim fascinated at its own first spring from the thicket. 
 But Hippolyta did not mean to let her secret escape. She 
 took in her hand the cup of tea which she had laid down, 
 and went on with an effort, ' Mr. Glanville, — I have nothing 
 to say to Mr. Glanville. Do you mean that Lady May 
 would accept an artist ? Would it not be marrying beneath 
 her?' 
 
 ' I did not talk of marrying ; I talked of a consuming 
 passion. That is just the point. My cousin, if she held 
 your principles, would insist on marrying Mr. Glanville, for 
 she has been in love with him ever since he came to Tre- 
 lingham, and he with her. But she is tempted to marry 
 Mr. Davenant, who stands next in the succession to her 
 father's title and estates.' 
 
 This was overwhelming. The sword now was rifling 
 her heart, turning in the wound it had made. Hippolyta 
 was no woman of the world, and her poor brave defence 
 was nearly at an end. Rupert in love with Lady May ! 
 The room reeled about her ; she could not speak ; she was 
 incapable of thinking. Karina sat still, conscience-stricken 
 at the apparent success of her stratagem, but yet enjoying 
 its success. She had in her that mixture of cruelty and 
 remorse which plays so strange a part in the Russian 
 temperament. She was disgusted with herself; but nothing 
 in heaven or earth would have stayed her hand now. In 
 this contest Hippolyta was not her match. A pause of 
 some moments ensued, at the end of which Miss Valence 
 in a low unsteady voice, which could scarcely be heard across 
 the table, murmured, ' In love with one another ! It is 
 impossible. I do not believe it.' 
 
 ' No ; I daresay you are as much surprised as I was 
 when it first dawned upon me. Not that Mr. Glanville is 
 unworthy of my cousin's hand ; far from it, he would do 
 honour to any woman.' This was cunningly said, as a 
 compliment, forcible though indirect, to Hippolyta's own dis- 
 cernment. ' But,' the Countess went on, ' if you had seen 
 them, as I did, for weeks together, morning after morning 
 in the picture-gallery, Lady May talking and Mr. Glanville 
 looking at her, you would have no doubt on the subject.'
 
 2S6 THE NEW ANTIGONE PART II 
 
 Karina forgot, apparently, how often she had left themali 
 and departed on her own errands. 
 
 • I u course he Looked at her,' said Eiippolyta with a 
 melancholy smile; 'how else could he have painted her 
 portrait ? ' 
 
 •' Mi, hut there is looking and looking. Moreover, they 
 engaged in the most confidential talk, quite like old friends. 
 ifou know how charming Mr. Glanville's conversation can 
 be when he is in the vein.' 
 
 Ah, yes, she did know, too well for her peace. It was 
 a dangerous gift that sudden vehement inspiration which 
 made his tongue so eloquent, his imagination so vivid and 
 original, after a long interval of silence or depression. She 
 had observed that when Rupert was in the mood any 
 listener would suffice ; all he seemed to need was an audi- 
 ence. The explanation which he gave her one day was 
 plausible, but did not take away the peril. He said that 
 when a man has lived by himself as much as he had done 
 in former years, the necessity for speech becomes from time 
 to time imperious, and it matters not whose is the open ear 
 into which it is poured. He had a whole chapter of curious 
 illustrations to the point, adding merely that he still found 
 himself holding forth to an audience of one without mind- 
 ing whether his silent vis-a-vis were taking in every word he 
 said or falling asleep open-mouthed under its influence. 
 But she was convinced that when he chose to speak his 
 audience would not slumber. Lady May had been charmed; 
 yes, why should she not ? Before Karina spoke that idea 
 had crossed her mind But had Rupert been charmed 
 in turn ? How was she to find out ; what was she to 
 think? Could she ask this chattering, frivolous, mocking 
 lady, who cared little what game her shafts brought down? 
 
 But there was no need to ask. Karina went on with 
 her story, founded on fact as we know, but embellished and 
 exaggerated until it seemed that Rupert might have been 
 kneeling at Lady May's feet, in the guise of a troubadour, 
 imploring her to have pity on a desponding lover. Hippolyta 
 could say little in reply, nor dared to utter that little. If 
 she spoke, she was betrayed. Her utmost effort only 
 succeeded in casting a doubt on Karina's powers of obser-
 
 chap, xix TABLEAUX VIVA NTS 257 
 
 vation. But the Countess was not to be shaken. ' Rely 
 upon it, my dear Hippolyta,' she said, ' Lady May is 
 devotedly attached to Mr. Glanville, and he was not 
 unwilling to accept the incense she offered. Three months 
 ago I should have said he was in love with her ; and I still 
 think it, although naturally the opportunities for its display 
 are neither so frequent nor so favourable as they were. 
 You, of course, may have surer grounds to go upon.' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? ' said Hippolyta, resolved to with- 
 stand this prying. ' You do not suppose Lady May would 
 give me a confidence which she seems not to have bestowed 
 on you.' She spoke hotly and angrily. 
 
 'Now, my dear,' answered the Countess, 'you will 
 frighten me if you look like that. I mean no harm. But 
 you are such a friend of Mr. Glanville's, since the day you 
 gave him shelter, that I fancied he might have spoken to 
 you of his longings, aspirations, and so forth.' 
 
 ' He has never said a word to me about Lady May,' 
 answered Hippolyta, still angry and miserable. ' Why 
 should he come to me about her ? ' 
 
 ' Why, indeed ? But men like to take advice sometimes 
 from a woman they can trust. However, all this is wide of 
 the mark. It is curious how one topic leads to a hundred. 
 For, you see, we began by saying what an excellent thing 
 it would be if your principles could become those of Lady 
 May. She ought to marry Mr. Glanville ' 
 
 ' She ought to do nothing of the kind,' said Hippolyta, 
 irritated into expressing more than was prudent. ' Let her 
 marry her cousin, according to the custom of her class, and 
 her own convictions of duty.' 
 
 ' What ? ' said the Countess, delighted to see the flame 
 spreading and glowing so warm ; ' surely you are incon- 
 sistent, Miss Valence. Would you not have her marry the 
 man she loves ? ' 
 
 ' Not if he does not love her.' 
 
 ' But he does, I can assure you. Mr. Glanville has 
 peculiar ways, like all his tribe. Nevertheless, observe them 
 during the next few weeks when they are together, and you 
 will be as convinced of it as I am. Dear, dear,' she said, 
 rising at the last words, ' how quickly the afternoon passes 
 
 vol. 1. s
 
 25S THE NEW ANTIGONE PAST n 
 
 with a friend. ally one whose conversation is so en- 
 
 Aiul the days arc still short. (loud bye, my 
 dear. Pray don't stir j I see you have much to do, if those 
 piles of correspondence on the table arc jours. May comes 
 hack the day after to-morrow, and you will he wanted, you 
 know, to choose your Arthurian costume. Good-bye ! ' 
 
 She went off with a light step and a smile of triumph. 
 Miss Valence would do her part. There was affection or 
 ambition on her side, sufficient to make her an excellent 
 rival — a Fair Rosamund to Lady May's Eleanor. The 
 scheme promised admirably, and she sang little snatches of 
 Russian or French ballads as she cantered along. Whether 
 1 Iippolyta had been deeply wounded and might bleed to 
 death she did not consider, nor did she care. She was 
 fond of Miss Valence, in that selfish way which people 
 have who like to see beautiful things about them ; fond as 
 she might have been of a lovely flower, or an Arab steed. 
 But she had only one strong human feeling, and that was 
 for no woman. She did mean to marry her cousin ; and 
 she would have immolated a thousand Hippolytas in one 
 holocaust rather than give him up. 
 
 I will not say that she had roused the demon of jealousy 
 in a heart so innocent, so little accustomed to seek itself 
 or to indulge in malice and evil thoughts, as that of 
 Hippolyta. So great a revolution was not to be accom- 
 plished in a day. But she had awakened her victim from 
 a dream of childlike happiness, and, suddenly striking into 
 the chords of her enchanted harp, had turned the music to 
 harsh discords which went on sounding and jangling and 
 would not be still. Colonel Valence had left his daughter 
 without the usual safeguards of conventional religious train- 
 ing, and she had moved among the strange men and women 
 that made her world, free as the weakest or the strongest of 
 them, familiar with much more than the name of sin and 
 moral degradation. For she had witnessed something of 
 the misery upon which her father's damning argument 
 against the society of to-day was founded. But, truly, as 
 she declared to Lady May, her days had been spent without 
 harm. She harboured no unbecoming thoughts ; she was 
 fearless and free ; nor, until Rupert fixed his eyes upon her,
 
 chap, xix TABLEAUX VI V ANTS 259 
 
 had she known what it was to care for any man save her 
 father. The power of first love is proverbially intense ; and 
 when it comes at once, without warning, to a heart so large as 
 Hippolyta's, and hitherto so self-contained, it has a depth 
 of sacred purity, of kindling fire. Had she spoken of a 
 consuming passion she would have been better justified 
 than the Countess, who employed such words because they 
 sounded romantic and startling, not for any well-assured 
 knowledge that they were true of Lady May. The Spanish 
 temperament, the unfettered life, the enthusiasm for things 
 demanding sacrifice, the glamour of a devotion, sincere and 
 expressive, on Rupert's side, must all be remembered, if we 
 would calculate what elements there were for jealousy, 
 watchfulness, and a perplexed yet irresistible love in 
 Hippolyta. She did not doubt the man who had breathed 
 out his soul in passionate utterances before her. Perish the 
 thought, she cried, when it rose from the deeps of her 
 anguish like a phantom and threatened to eclipse the light 
 of heaven. She knew that he was loyal ; but was there full 
 security from the past, or had he so entangled himself in its 
 consequences that he might not hope to be free ? Most 
 men had such a past ; her books told her so, and she could 
 bear to think of it with an equal mind, if the curtain which 
 had fallen over it for Rupert was never to be raised again. 
 But how, if Lady May interposed, if a claim there really 
 was, or an old love with which to be off ere he could be 
 on with the new ? Hippolyta was devoted, but she was 
 likewise proud and generous. She would not be Lady 
 May's rival should it appear that Rupert, in whatever fashion, 
 had given her a promise, or that his affection was divided. 
 As she came to this resolution her heart sickened within 
 her. She sat motionless, where the Countess had left her 
 by the window, gazing with fixed and meditative eyes over 
 the valley till the moon rose up in the cloudy sky, her hands 
 clasped on her knees, while she thought and thought, and 
 the slow tears began to well up from within and form on the 
 tender eyelashes. She did not know where to look for help. 
 A Christian maiden, she said half- unconsciously, would 
 have prayed for guidance, — whatever prayer was. But she 
 could only resolve to be true and trusting, impartial to Lady
 
 2Go TL .'<„ NE FA 
 
 to Rupert, and not unjust. It was a heavy burden 
 for young shoulders, and the tears that fell at last were 
 exceedingly biro r. 
 
 Her resolution, all this notwithstanding, held firm. She 
 must ascertain the state of the case, and by that be guided. 
 Until this afternoon she had given no assurance of attending 
 the dress ball, which was a kind of entertainment alien from 
 her feelings and characteristic of that social or aristocratic 
 existence with which she could have so little in common. 
 Rupert's pleadings even had not overcome her dislike to 
 it ; and the Countess, for all her zeal in the good cause, 
 was obliged to be content with a very conditional acceptance. 
 Now, however, she would take the role offered her and 
 appear among the rest. Their frequent meetings, if she- 
 studied them with her eyes open, must surely betray the 
 relation in which Rupert stood to Lord Trelingham's 
 daughter. And if when the birthnight festivities were come 
 her mind was not clear, she would ask Glanville the ques- 
 tion, cost what struggling and shame it might. False, no, 
 he was not false. It was easy for a man to be imprudent, 
 but impossible that Rupert did not mean every word he had 
 whispered in her ear. Great as was her trouble, so new and 
 unexpected that it quite overcame her for days together, it 
 left in the depths of her being an assured trust that love had 
 answered love between them twain. 
 
 As soon as she dared, that is to say when her self-control 
 was somewhat restored, she went over to Trelingham. 
 Lady May had come back, bringing with her Mrs. Davenant, 
 the well-known fashionable personage who called Tom her 
 son, and expected from him a son's devotion, though she 
 could not give up the world so far as to make Foxholme 
 the pleasant place it should have proved to that amiable 
 young man. She and Lord Trelingham, though of course 
 very old acquaintance, had never got beyond the first stage 
 of intimacy, while Lady May, to whom the frivolities of 
 fashion were odious, was merely civil to her and did not 
 see her more than twice in a season. She had come now 
 to preside over the arrangements for keeping Tom's birth- 
 day and issue the much-coveted invitations which were to 
 gather a numerous party at ham. She, also, was
 
 chap, xix TABLEAUX VIVANTS 261 
 
 asking herself whether her son had serious thoughts of 
 marrying his cousin ; and it was part of her endeavouring 
 just now to find out the way he had spent these months in 
 the country, with Lady May on the one side and Madame 
 de Lutenieff on the other. For though Tom was an affec- 
 tionate son he wrote seldom, and there was that in Mrs. 
 Davenant's character which forbade him to let her see into 
 his heart. There could be no real confidence between 
 persons so unlike, however attached they might be to one 
 another. Tom felt more comfortable at Trelingham than 
 he had ever been under his own roof. He loved his guard- 
 ian, the Earl, with a simple but earnest devotion, which 
 had increased as the boy grew to man's estate ; and he 
 looked forward to being perfectly happy with him and Lady 
 May, if the latter would consent to be his wife. He knew 
 she was infinitely beyond him in cleverness and knowledge 
 of the world ; but, if anything, he was attracted rather than 
 repelled by that circumstance. A stupid man, he argued, 
 ought to have a clever wife who would keep him from 
 blundering. He did not think himself unequal to the 
 duties of a country gentleman ; but, should he become Earl 
 of Trelingham, there would be Parliament and the burden 
 of society, and who could help him so well as Lady May ? 
 
 That he would succeed his cousin if he outlived him 
 was as certain as anything in this world. Lord Trelingham 
 had assured him of it in so many words. It was a piece 
 of eccentric generosity, perhaps of unnecessary frankness. 
 But he had acted towards Tom Davenant during the last 
 five or six years as he would have acted towards his own 
 son ; and it was in keeping with the rest of his conduct to 
 give up Trelingham Court to the festivities which must 
 otherwise have taken place at Foxholme. 
 
 The house party would be numerous, and was already 
 gathering when Hippolyta called after her sad visit from 
 the Countess. She went through her introduction to Mrs. 
 Davenant without flinching, but was glad to escape into the 
 Great Hall, where a kind of rehearsal for the tableaux was 
 in course of arrangement. Rupert, who had not been able 
 to go near Falside for several days, came to her as soon 
 as she had exchanged a word with Lady May, and was so
 
 TR V ANTIG01 i-aut 11 
 
 Btruck on observing her paleness and the dark rings round 
 her eyes that he could think of nothing else He drew 
 her away, under pretence of showing her the dresses from 
 which she was to choose, and in low passionate undertimes 
 implored her to tell him what was the matter. She could 
 not mistake the feeling in his voice ; it was that of the 
 most devoted love. Her spirits revived; and, though she 
 put him off with unmeaning answers, there was enough to 
 cheer him in her assurance that she should soon he well. 
 He looked at her with tender anxiety ; he saw that some- 
 thing must have happened. But she had secrets which it 
 did not become him to pry into ; her troubles might be 
 connected with Colonel Va'ence's numerous projects, and 
 were not to be removed even by a lover's assiduity. How- 
 ever, he would not quit her side till she insisted on it ; 
 and his frequent glances towards her revealed a preoccu- 
 pation which the Countess was delighted to behold, and 
 which, in her careless infantine way, she pointed out to her 
 cousin. Lady May was in her most difficult mood, irri- 
 tated by the presence of Mrs. Davenant at Trelingham, 
 dissatisfied with Rupert, and not at peace in her own mind. 
 She had not conceived any great affection for Hippolyta ; 
 but now, under the Countess's malicious guidance, she 
 saw, or thought she saw, enough to justify dislike and 
 suspicion. Was Glanville bestowing elsewhere the love 
 she had striven so desperately to win ? It made her 
 wretched when Miss Valence came near him, when he 
 spoke to her in seeming confidence, when he showed how 
 she must wear the elfin array in which he proposed to deck 
 the Queen of Fairyland, as he smilingly called her. She 
 was to be the Lady of the Lake. 
 
 All this reacted, according to Karina's deep-laid plan, 
 on the feelings of Hippolyta. She, too, was made wretched; 
 for Lady May, resolved on having her will, found means to 
 engage Rupert's attention, and gave him so many commis- 
 sions, had such a variety of questions to ask and possi- 
 bilities to provide for, that the lovers, after their first 
 greeting, met again only for an instant that afternoon. 
 Time was when, if any one had charged I lavenant 
 
 with being an adept in the arts of jealousy, she would have
 
 chap, xix TABLEAUX VIVANTS 263 
 
 turned a scornful eye upon the speaker and bade him 
 begone with a proud consciousness of her innocence. Nor 
 am I saying now that she was mean or malevolent ; she 
 was passionate and had forgotten herself, that was all. 
 But was it not a sad falling away on the part of that lofty 
 spirit ? Hippolyta, struck through with Karina's fiery shaft, 
 suffered and was helpless. She had no arts to counteract 
 the imperious charm of the Earl's daughter; and when 
 she beheld Rupert's embarrassment, how he resisted in 
 vain, nor would look steadily in the face of Lady May, she 
 began to fear that an entanglement really existed, and went 
 home more miserable than she came. Certainly, she might 
 have demanded an explanation from Rupert, and one word 
 would have sufficed to scatter the clouds in her heaven. 
 But it was not the time ; she dreaded an explosion which 
 must have blasted all her hopes, or sent him from Treling- 
 ham at this unseasonable moment. The play was to be 
 played out. She took her part bravely; but as the days 
 went on she became more and more resolute in the thoughts 
 which had begun to ferment within her. 
 
 That afternoon was a sample of those which followed. 
 Rupert, engaged from morning till night, and often in Lady 
 May's company, had less time than usual to spend with 
 Hippolyta, and none to mark that her dejection was pro- 
 found and her paleness increasing. To mark, I say; for 
 he felt that there was a vague misunderstanding between 
 them, which he meant, as soon as the festival would let 
 him, to have thoroughly cleared up. Lady May, however, 
 was his greatest trial. The intimacy that had so happily 
 fallen through seemed reviving again, and with it a sense 
 of the magnetic danger, so to speak, which had compassed 
 him round about in the picture-gallery. When Hippolyta 
 was present he felt it less ; but then another peril awaited 
 him, for he did not choose that his old sin should be ever 
 staring him in the face, and yet it did. Certain confidential 
 allusions, slight yet speaking glances which might signify 
 nothing in Lady May, but were embarrassing to him, and 
 a demeanour in which friendliness might have the greater 
 share, yet love not be wholly wanting, — he could no more 
 define these things to himself than he could photograph
 
 2*t TB V ANTIGONE i-aut n 
 
 the wind, but he knew that it was not in tion which 
 
 led him to fear them as the harbingers of catastrophe. 
 What if Ilippolyta should notice them too? Me anathe- 
 matised the folly of six months ago, his weakness when he 
 ought to have been proof against this contagious sentiment. 
 He would certainly at the very earliest quit Trclingham 
 under one pretext or another, and put a solid interval of 
 time between the painting of the Madonna with its mis- 
 chievous associations and the work he had yet to do. 
 There must be an end of this phantasmal coquetry, this 
 mock sun of love which shone over against the true, and 
 perplexed observers. He little knew the forces against 
 which he was contending. 
 
 And so, amid fears and hopes and the strong resolutions 
 of those upon whom fortune had laid the burden of a 
 deadly struggle, Tom Davenant's birthday came. The 
 house was full of guests ; the Chase was thrown open, and 
 the solemn early dinner appointed at which the Earl's 
 tenantry were to hear their future lord deliver his maiden 
 speech. The bright spring weather, dashed with a shower 
 of rain, was all that could be wished ; and if I do not 
 dwell upon the events of the day, it is not because they 
 deserved no sacred poet, but that one who knew how to 
 adorn his grateful task with flowers of rhetoric to which I 
 may not pretend, has already written of them in the County 
 Chronic/c, to the files of which I refer inquiring friends. 
 For I must hasten to the evening, when a more select, but 
 hardly less numerous, company was assembled in the Great 
 Hall, and the tableaux vivants were beginning. 
 
 Hippolyta, who had accepted Madame de Lutenieff as 
 her chaperon in default of another, descended from her 
 room with beating heart, and was glad to find herself only 
 just in time for her share in the representations. The 
 Countess led her at once to the sort of green-room where 
 the members of the first group were putting themselves in 
 order. A stage had been erected at the end of the Great 
 I [all, opposite the chief entrance. In front of it hung the 
 ample folds of a curtain which was to draw up to the sound 
 of music, when the tableau was arranged and the signal 
 given. The scenes were to be ] resented at intervals, and
 
 chap, xix TABLEAUX VI V ANTS 265 
 
 to last only so long as might be required to take in their 
 meaning and to distinguish the characters which made 
 them up, for anything like a sensible interruption of the 
 dancing was not proposed, and would have been received 
 with scant favour. Rupert had advised that the grouping 
 should follow the order of his frescoes, including some 
 which were only among his drawings, but not as yet visible 
 on the walls. Thus it began with the Finding of Arthur, 
 when, in the great temple, he draws out of the stone the 
 miraculous sword which has resisted the efforts of all pre- 
 tenders to the crown of Britain. Tom Davenant, with his 
 exquisite beauty of face and manly form, was the very 
 model of a young hero, and not unnaturally had been 
 compelled, against his will, to put on the trappings of 
 Arthur. A crowd of knights occupied the foreground, 
 behind them rose the dim pillars and vast recesses of a 
 rude cathedral, and near the semblance of an altar stood 
 Hippolyta, the Lady of the Lake, who was Arthur's fairy 
 godmother, in converse with the mysterious enchanter, 
 Merlin. When they were all in their places a silver bell 
 rang, and the curtain drew up. 
 
 It was a striking scene and called forth instant applause, 
 which was hushed when the orchestra, composed of harps 
 and flutes, began above the great entrance a shrill weird 
 music to celebrate the coming of the King. It was Lady 
 May who had devised this wild welcome, so unlike the 
 harmonies of the modern muse, but for that reason symbolic 
 of far-off ages when the appeal was to elementary passions 
 rather than to a complex temperament like ours of to-day. 
 The effect was strange but overpowering. While it lasted, 
 Hippolyta, who had not ventured to lift her eyes at the 
 beginning, looked up and saw the vast spaces before her 
 filled with a motley crowd, in all manner of fantastic and 
 glittering attire, while a flood of golden light fell upon them 
 from the sides of the hall, where Rupert's grandly-conceived 
 frescoes, marking out the whole extent they were by and by 
 to cover, added an air of indescribable solemnity and 
 antique grandeur to the vision. Never in her life had she 
 beheld anything so beautiful. It dazzled and excited her; 
 it gave her a larger sense of existence, palpitating with joy
 
 266 THE NEW ANTIGOl MBTil 
 
 .md passion. She could have been content, she thought, to 
 gaze at it without going nearer. But in a few moments the 
 music ceased, the curtain fell, and the Arthurian group, 
 disappearing through the side scene, was lost in the crowd 
 below. She gave herself into the hands of the Countess 
 and followed. The ball began; and Hippolyta, with mingled 
 pleasure and dismay, found herself dancing with Rupert, 
 who had instantly claimed her hand. 
 
 What she saw and experienced that evening, thanks to 
 the novelty of her sensations, the secluded life she had led, 
 the love which was filling heart and brain, the trouble 
 of an uncertain future, and her joy in Rupert's triumph, it 
 is not easy to describe. It was a whirl of excitement when 
 time seemed short as a lightning flash, yet every moment 
 eternal. The pauses in the dance, the bursts of barbaric 
 music coming between, the delicate strange colours which 
 had been so subtly combined in the grouping, the gleam of 
 saffron and gold, of shining battle-axe and linked armour of 
 steel, the perfume of tropical flowers which hung upon the 
 atmosphere and penetrated her being, the steady blaze of 
 light overhead, the sparkling of precious stones and waving 
 of feathers and soft dark jets of velvet sheen, the sound of 
 bubbling fountains in the conservatories which opened out 
 of the ballroom into the garden beyond, — all this was 
 mingled with laughing voices, with the play of outspread fans, 
 and the movement of a multitude in whose eyes the light 
 and the passion seemed to be reflected and to shine out again 
 more intensely. It was a sea of life on whose waves, to 
 the sound of enchanting music, she floated along. Some- 
 times Rupert held her hand, sometimes another whom she 
 had never seen, to whom she spoke in dreamy whispers, 
 not knowing what had been said to her. Out of the crowd 
 a face surged up and gazed across inquiringly, as though 
 seeking an answer in her eyes ; but it was gone ere she 
 could catch her breath and murmur, 'That was Lady May; 
 what does she desire of me ? ' Or again, it was the Count- 
 ess smiling cold, inquisitive, mocking, as her voice floated 
 over her shoulder and bade her rest a while in the shade of 
 the cool ferns. And Rupert, where was he? She looked 
 round in a vague, sweet trouble, and saw him leading out
 
 chap, xix TABLEAUX VIVANJS 267 
 
 Lady Ma)', whose earnest eyes seemed full of a steady 
 fire. Could she not warn him, not rescue him from the 
 danger ? No, he was a thousand leagues away, and her 
 hand could never reach him. As these thoughts came to 
 darken the festival her heart beat faster with a sense of 
 unspeakable love and pity. She felt that Rupert was all 
 the world to her, that she could not live except in the 
 sunshine of his presence, that to surrender him would be 
 death. 
 
 But her meditations were again and again interrupted as 
 one after the other of these brilliant masqueraders came up 
 to solicit the honour of dancing with her. Hippolyta was 
 so wrapt in her passionate griefs and longings that she did 
 not realise the impression she was making in that unknown 
 realm, where faces, voices, manners, were all novel and 
 strange. Miss Valence's name was whispered from mouth 
 to mouth ; her father's story, so much of it as the public 
 knew, was rehearsed again. Some, who had heard only of 
 the marriage with Lady Alice, imagined that this was a 
 niece of Lord Trelingham, now publicly adopted by him ; 
 and they wondered whether Tom Davenant would select 
 her or Lady May for his bride. Others felt her beauty 
 enhanced by the uncertain tales of her origin, for no one 
 in that country-side had ever set eyes on her mother or 
 could tell who she was. And the young men declared 
 with enthusiasm that they had never seen such dancing. 
 It was the perfection of unconscious grace, without effort or 
 affectation ; the true Spanish gravity with a world of passion 
 in it ; the movements, slow or swift, as the music demanded, 
 always under control, not wild, but exquisitely self-contained. 
 That evening Hippolyta and the Lady of the Lake melted 
 into one lovely lissom figure, clad in a floating vestment of 
 dark fairy-green, with golden hair falling down over the collar 
 of wrought flowers which left the delicate throat bare, while 
 a wreath of some strange bloom that resembled hyacinths 
 decked the beautiful head, and gave her the look of sylvan 
 majesty that befitted her in the legend. Nor had the warm 
 paleness of her cheek, the light in her large, soft eyes, ever 
 charmed the heart of Rupert as they did during those hours 
 of dance and thrilling music. He could not turn his gaze
 
 ■Jj; iai;i ii 
 
 from her; but it 1 to him that she did not always 
 
 return it. Was she lost in the pleasure of the scene? 11< 
 quitted the company among which he was standing, and 
 came, on the pretence that she was wanted for the nexl 
 tableau, and spoke to her. She answered like one whose 
 fancy was roai iroad ; she was absent and preoccupied. 
 
 When they entered the green-room to make some slight 
 changes in her outward adornment which the tableau re- 
 quired, she did all in silence, as she was bid, not turning at 
 the voice that spoke or appearing to distinguish the speaker. 
 She took her place in the group of Launcelot and Guinevere, 
 fixing her eyes, but yet absently, on Lady May, who bore 
 with exceeding stateliness the character of the guilty Queen. 
 Again, at the side of the painted forest, she looked on while 
 the Countess Lutenieff, as the fay Vivien, charmed his secret 
 out of Merlin ; and her feeling was that, in the old white- 
 bearded man, to her a stranger, who enacted the magician's 
 part, she beheld Rupert yielding to the witchery of a 
 maiden he did not love. When, from the floor of the 
 Great Hall, she watched the scene of Tristram and Iseult, 
 in which Lady May and the artist quaffed the love-philter 
 which was to bind them in unfaithfulness, — a weird and 
 powerful representation that stirred the spectators to de- 
 mand it a second time, — she could hardly refrain from 
 crying aloud, and the effort made her weak to fainting. 
 She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes to shut 
 out the displeasing vision. But it would not leave her ; 
 it was still there in vivid colour as on the stage, Iseult 
 holding forth the enchanted golden cup, and Tristram in 
 the glow of his beauty and strength bending over it, his 
 lips touching the beaker's' brim that was to take away his 
 reason for ever. The plaudits which rang through the hall, 
 and were drowned in the strains of music overhead, pierc- 
 ing like the sea-bird's scream and dying off as into the 
 wash of a sullen sea, made a tumult within her which left 
 no room for thought, which stamped upon her memory an 
 impression that must be indelible, and ur.-ed her to resolve 
 her doubts at once, without hesitation. She watched till 
 Rupert came into the throng once more. He was moving 
 her way, and their eyes met. In an instant he was by her
 
 CHAP, xix TABLEAUX VIVANTS 269 
 
 side. ' You must ask me to dance,' she whispered, and ere 
 long they were moving in the waltz. 
 
 Her dream came back : she was floating on the waves of life 
 to the sound of a mighty music; its single tones shot through 
 her like silvery arrows, its complex strains lifted her upon the 
 thunderous roll of waters away and away, with Rupert, the 
 only tenant of her universe, holding her fast. He belonged 
 to her alone, and she was of another sphere than the multi- 
 tude moving in cadence around them. Still, she did not 
 speak. And lo ! the sudden vibration of a string which, for no 
 more than a second, was heard through the music like a note 
 of lamentation, turned her thoughts and her fancy. She 
 beheld the world of suffering beneath the world of joy : on 
 the barren shores lapped by these smiling waters an in- 
 numerable multitude were gathered from the four winds — 
 all the poverty-stricken, the wretched, the homeless, the 
 tear-besprent, the naked misery of those who crowded against 
 one another to keep themselves warm, and who were 
 reckoned by millions upon millions. She saw them clearly, 
 with the mind's eye, too humbled and cast down to envy 
 the joy they might not share, benumbed in their great 
 misery by the sense of a long despair even more than by 
 frost and cold. The masquerade of life was for the few ; 
 its bitter dismal reality, not tempered by dance or song, for 
 the many. And what was she doing, Hippolyta, amid 
 these splendours ? Her place was not there, but with her 
 brothers and sisters pining in wretchedness. She awoke 
 from the excitement of the evening with a start. The air 
 was suffocating, the perfume of these flowers delirious. 
 She could endure it no longer. ' Take me away,' she said 
 to Rupert as the dance was ending ; ' I want the fresh air ; 
 I shall faint if I stay in the room.' 
 
 He looked round for the nearest exit, and, with Hip- 
 polyta on his arm, moved as swiftly as the crowd would let 
 him towards the conservatories, which opened on either 
 side of the stage into the garden. It would be cooler there. 
 They arrived at a spot where great cactus-like plants, 
 mingled with creepers, stood up in the moonlight which shone 
 through the glass roof with a cold, uncertain gleam. There 
 was no one near. The feeling of comparative solitude
 
 270 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-akt ii 
 
 refreshed Hippolyta; and her thoughts began to take a 
 
 definite shape. Rupert inquired tenderly whether she were 
 better. She smiled, and did not speak for a little while ; 
 then, drawing him close to the window where the plants 
 screened them, she said, 1. lying her hand on his breast, 
 ' Rupert, were you ever in love with Lady Ma; 
 
 'The question startled him. 'Ah,' he said to himself, ' it has 
 come at last.' Lut he would be perfectly open. ' No, Hippo- 
 lyta,' he answered, 'never; but, before I met you, I might 
 have been. For a few weeks I thought even that I was.' 
 
 1 Did you tell her your thoughts ? ' she asked. She felt 
 an immense relief. 
 
 ' Never,' he replied ; 'had I spoken it would have been 
 to Lord Trelingham.' 
 
 ' Then you are quite free as regards Lady May ; you 
 have incurred no obligation towards her ? ' 
 
 Rupert, who had not expected this home thrust, turned red 
 and pale. 'I will leave you to judge,' he answered, though not 
 immediately; ' obligation of any palpable sort there is none. 
 I have made neither speeches nor advances to her ; but I 
 have shown perhaps more sympathy when she spoke — it is 
 now five months or more — than was prudent, since I did 
 not love her.' He tried to explain. Hippolyta did not 
 interrupt him. It was difficult to enlarge on the behaviour 
 of Lady -May without attributing to her thoughts of which 
 he had no evidence. 
 
 AYhen he came to a pause, Hippolyta, still looking at 
 him, put a single question. ' Tell me, Rupert,' she said, ' do 
 you think Lady May cared for you as I do ? ' 
 
 ' As you do,' he repeated with fervour ; ' ah, Hippolyta, 
 who is like you in anything? I do not know; it is nothing 
 to me what Lady May's feelings have been. You do not 
 distrust me?' he went on anxiously; 'have I said or done 
 anything to displease you ?' 
 
 'No,' she answered simply; 'you are the same as ever. 
 But suppose she did love you, could you always resist, 
 always remember Hippolyta?' 
 
 ' I see,' he said, ' you are troubled about it. Very well, 
 I cannot blame a jealousy which comes of so great affection. 
 Look here, Hippolyta, I also have been disquieted and not
 
 chap, xix TABLEAUX VIVANTS 271 
 
 happy in this strange position ; for, though I do not know 
 what she feels, I have an uneasy dread that all may not 
 turn out well. I had made up my mind to leave Treling- 
 ham for a month or six weeks, that there might be a break 
 and a fresh start under less difficult circumstances. If you 
 wish I will go to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Are you not wanted here during the festivities ? ' she 
 inquired. 
 
 ' Not in any way. My work is done when the last of 
 the tableaux has been given.' 
 
 Hippolyta, instead of answering, seemed lost in thought. 
 Turning away, she walked two or three steps and stood 
 apart, her eyes fixed on the waters of a mimic fountain 
 which cast its spray around. What was she thinking 
 about ? Rupert did not dare to interrupt her. At length 
 she came back, and, with an earnest, troubled expression, 
 said to him, ' Go to-morrow, as you propose ; it will be 
 best. Only let me hear from you, and if I have anything 
 to write, — you must give me your address.' 
 
 He put his hand to his pocket. There was no card in 
 it. Tearing out one of his ivory tablets, he wrote a line 
 or two in haste and handed them to Hippolyta. ' Write to 
 my studio,' he said ; ' I shall be there oftener than at home, 
 almost every day, in fact ; and there will be less chance of 
 discovery. But I shall be glad,' he went on, ' when you 
 allow, me to end this concealment. It is a trial to both 
 of us.' 
 
 ' Yes,' she replied in her preoccupied manner, and said 
 no more. 
 
 The crashing sound of trumpet-music came to them 
 where they stood. ' We must return to the ballroom,' said 
 Rupert ; ' I shall be wanted for the next grouping.' 
 
 The words were hardly out of his mouth when they saw 
 the Countess approaching, leaning on the arm of a cavalier. 
 She addressed Hippolyta. ' My dear Miss Valence,' she 
 said, ' I have been looking for you this quarter of an hour. 
 Here is a message from Falside which I have undertaken 
 to deliver. I hope it is nothing unpleasant.' She held 
 out her hand as she spoke, and Hippolyta grasped the 
 note that was in it.
 
 272 THE NEW ANTIGOA fakt 11 
 
 ' My father's writing,' she said, as the superscription 
 caught her eye. She opened it and moved towards the 
 light The others waited. It was a very brief message 
 apparently, for she had read it through in an instant, 
 and turning to Rupert, said, ' I must go home at once. 
 My father is there, and thinks he may have only a few 
 hours with me.' She stopped as if uncertain, looked 
 from the Countess to Rupert and back again ; but Karina 
 would not move. It was impossible to say a word more, 
 to bid the artist stay till she had seen her father, or go 
 as they had arranged previously. The note was urgent. 
 Andres had come with the pony-chaise, and she must leave 
 the future to chance. ' Good-bye, Mr. Glanville,' she said. 
 'You will have to invent a lady of the lake for the Passing 
 of Arthur/ and she offered him her hand, which he clasped 
 fervently. But he would accompany her to the door. 
 Madame de Lutenieff went likewise. They were fated not 
 to speak in private, it seemed. Messages were left for the 
 Earl and Lady May; a second time their hands joined; 
 Karina gaily waved her fan, and the carriage drove off into 
 the moonlight night. 
 
 In less than twenty-four hours Rupert, convinced that 
 safety lay in flight, had left Trelingham and returned to his 
 house in town. He could wait there for news of Hippolyta.
 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 WAS NOT THIS LOVE INDEED ? 
 
 But a week passed, and no news came. Rupert, who had 
 never been in love till he saw Hippolyta, and had felt that 
 she was always near him at Falside, now discovered with 
 joy and amazement, which gradually turned to unmixed 
 pain, how closely she had been knit to his heart-strings. 
 Her image was before him day and night ; he consumed 
 long hours in adding to her portrait — which of course he 
 had brought with him — the touches that were to make it, 
 not perfect, but less unlike the cherished original. He 
 brooded over the words, the looks, the little loving tokens 
 which had assured him of her affection. And he would 
 have given worlds to see her again as on the night when, 
 laying her hand on his breast, she asked him whether he 
 thought that Lady May loved him as she did. But these 
 things did not atone for her absence ; they could not fill 
 up the void. A sense of exile weighed upon him; and 
 when these first days were over, but for very shame he 
 would have gone back to Trelingham. He thought of 
 writing ; but ought not her silence to be respected ? She 
 would hear that he had kept his word, and for the present 
 it must suffice. He would not intrude on her privacy while 
 Colonel Valence was at home. The resolution cost him 
 an effort, which only ceaseless riding in the less-frequented 
 outskirts ot London, and desperate attempts at reading all 
 manner of hard books in his studio, could support. Paint- 
 ing, except the touches above mentioned, was out of the 
 question. He had not certified friends of his arrival, nor 
 did he go near a club ; his accustomed haunts were left 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 2:4 THE NEW ANTIGONE r n 
 
 unvisited, and he went hither and thither, like the ghost of 
 Rupert Glanville, speaking to no one, takir qo intert I in 
 
 the movement around him, or in the press and throng of 
 the London season, which was now at its height Not a 
 soul, except the aged woman that took charge of his studio, 
 and the housekeeper who presided over his establishment, 
 knew that he was extant among the millions of the great 
 city. 
 
 It had lasted more than a week, and Rupert, on a cer- 
 tain evening, was walking down the long dreary road, 
 bordered with commonplace shops, the line of which was 
 occasionally broken by melancholy-looking private houses, 
 that led in the direction of Fulham, where his studio lay. 
 The dinner-hour was past, and he thought of dining extem- 
 pore, as his aged female called it, in front of Hippolyta's 
 picture, which was hanging on the easel. Then he would 
 smoke a cigarette, and read or dream before the fire accord- 
 ing to his feelings. It had been a chill day with much rain 
 and wind. The clouds seemed to draw the night after 
 them, and as he walked on, tired and dispirited, Rupert 
 said to himself that he could not hold out longer, and he 
 would write to Falside on the morrow. He wished there 
 had been a star or two in the sky ; it was one great black- 
 ness in front of him, and when he turned round to survey 
 the road by which he had come, the dull flare of London 
 shooting up into the heavens struck him as more dismal 
 even than the darkness. He came to the lodge that formed 
 an entrance to his studio, and seeing no one within, passed 
 on and up the steps at the end of the narrow garden-path 
 which led to it. He had the key in his pocket ; but on 
 trying it found the door unlocked. He entered, pushed 
 aside the curtain which hung over it, saw candles lighted 
 on the table, a fire burning bright on the hearth and send- 
 ing a welcome glow through the apartment, and, rising 
 from his favourite easy-chair — Hippolyta. 
 
 He could not believe his eyes. ' What !' he cried, 'you 
 here, Hippolyta, darling? I am mad or dreaming.' He 
 ran to clasp her in his arms. She drew back, but gave 
 him her hand with a smile. He was all amaze. 
 
 ' No, you are neither mad nor dreaming, Rupert,' she
 
 chap, xx LOVE INDEED 275 
 
 said quietly; 'it is Hippolyta, and I thought you would 
 never come.' 
 
 ' But you did not write, you sent me no word of your 
 visit,' he cried ; ' how could I imagine it ? When did you 
 arrive ? Have you had anything to eat ? What can I get 
 for you ? ' 
 
 She sat down again, and motioned him to a seat near 
 the easel. 'Be quiet,' she answered; 'what an excitable 
 person you are ! I have dined, and do not want anything 
 except a cup of tea, which I will make by and by for both 
 of us. You look tired, Rupert, where have you been spend- 
 ing the day ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, I don't know,' he replied ; ' it matters not. But are 
 you staying in town ? or how is it you come so suddenly?' 
 
 ' I think you must have your tea first,' she said, ' and 
 then we will talk about it. At present not a word more.' 
 And she threw off her cloak and began to search for the 
 tea things. 
 
 'You must let me help you,' said Rupert, his spirits 
 wonderfully revived at the beautiful apparition. ' You can- 
 not guess the geography of this place.' Accordingly, they 
 were soon opening cupboards, bringing out the curious old 
 bits of china in which Rupert took a certain pride, and, it 
 must be confessed, getting a great deal in each other's way. 
 At last Hippolyta insisted on his sitting down where she 
 bade him, and herself arranged the low table in front of 
 the fire. It was a cosy scene. The light played here and 
 there on the quaint cups and saucers, brought out the 
 gleam of the silver, and showed pictures, statuettes of 
 marble, heavy crimson draperies, and the confused min- 
 gling of carved woodwork, half-theatrical costumes, vases of 
 flowers, painters' lay-figures, and pieces of shining armour, 
 which made up the ensemble of Rupert's abode. Sitting 
 there with the dark night about them, the rich folds of crimson 
 drooping to the floor, amid a stillness hardly broken by the 
 far-off murmur of the London streets, Rupert and Hippolyta 
 might have fancied themselves in a world from which reality 
 was shut out. He said to her, 'We have never been so 
 much to ourselves as now. How still the night is ! Can 
 you imagine that London is at the door ? '
 
 276 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-akt ii 
 
 1 You arc right,' said Hippolyta. 'We were not SO much 
 alone the i lis l saw you, when you dined at Falside. 
 
 Do you remember the stillness then? But the thought of 
 an Immense city near heightens it. Ah, that first meeting ! 
 I suppose you are confident even now that you cared for 
 Hippolyta as soon as you set eyes on her?' 
 
 'Confident!' cried Rupert; 'I know it, and so do you, 
 although you pretend not.' 
 
 ' And what of my feelings ? ' she asked mischievously. 
 ' You would not, of course, allow them such a capacity for 
 enthusiasm ? You believe that I waited until you spoke, 
 and then gracefully yielded.' 
 
 ' Why, Hippolyta,' he said with emotion, ' I should never 
 dream that there was anything in me to call out enthusiasm. 
 You must not drive me wild with happiness.' His 
 countenance glowed as he reflected on what she had 
 suggested. 
 
 She went on. ' But you are aware that I believe in the 
 equality of the sexes ; therefore, if I like, I can suppose a 
 woman's love to be as fervent and lasting as a man's. Nay, 
 there may be love at first sight in us too, weak as we are.' 
 
 1 Do you mean, Hippolyta, that when you told me your 
 name at the chalet you were as much moved as I was ? ' 
 
 ' Would you scorn me if I said so ? Well, Rupert, I 
 want you to be sure of this — when our eyes met for the 
 first time our fate was decided.' 
 
 He looked at her in great surprise, as well as delight. 
 There was a meaning in her words that he had yet to un- 
 ravel. She spoke in clear firm tones, but her eyes were 
 fixed on the ground. 
 
 'You are an extraordinary woman,' he said, 'and you 
 have your own way of captivating a poor fellow. If you 
 did, indeed, care for me as much as I did for you from 
 the hour of our meeting, it is plain that we were in- 
 tended for one another. And so we are. Nothing can 
 separate us.' 
 
 ' Dear Rupert,' she said, ' you asked me why I came. 
 Let me tell you. But promise that you will hear me to the 
 end and express no feeling one way or the other till I have 
 said my last word. A woman's last word,' she went on,
 
 chap, xx LOVE INDEED 277 
 
 smiling for a moment, ' you think it will be long in coming. 
 But no, it is a short story. Do you promise ? ' 
 
 He did not know what to make of her. ' I promise, 
 surely,' he said. 
 
 She folded her hands over her knees in a favourite 
 attitude of hers, and lifted her eyes steadily to Rupert's face. 
 He could not help feeling excited, but he kept still. 
 
 ' 1 must begin,' she said, 'with what happened after you 
 left Trelingham. I could not speak to you in the Countess's 
 hearing, or I should have begged you to wait another day. 
 It was possible that my father would wish to see you. 
 However, you had given me your promise, and I was not 
 surprised on hearing that you had gone. I learned it only 
 three days after, when my father bade me farewell and I 
 was able to call at Trelingham. They were three busy days ; 
 and you will perhaps forgive me if, in the joy of seeing my 
 father again, I put off, or rather could find no time to write 
 the note I intended. We had so many things to settle. I 
 told him our story. He knows all about you ; likes you, I 
 think, and said I must please myself. As for him, the 
 summons he had been expecting for months had come at 
 last. He was allowed only the necessary time to put his 
 affairs in order and to say good-bye. I do not know whither 
 he has gone. All I know is that he will have to run the 
 extremest risk. I must be resigned, he said, if I never see 
 him again. It is hard, Rupert, is it not ? ' 
 
 She was too much affected to go on. Rupert looked at 
 her with pitying eyes. ' Is there no remedy ? ' he inquired. 
 ' Could you not persuade your father to renounce the enter- 
 prise ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, impossible,' she said ; 'I know him too well. When 
 he decides that a duty lies before him he will go through 
 fire, and water ; there is no holding him back. I did not 
 venture on a word of dissuasion ; but I said, as he was going, 
 " And so, father, you leave me alone in the world." I could 
 not forbear saying that. But he kissed me, and answered, 
 " You will not be alone if Mr. Glanville is true," and without 
 a word more he left me. Hush, you are going to speak 
 and to violate your pledge. No, Rupert, wait. This is not 
 the end of my story.
 
 278 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-art n 
 
 'I felt miserable indeed when he was gone, Towards 
 evening the cottage looked so desolate that I resolved to 
 avail myself of Lord Trelingham's hospitality, and occupy 
 the room which he calls mine, the dear old man. It w;is 
 dark when I arrived, and the place looked strangely quiet 
 after the brilliant spectacle of the birthday festivities, the 
 dress ball, and the tableaux viranfs. The music of the dance 
 had been ringing in my ears incessantly till I entered the 
 vestibule ; but there, under the sudden conviction that it was 
 all over, that it had gone like a vision of the night, it seemed 
 to stop. I felt that you were gone. Would not an instinct 
 have drawn you from your upper chamber, brought you 
 from the chalet, had you been there and Hippolyta at the 
 door? Ah yes, Rupert, you love this poor foolish maiden, 
 and she loves you, I think. So they came out and made 
 me welcome, and told me of the pleasures I had missed by 
 going home ; and that you, to their astonishment, had not 
 stayed out the festivities, but had been hurried away on they 
 knew not what business to London. And then they praised 
 the tableaux, and we were deep all that evening in questions 
 of Celtic poetry and the significance of the San Greal. 
 Lord Trelingham asked me when my father would come 
 again. I told him I did not know ; that all was uncertain 
 with him and consequently with me, but, as the truth was, 
 that he had been pleased on hearing of my new life among 
 these kind friends, and especially that I had witnessed the 
 glories of the coming of age. 
 
 ' The change and stir were good for me. I could not 
 have borne the solitude of Falside. But I was haunted by 
 a vague suspicion that Lady May, who is the least friendly 
 of them all, had looked at me askance, perhaps because she 
 imputed to my interference your leaving the Court. I could 
 not tell, and I did not think much of it. Next morning, as 
 I was sitting by the window where you found me that day, 
 — you have not forgotten ? — it struck me as extraordinary 
 that there was not one of the family to be seen. Where 
 could they all be ? They had left me after breakfast and 
 scattered as usual ; but the long absence from the morning- 
 room was not usual, at least when I happened to be stay- 
 ing in the house. I began to think what it might mean.
 
 chap, xx LOVE INDEED 279 
 
 Towards one o'clock, however, the Countess ran hastily in, 
 and — you know her way — without preface or preliminary, 
 threw her arms about my neck, kissed me in a sort of rapture, 
 and cried out, " Wish me joy, my dear, she has refused him." 
 I was bewildered. " She — who ? " I asked. " Refused 
 whom ? " The Countess did not leave me in doubt. " May 
 has refused my Cousin Tom,'' she said, and danced down 
 the room in wild excitement' 
 
 Rupert gave an exclamation of surprise. He remem- 
 bered the fragment of conversation he had heard, when 
 walking on the front terrace, between the Countess and 
 Lady May. The words came back to him as they had been 
 uttered by Karina, ' Well, then, if you do not care for 
 him, you ought to refuse him.' Had Tom Davenant pro- 
 posed to the Earl's daughter? He put the question to 
 Hippolyta. 
 
 ' You shall hear,' she answered. ' When I could get the 
 Countess to be still and sit down like a reasonable creature, 
 she began, without pressing, to explain the events of the 
 morning. She had been aware, for some time, that a crisis 
 was at hand. Every one knows, and indeed she is not by 
 way of making it a secret, that she wishes to marry Mr. 
 Davenant. She told me as much herself at the outset. 
 But it appears that Mr. Davenant some two years ago made 
 a formal offer of marriage to Lady May through her father. 
 The Earl did not consider it necessary to tell his daughter 
 then, and insisted on her cousin's silence till he came of 
 age. But the young man adhered to his resolution. At 
 the earliest moment he could, when all the guests, including 
 his mother, had left Trelingham, he went to the Earl and 
 renewed his proposal. What passed between them nobody 
 of course can tell. Karina, who never quitted her Cousin 
 Tom's footsteps during those days, saw him enter the library, 
 and half an hour afterwards heard Lord Trelingham ring 
 his bell. She was still watching when the servant who 
 answered it went off again to Lady May's room, and 
 the latter came downstairs — looking very much con- 
 cerned, said Karina — and knocked at the library door. It 
 opened, Lady May went in ; and the Countess, steady at 
 her post, heard a murmur of voices, one of which by degrees 

 
 2 So THE A TGONE PABXH 
 
 became Kn.il and firm. The conference lasted not very 
 Long; and Karma, fearful of what might happen if she were 
 discovered lingering so near, walked down the hall and stood 
 by the entrance, pretending, as she told me, to be looking 
 at the weather. She heard the door open again, and Lady 
 M .;. came with hasty footsteps along the hall. Karina 
 turned as she drew near. Her cousin's face was hot and 
 flushed ; she looked angry. On seeing the Countess she 
 paused, hesitated, and struck, as it would appear, with a 
 sudden inspiration, walked over to her, and said, " Karina, 
 you may marry Tom when you like. I will never marry 
 him." These were her very words. " Have you told him 
 so ? " the Countess inquired. " I have told him in my 
 father's presence ; and now I hope there will be an end of 
 this." Karina stayed to hear no more. She came on the 
 instant to find me, whom she supposed to be in the morning- 
 room ; for, as she said, a joy that one cannot communicate 
 
 is not worth having. And besides .' Hippolyta looked 
 
 about and stopped in her embarrassment. She did not see 
 her way to continue. 
 
 'Yes,' said Rupert, 'and besides? What other reason 
 had she?' 
 
 Hippolyta heaved a sigh. 'These arc curious confes- 
 sions to make,' she said. ' You must know then, Rupert, 
 that the Countess wanted to thank me for my share in 
 the transaction. My share? I asked her what it had 
 been, and she told me. I felt ashamed while she spoke. 
 That Russian lady was born to make mischief, as you will 
 grant when I tell you about her.' 
 
 ' I grant it already,' said the artist ; ' she is cunning and 
 unprincipled.' 
 
 ' Cunning, certainly,' replied Hippolyta ; and she re- 
 hearsed the conversation which had taken place at Falside 
 between herself and Madame de Lutenieff, delivering, as 
 she judged to be expedient, a round unvarnished tale. 
 Rupert was very angry ; he saw now that his suspicions 
 had been well founded. This woman would have set 
 Hippolyta and Lady May at daggers drawn to achieve her 
 purpose. 
 
 'She came to thank me,' said Hippolyta, almost in
 
 chap, xx LOVE INDEED 28 1 
 
 tears, ' for the admirable way in which I had played my 
 part and stirred Lady May to jealousy, not only during the 
 week before the ball, but on that evening. My sudden 
 departure, followed by yours next day, she called a master- 
 stroke. I could hardly find words, but I assured her that it 
 was pure accident which recalled me to Falside. "Accident 
 or design," she replied, " it could not have happened better. 
 My Cousin May has been ever since in a state of the deepest 
 melancholy, and all idea of rewarding Mr. Davenant for 
 his great kindness in proposing is at an end." I had 
 nothing to remark on that point, and was silent. But 
 she would not let me alone. She congratulated me on 
 my philosophy, wished she were as detached from the 
 world herself, and assured me I had done an excellent 
 thing in helping Lady May to follow the path of affec- 
 tion. Her conclusion was, " She will now marry Mr. 
 Glanville, and they will live happy ever after. And, 
 my dear Hippolyta, it will have been all your doing." 
 Oh, how can one woman stab another in this deliberate 
 way ! ' 
 
 'Women of the world, as you call them, Hippolyta, are 
 capable of everything,' said Rupert ; ' they have no heart, 
 or have gambled it away. And so, May Davenant is to 
 marry me, whether I like it or no. I wonder what that 
 lady herself thinks about it.' 
 
 ' You will not wonder long ; I am coming to that,' she 
 answered very seriously. ' Karina had only just finished 
 speaking when Lady May came in. I had often thought 
 her a person of violent temper, but she was now in a state 
 of excitement such as I had never witnessed. Her eyes 
 blazed. " Karina," she said, " this is a matter on which 
 the less secrecy is kept the better." And with that she 
 turned to where I was sitting. "I daresay you have heard, 
 Miss Valence, from my cousin here what has just taken 
 place?" I murmured assent. "Yes," she said, "it is true. 
 I have refused Mr. Davenant once and for all. It is not, 
 it shall not be a secret. You may mention it to whom you 
 please. Mrs. Davenant will hear, no doubt, that the offer 
 has been made, and then all the world will know of it." 
 Karina interrupted her. " If it depends on Tom," she said,
 
 282 THE NEW ANTIGONE tart n 
 
 '• Mrs. Davenant will not be any the wiser. I am sure he 
 will not tell her." — "Well, it is all one to me," said Lady 
 M.iv ; "in in means well, but 1 am not going to I 
 
 importune.'. I will not stand in your way," she said 
 to the Countess with a forced laugh. "Thank you so 
 much,'' answered (Carina in her mocking tone. "As I was 
 telling Miss Valence, we shall read one of these days that 
 a marriage has been arranged and will shortly take place 
 between Lady May Davenant, only daughter of the Earl 
 of Trelin^ham, and the distinguished artist, Mr. Rupert 
 Glanvill 
 
 '"You have been telling Miss Valence that?" exclaimed 
 her cousin, drawing a step nearer. The Countess shrank 
 away. "Well, why not?" she asked, still bent on making 
 mischief. The reply seemed to stagger Lady May. " Why 
 not ?" she echoed absently. And then recovering herself, 
 she looked straight into my eyes. " Would it make any 
 difference to you, Miss Valence, if I did ? " she asked in 
 her loftiest manner. My heart sank within me. "You 
 are the best judge of your own actions," I replied, showing 
 as little feeling as I could. " Then you are not in love 
 with Mr. Glanville?" was her question, full of mockery and 
 malice. Karina looked on, amused. I rose ; I would not 
 wait to be further questioned. " Make my excuses, please, 
 to Lord Trelingham," I said, "and allow me to wish you 
 good-morning. This is the last time I shall trouble you, 
 Lady May." I was going to the door when the Countess 
 interposed. She begged me not to take offence ; it was her 
 fault, her cousin meant nothing. Lady May stood per- 
 fectly silent, and I thought would not speak. But she felt, 
 I suppose, that she had been guilty of a breach of good 
 manners, and that it was due to herself to tender an 
 apology. When she saw I was bent on going, she stepped 
 forward and begged my pardon. She had not meant to be 
 rude. She was excited; would I forgive her? I thought 
 of the Earl, who had been so kind to me, and how my 
 departure at that moment would make a reconciliation 
 between the families more impossible than ever. And if I 
 
 went, would it not seem a confession that you and I ? 
 
 In short, I did violence to myself and answered meekly.
 
 chap, xx LOVE INDEED 283 
 
 But I could not stay, as they wished me, beyond the next 
 few hours. My head ached, and I was, you may imagine 
 how wretched. Mr. Davenant did not appear at luncheon. 
 He was busy, the Earl said, preparing for his journey to 
 Foxholme, where he had to meet the tenantry next day. 
 The Countess was radiant, Lord Trelingham serious, Lady 
 May sullen, like one that cannot forgive herself for seeming 
 lowered in the eyes of a friend. I was glad to get home. 
 I shall never, never visit Trelingham again.' 
 
 'Nor 1/ said Glanville ; 'I will acquaint Lord Treling- 
 ham by the next post that our engagement is ended. My 
 poor darling, how you must have suffered !' He would 
 have taken her hand; but Hippolyta, who had drawn 
 closer to him in the excitement of her narrative, stood 
 up, and walking towards the fireplace, said, with her eyes 
 averted : 
 
 ' But why did I not remain at home ? You do not ask 
 me that. Oh, no,' she exclaimed suddenly, ' give up your 
 engagement at Trelingham you must not. Honour is 
 honour.' 
 
 ' It will be only paying a forfeit which I can well afford,' 
 said Rupert, ' and I cannot look Lady May in the face 
 again after her atrocious behaviour.' 
 
 ' Yes, you can,' said Hippolyta, speaking in a wonderfully 
 quiet tone. 
 
 ' How is it possible ? ' he asked. ' Do you think I 
 could go on living at the Court while you were in a kind 
 of exile at Falside ?' 
 
 ' I shall not go back to Falside,' was her reply. 
 
 'What !' said Rupert, astonished; 'not go back? Have 
 you any other plan ? What is it ? tell me.' 
 
 ' Then be quiet, as you promised,' she said ; and with 
 great seriousness, always keeping her eyes averted, she went 
 on, ' Why do you think I came here to-night ? To inform 
 you that Lady May had hurt my feelings ? No, not exactly. 
 When a girl like me has lost father and mother, when she 
 is her own mistress, alone in the world, without any one to 
 look to for light or guidance except the man she loves, 
 what do you suppose she ought to do?' Her voice sank 
 to a whisper as she ended.
 
 284 THE NEW ANTIGONE PA*m 
 
 Rupert sprang from his chair. ' My darling Hippolyta,' 
 
 he cried, 'do you mean to say that you will marry me at 
 
 once ? ' 
 
 'I mean,' she said, as he took her to his bosom, 'that I 
 
 am yours in life and in death.' 
 
 END OF VOL. I 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clakk, Edinburgh.
 
 PART II 
 
 Continued 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE ORDINANCES OF THE GODS 
 
 There was silence in the room. They could neither of 
 them speak or move in the flood of happiness which came 
 over them. Hippolyta was the first to release herself, and 
 go back to her former attitude by the fire. She waited 
 for him to take up the conversation. 
 
 'Then,' said Rupert with a pleasant laugh, sinking back 
 into the chair by the easel, ' I must get a special license as 
 early as I can — to-morrow morning, if possible.' 
 
 Hippolyta gave him a curious smiling look. ' Who 
 grants you the special license ? ' she asked. 
 
 ' I don't know, I am sure,' he answered. ' I am not 
 learned in these things. I fancy it is the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury.' 
 
 'Do you believe in the Archbishop of Canterbury?' she 
 inquired, still smiling. He, too, smiled at the question on 
 her lips at such a time. 
 
 ' Not a great deal,' he said ; ' but he is an institution, a 
 piece of antiquity. And we cannot be married without him.' 
 
 'Can we not?' she said. 'What a strange thing that 
 would be ! No, Rupert, we do not want the Archbishop's 
 license, or any one else's.' The words sounded strangely 
 on her lover's ear. 
 
 'You are excited, Hippolyta,' he said, 'and it makes 
 
 VOL. II. B
 
 2 THE NEW ANTIGONE r.u.rn 
 
 you talk in a fanciful way. I care nothing for the license. 
 
 We can be married by banns, in the old fashion, if you 
 like ; but it will take more time, and you will have to be 
 (ailed by Mr. Truscombe in Trelingham Church.' 
 
 'Not in any church,' was her firm reply. 'Listen, 
 Rupert, I see you do not understand me yet. I love you 
 with my whole heart, but I have not ceased to be 1 [ippolyta 
 Valence. Do you know how I have been brought up ? 
 I am not a Christian , I have no religion, except to follow 
 my conscience ; to live the highest life and help towards 
 realising the noblest ideas. My father has taught me that 
 all religions debase them. And do you imagine it would 
 become my father's daughter, at the very moment he is 
 staking his life in the battle for the future, to stand at a 
 Christian altar and submit to institutions which he and 1 
 have renounced? I will never do such a thing.' 
 
 'But my dear, dear Hippolyta,' he cried in amazement, 
 'it is only a ceremony. It can do you no harm.' 
 
 ' Yes, it can do me this harm — that I shall be acting a 
 falsehood I have neither regard for the Christian cere- 
 monies nor belief in the creed they express.' 
 
 ' But surely you believe in the sacredness of wedlock.' 
 
 ' I believe in the sacredness of love, but I will have no 
 priest to utter his superstitious formulas over my head, or 
 recite legends to which I must hearken while despising 
 them, or pretend that you and I may not consecrate our 
 hearts to one another without his leave. Nor will I submit 
 to any civil ordinance. To bind myself before man would 
 be more foolish even than to take an oath in the presence 
 of a God I do not believe in. Why should you care, 
 Rupert ? You think really as I do ; and yet you are the 
 slave of old customs. Are we not alone in the world, 
 simply given into each other's hands by nature and destiny? 
 Can a priest bid you cease to love me, or change our feel- 
 ings ? Here is the marriage of true minds. Can he allege 
 an impediment against it ? ' 
 
 Her beauty and eloquence of attitude while she spoke 
 were extraordinary. Rupert could not take his eyes off 
 her. A deep crimson dyed his cheeks ; there seemed to 
 be a singing in his ears, and a tremor of emotion ran
 
 chap, xxi THE ORDINANCES OF THE GODS 3 
 
 through him which all his efforts were powerless to control. 
 He felt himself choking. What, what demon, at once per- 
 suasive and malignant, had thrust Hippolyta into this 
 frightful danger? How, good heavens, had she been 
 so foolish, so innocent, as to confide herself, at such a time, 
 under such circumstances, to a man who was passionately 
 in love with her, casting away like an unsuspecting child 
 the protection with which society girds about maiden 
 honour ? ' Oh,' he murmured, sighing heavily and turning 
 away his eyes with a violent effort, while he set his teeth 
 and grasped the arm of the chair into which he had flung 
 himself, 'oh, to pluck this rose, this sweet, pale rose, 
 breathing out love and passion ! Oh, pale, sweet rose, to 
 be trampled in the mire, its leaves rent, its fragrance gone, 
 and I to be such a villain ! ' He would not look into those 
 kindling eyes again. But the fire in his heart, how it 
 surged, how it ran through his veins ! It was the hot lava 
 fire of temptation. No, no, he must not yield. ' How did 
 you dare to come, you mad, impulsive child ? ' he cried, 
 still choked with emotion. 
 
 ' Dare to come ?' was her quiet answer. ' Dare, Rupert ? 
 Not come to you because I dare not ? Why, what risk am 
 I running ? Rupert will not harm me.' Her voice was 
 low and clear ; it never trembled. 
 
 ' Not Rupert,' he said huskily, putting down his rebellious 
 spirit with a firm hand ; ' not Rupert, but the wildness in 
 
 him, the passion you have so cruelly, so thoughtlessly ' 
 
 He would not continue. Better not dwell on it. One 
 moment of weakness and they were lost. He must be 
 calm, find arguments against his own tumultuous feelings, 
 against her innocent but most fatal delusion. But what 
 reasoning could avail ? She did not comprehend what she 
 had been saying, what her principles meant, into what a 
 net she had cast herself. To her the world was utterly 
 unknown. He could not reason as with one who would 
 understand his half-words. Could he urge the example of 
 society? She would laugh it to scorn. Custom, usage, 
 respectability, how was he to make them avail where educa- 
 tion had taken their value from them ? There was no 
 argument there. At last he exclaimed :
 
 4 THE NEW ANTIGi PABT n 
 
 'But, Hippolyta, for my sake, darling; to please me, 
 will you not do like the rest of the world? You shall be 
 free as air afterwards. I have never given a thought to 
 your religious views. You learnt them from your father, 
 and it is not for me to say I know more about such thin 
 than he does. I was brought up in the ordinary way ; 1 
 took my own line when I became a man, as you know. 
 My friends would tell you, very likely, that I had not much 
 of the Christian left in me, nor do I suppose I have. But 
 some points we must observe till the world changes.' 
 
 ' My world has changed already,' was her rejoinder ; 
 'it has ceased to be the world of lying conventions and 
 foolish worn-out antiquities. It is the world of truth and 
 honour and love. If I could not promise to be faithful, if 
 1 were not sure of my own heart and of yours ' 
 
 'How can you be sure if we are not married, Hippo- 
 lyta?' His voice trembled again. He could hardly con- 
 tinue. ' Might I not do as other men have done — be a 
 scoundrel and desert the woman I had pretended to love ? 
 Where would be her remedy ? ' 
 
 He shook with excitement and the effort to keep it down. 
 
 Hippolyta fairly laughed. ' And do you think the Arch- 
 bishop's license would give her a remedy ? What a charm 
 for broken hearts ! Why, it would be a more powerful 
 love-philter than Tristram and Iseult drank together on 
 their fatal voyage.' A slight pang of jealousy shot through 
 her ; she could not forget the tableau in which Rupert and 
 Lady May pledged their love on the evening of the ball. 
 
 ' My dear child,' said Rupert, in his exasperation, ' you 
 argue like a woman. It is net a question of feelings but of 
 rights.' 
 
 ' I argue like my father, who has often told me that the 
 great wrong on which all modern institutions are founded is 
 the divorce between feeling and right.' 
 
 1 But he married Lady Alice. He submitted to the 
 social ordinances.' 
 
 ' He was young then, and his principles were not fixed as 
 they afterwards became.' 
 
 ' And your mother ? a man that marries twice must 
 surely believe in matrimony.'
 
 chap, xxi THE ORDINANCES OF THE GODS 5 
 
 ' I cannot tell,' said Hippolyta, musing, but not, as it would 
 seem, convinced. ' There was in the union of my father 
 and mother all the sacredness which you, and I no less 
 than you, prize in wedlock. But whether they went through 
 civil or religious forms I never learnt. I do not think 
 they did.' 
 
 Rupert, in spite of his large-mindedness, felt the shock. 
 ' And is it possible, then, that your mother was not married ?' 
 he exclaimed, with growing indignation against Colonel 
 Valence. 
 
 1 Quite possible,' she answered in a tranquil voice ; ' not 
 married as men speak who cling to the conventional. But 
 she loved my father, and had no eyes for any one but him 
 till the day she died.' 
 
 ' I see, I feel,' he said, being utterly baffled, ' what an 
 influence education has had on you. I am at a loss what 
 to say. You are in the wrong ; you do injustice to that 
 highest nature you hold in veneration ; and still, these 
 principles are so novel I do not know how to cope with 
 them. Oh,' he cried, in a tone of vehement desire, ' I 
 wish Ivor Mardol were here. You could not resist him.' 
 
 ' I do not believe he would take your side,' she answered ; 
 ' the side, I mean, which you are in vain attempting to 
 defend. He is no disbeliever in the golden age.' 
 
 ' Am I, then ? ' asked Rupert. 
 
 ' It would seem so. You cannot imagine that two 
 hearts, the most attachable that ever were, will be true to 
 one another unless society — and such society ! — clamps them 
 together with iron bands. Ivor Mardol would rebuke your 
 want of faith, not my trust in you. Come, Rupert, dear,' 
 she went on, facing him now with her sweet and frank 
 expression, ' let the soul of the artist within you burst these 
 conventions, and float with me into a happier air. The old 
 world is dying ; it is nearly dead. Cannot you hear the 
 rattle in its throat ; these inarticulate gaspings of rites and 
 ceremonies, the meaning of which was emptied away before 
 you and I saw the light ? We are young ; we have learnt 
 how much of what people say they believe, and only say it, 
 is false to the heart's core. What concern have we with 
 effete aristocracies, obsolete religions, childish betrothals
 
 6 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-aht n 
 
 with ring and book in the sight of the profane multitude? 
 The infinite expanse of the future lies before us, the possi- 
 bilities of to-morrow. It has taken many a brave life to 
 win this fair inheritance — the poets, the dreamers, the \\; 
 
 men and women who have not dreamt merely, but have 
 begun to realise what they dreamt On which side will 
 you take your stand, — with the old, tyrannical, foolish, help- 
 lessly cruel past, or with men like Ivor Mardol and Colonel 
 Valence, with women like— yes, I dare to say it — like Hip- 
 poly ta ? You do not know the consequences of one false 
 step in a girl brought up as I have been to act and speak 
 the perfect truth. Were I to do as you bid me, to go with 
 you before priest or registrar, I should degrade myself 
 beyond redemption. This, Rupert, is the woman's protest 
 
 inst the old bad order, her martyrdom if you will. It is 
 for man to renounce honours, wealth, glory, the power 
 which involves dominion over the weak, and is founded on 
 their weakness. What can a maiden renounce? I will 
 tell you. Do not shrink if I say it, conscious of the 
 unsullied life I have led and the innocent love that is beat- 
 ing in my heart. Rupert, she can renounce respectability.' 
 
 He had listened like one amazed. She spoke with 
 burning eloquence, and her eyes were bright and clear as 
 she stood before him, her countenance glowing with enthu- 
 siasm, while with the fervent words her bosom heaved and 
 fell. Rupert, in a taking of love and anger, was almost 
 beside himself. 
 
 'Good heavens, Hippolyta,' he burst out, 'do you want 
 to drive me distracted ? Was ever such a situation ? You 
 do not in the least understand your danger or mine. 
 Child, child,' he said, his face darkening, ' why have you 
 dared to put yourself thus in the power of another, even 
 though that other be Rupert ? I will not harm you. God 
 forbid. But see to it that you tempt me no further. Go, 
 my dear, forget these wild and hurtling words. Let me 
 take you to your hotel.' He looked round as he spoke for 
 his hat and overcoat. 
 
 She laughed, no whit displeased. ' You must find my 
 hotel first,' she said. ' I have no hotel.' 
 
 ' Where is your luggage then ?' he inquired.
 
 chap, xxi THE ORDINANCES OF THE GODS 7 
 
 ' I brought hardly any,' she replied ; ' what there is I left 
 at the railway station. I came here direct' 
 
 'Well, well,' he said uneasily, 'there is no harm done; 
 we can call for it, and then drive you to some hotel.' 
 
 She did not stir from her place. With a long, earnest look 
 she examined the expression of Rupert's countenance, where 
 he stood by the door. He was impatient; he could think only 
 that she ought to have an address in London and not be 
 wandering about like this. He would devise some means 
 of persuading her to be reasonable to-morrow, when she 
 had got over the excitement of the discussion. While he 
 was in this mental confusion, she walked slowly across the 
 hearth and came to him. He turned round. They were 
 again face to face. 
 
 ' Rupert,' she said, ' I am here. I am your wife. We 
 have acknowledged our mutual love, which has no rival nor 
 can have a successor. Take me as I am. I love you. I 
 do not fear you at all.' She looked marvellously beautiful 
 as she stood before him waiting. 
 
 ' I will not,' he cried, ' so help me God. I am willing, 
 nay, eager as love can make me, to marry you. But, 
 Hippolyta, have pity on yourself, have pity on me,' he said 
 in an imploring voice ; ' see, I go down on my knees to 
 you,' and he fell sobbing at her feet. She stooped and 
 touched his cheek with her ungloved hand. 
 
 ' No, Rupert,' she answered, weeping ; ' I have my code 
 of honour as you have yours. We will be married my way 
 or no way. You must choose.' 
 
 ' Then,' he said, rising with a groan that tore his heart, 
 ' it shall be no way. I cannot, I will not dishonour you.' 
 He did not dare to lift his eyes to her face. 
 
 ' It is all over then,' she said in a faint whisper. ' Good- 
 .bye, Rupert. I have staked and lost. No matter, no 
 matter. Let me go.' 
 
 ' Go where ? ' he said, detaining her. ' You shall not 
 walk alone at this time of night through the London streets. 
 I will accompany you as I proposed.' 
 
 Her look had a strange meaning in it. ' Let me go,' 
 she murmured ; ' I am not afraid of the streets. I know 
 my way.'
 
 8 THE HEW ANTIGi r u 
 
 ' But you said >ou had no hotel.' He was resolved to 
 go with her. 
 
 ' I shall not need an hotel,' was the answer she made. 
 She drew her cloak about her shoulders and attempted to 
 
 pass him. Rupert had drawn the curtain aside which hung 
 over the door, but he held the handle (i 
 
 ' What are you going to do ?' he said. 
 
 ' Do you imagine,' she replied, 'that I have spent all my 
 resources in asking you to accept my love ? When I left 
 l'alside I had reckoned with the contingencies of our situa- 
 tion. I knew what I was risking. My reputation — as you 
 ( all it, — has not a visit like this, under these circumstances, 
 blown it to the four winds ? ' 
 
 ' Who saw you come in ? : he said eagerly. He felt the 
 force of her words. 
 
 ' Your servant and her children,' she said. ' I gave no 
 name, but my veil was up. They will be able to describe me.' 
 
 1 1 can trust old Martha,' he answered, ' if there was 
 nobody else.' 
 
 ' But you cannot trust me,' replied Hippolyta. ' I have 
 put myself into your hands, and my character is dead. I 
 have killed the Miss Valence who was, or might have been, 
 a respectable member of society. Can I be the same to 
 you as if this had not taken place ? ' 
 
 He thought she was relenting. 'You can, you can,' he 
 exclaimed with a feeling of relief. ' It matters nothing what 
 you have said or done to-night. Let us forget it, darling ; 
 forget it, my own worshipped Hippolyta.' 
 
 1 You mistake me still,' she said. ' I am not come to 
 act a play. What I have done is a part of myself. If you 
 take me with it you renounce the social ordinances which, 
 instead of uniting, have almost separated us. But if you 
 
 do not ' There was a long pause, or else the minutes 
 
 stretched out in this spiritual agony. 
 
 ' And if I do not?' Rupert said slowly, as if coming to 
 himself out of a sleep. 
 
 ' In that case, to-night will be the last of Hippolyta 
 Valence,' she answered. 
 
 ' Do you mean that you will ? ' He could not finish 
 
 the sentence.
 
 chap, xxi THE ORDINANCES OE THE GODS g 
 
 ' I mean,' she said under her breath, ' that I know my 
 way to the river. I will go whither so many of my poor 
 sisters have gone before me ; and neither you nor any man 
 shall hinder it.' And again she endeavoured to pass him. 
 
 'Stand back,' he cried out; 'you shall not go. You 
 have lost your senses.' And even as he spoke the thought 
 of uttering such harsh language to the woman he loved 
 smote upon him. ' Dear, sweet Hippolyta,' he said, taking 
 her hand, 'forgive me. It is I that am mad. But do 
 not be angry. Give up these wild thoughts. Be persuaded. 
 I will do anything.' 
 
 ' Anything but what I ask,' she said. ' Oh, I do not mind 
 your hard words. But enough. We have seen the last of 
 each other. We must go our several ways.' She was calm 
 and resolute. Her eyes had gathered a brilliant light in 
 them during the moments of their altercation ; and Rupert, 
 as he looked at her, thought she was the woman to do as 
 she had said. If he let her go the river would be her 
 resting-place ere morning. 
 
 Then began a fresh scene of earnest, impassioned plead- 
 ing on his part and resistance on hers. He begged, he 
 entreated, he grew angry and gentle by turns, he employed 
 the most caressing language and all the resources of the 
 lover's art, not as many a lover has done, to overcome the 
 scruples of modesty, but to save this high and noble spirit, 
 noble in its very aberrations, from shipwreck. He might 
 as well have poured out his eloquence to the stones of the 
 street. Hippolyta heard it all unmoved. She said once, 
 ' I do not scorn you for trying to change me, but I should 
 scorn myself if I yielded. Tell me that you cannot love 
 me unless I submit to this mockery and I shall understand. 
 But, even then, I will not give in to you. Can you tell me 
 so?' 
 
 ' No, Hippolyta,' he answered, ' it would not be true. 
 This is no question of love. Whatever you become I shall 
 feel the same towards you that I did when you dawned 
 upon me like a heavenly apparition in the Hermitage.' 
 
 'If our love remains,' she said, 'what can the rest 
 signify?' and the contest broke out again. But it was not 
 equal. Hippolyta, as she truly said, had thought over the
 
 io THE NEW ANTIGONE part n 
 
 contin of that strange situation, and was prepared 
 
 for the worst. Her life, spent with those who were i 
 exposing themselves in the field or ready to mount the 
 scaffold, had familiarised her with the idea not only of self- 
 sacrifice, hut of failure which has death for its price. The 
 risk, she said, must have been undertaken some day, why 
 not now ? To persuade Rupert in cold blood, or by the 
 use of arguments, was, she knew, impossible. One weapon 
 which not even he could pluck from her hand, one last 
 resource there was which left the man and woman unequally 
 matched — and the man inferior. She told him plainly. 'Do 
 not be a tyrant,' she said, ' and compel me to die. But this 
 be sure of, only by yielding to my wish can you persuade 
 me to live. Make the trial. Open the door and let me 
 go, or quit me and do not return. In twenty-four hours 
 you will hear news ot me.' 
 
 What could avail against such resolution ? Rupert said 
 to her at last, ' Will you stay here and do yourself no harm 
 to-night, if I leave you ? Give me time to reflect. You 
 may have changed your mind in the morning.' 
 
 ' I shall not change my mind,' she said. ' But I will stay 
 here on these conditions. Promise me to come back as 
 early as you can to-morrow and to look upon me henceforth 
 as your wife. Promise. Rupert, and I will wait quietly. 
 But if you do not return, or still insist on what I cannot 
 yield, — you know the rest. My dear,' she said softly, ' you 
 have to deal with a loving woman. Trust me and let us 
 be happy together. Do you promise ? ' 
 
 ' I promise,' he answered in a low voice. 
 
 It was like consenting to death. The room swam before 
 him. But when Hippolyta heard the words her counten- 
 ance lightened wonderfully. She became a naive child 
 instead of the resolute woman that had been pleading in 
 that desperate and unparalleled cause. ' Now go,' she said, 
 offering him her cheek to kiss. He touched it with his 
 lips, almost shudderingly. She held the door open. He 
 bethought himself for a moment before going, and said, 
 • You will find the means of making a fire in the morning, 
 and getting a morsel to eat. Lock the door. Don't 
 answer any one till I come. I will look in at the lodge as
 
 chap, xxi THE ORDINANCES OF THE GODS II 
 
 I go past and tell Martha she need not trouble about the 
 place ; that I have left it safe, and do not want it disturbed 
 at present. You must not be surprised, Hippolyta, if I am 
 delayed till towards noon. There will be many things to 
 see to. And — and you will not do anything while I am 
 away?' 
 
 'Keep your word,' she answered, 'and I will keep 
 mine.' 
 
 He fled down the steps and along the garden -path. 
 He heard the key turn in the lock. He did not venture 
 even to glance back, but ran straight on, gave a quick, brief 
 message to the woman who came out as he passed, and 
 with head down and rapid step took the road towards 
 London. More agitated he could not have been had he 
 left a murdered body in his studio. It was worse, he said 
 to himself; he had murdered a soul. 'And yet not I, not 
 I,' he murmured repeatedly, ' it is her father that has 
 ruined her with his principles.' 
 
 He walked on and on. The winds were still up, driving 
 the clouds through a beautiful stormy sky in which the 
 moon shone bright at intervals. It had ceased raining and 
 the streets were dry underfoot for the most part, though 
 here and there a pool of water gleamed on the roadway, 
 and all the scene reminded one of a chill March night 
 rather than the end of May. There was a high-strung 
 feeling in the atmosphere which harmonised with Rupert's 
 excited mood, and gave him a vivid sense as though in 
 comparison he had never lived till now. What had he 
 promised ? Was there any retreat from it compatible with 
 honour, nay, with the existence of Hippolyta? And this, 
 then, was the realising of all his hopes ! Oh, bitter mockery ! 
 He went over the debate again and again. Why had he 
 not urged this, why forgotten that? He had been too 
 tame, too yielding ; he might have pleaded more earnestly 
 for himself. Hippolyta was generous, and if he had in- 
 sisted on the injury to his own sense of rectitude, to his 
 reputation, which had never endured a stain, to his happi- 
 ness, which must be sacrificed if they were to live in con- 
 cealment or come forth with shameless foreheads before 
 the world, — but what did it avail ? The hour was past and
 
 U TR VE m,r 11 
 
 his ven. To-morrow? [t wanted how few momenta 
 
 ni the day when he and Hippolyta should become outcasts 
 ii'Din the world in which he had been brought up? And 
 he was helpless, bound hand and foot by the devilish 
 teaching of Colonel Valence. Who would have believed 
 yesterday that the dreams of a revolutionist were henceforth 
 to shape his life for Rupert Glanville? lie had been con- 
 tent to dwell in the regions of the ideal ; to put aside these 
 questions, tossed to and fro by politicians and reformers, as 
 vulgar, unworthy of the artist's consideration, fit only for 
 debating clubs. And they had broken into his retreat and 
 were clustering about his hearthstone. On him — him 
 — Rupert Glanville, the crisis of the modern world had 
 fallen. 
 
 'Why should it not?' he said with a bitter laugh as he 
 hurried along. ' Am I so unlike the rest of men ? Valence 
 was right. The world is a universal shipwreck, and my 
 turn has come to be thrown out on the waters. Every one 
 must cling to his own spar. But how strangely, good God, 
 how strangely it has come about! Hippolyta, so young, 
 so innocent, incapable of hurting the tenderest thing, — all 
 feeling, purity, and affection, — must Hippolyta be lost, and 
 I be the instrument of her undoing? It is too much.' 
 
 He stopped and gazed up and down the silent road, be- 
 wildered to such a degree that he knew not whether to turn 
 back and try to persuade Hippolyta, or to leave it all to chance 
 and depart by the next mail for the Continent. He could 
 be ready in a few hours. He was now Hearing home, and 
 terribly fatigued with the excitement and exhaustion of the 
 day, for he had eaten nothing since noon. To pack a 
 portmanteau, write a farewell note, telling Hippolyta that 
 a bad promise ought to be broken and he, could not bring 
 himself to do her wrong, then to drive to Charing Cross 
 and catch the Dover train,- all this was still possible. He 
 had almost resolved on it, but for the memory of her reso- 
 lute pale face and her steady words, which assured him that 
 she had not been acting a part. What should he feel if 
 she carried her threat into execution, and he learned in 
 Florence or Dresden that her body had been found defiled 
 in the mud of the Thames, her sweet eyes closed for ever?
 
 chap, xxi THE ORDINANCES OE THE GODS 13 
 
 No, he dared not risk it. Even death would not save her 
 now ; after spending a night in that fatal studio she was to 
 the world at large dishonoured. She had spoken the 
 truth ; in paying such a visit her character was blown to 
 the four winds. The falling snow was not more stainless, 
 and yet she must bear about with her the penalty of guilt. 
 
 His thoughts, as he wandered aimlessly under the fitful 
 moon and the wild clouds, took a fresh turn. He would 
 not go home yet. He stood looking through the railings 
 of the Park, and studied with an absorbed gaze the misty 
 lawns on which lay a film of uncertain moonlight, while the 
 dark stems of the trees made a solemn background. ' After 
 all,' so his meditation ran, ' who knows ? Hippolyta may 
 be right. What is the world's marriage but a ceremony ? 
 How many of us believe in it or respect it? Should I 
 have let it stand in the way if I had fallen in love with a 
 married woman and discovered that she was miserable ? 
 Fortunate for me, I daresay, that I never did. Things are 
 all breaking up ; it seems as if the lease of the old world 
 had run out and the building had to come down. Cer- 
 tainly it is years since I entered a church with any belief 
 in what goes on there. Have I any reason to become its 
 champion ? None, none whatever, except a feeble dislike 
 to be pointed at as eccentric or a libertine. God knows I 
 am no saint, but neither am I a libertine. How could I 
 consent to the ruin of an innocent child ? But she says it 
 is not ruin. It will be a marriage of the heart, and why 
 should I mind ? If we were on a desert island, where there 
 was neither clergyman nor registrar, should we hesitate to 
 marry or think ourselves not married till one came ? What 
 is the difference then ? For to me the social order is of 
 no more consequence than a panorama which I see pass 
 by, one view drawing after it another, and none of them 
 lasting. I cannot answer Hippolyta's objections. Oh, why 
 did Ivor go away ? He would tell me what to do ; he 
 would find a solution. Is it only inbred custom that revolts 
 in me, or something higher and better ; is it the heart 
 which will not have its affection degraded, or a want of 
 nobility in the intellect, fettered by chains of use ? I 
 cannot tell. Who is there that can tell me?' He lost
 
 14 
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE paet h 
 
 himself in the civile is dis< ussion The sound of a distant 
 cab hurrying along broke from time to time upon his ear; 
 but it died away into silence while he walked hither and 
 thither, scanning the shapes and motions of the silvery 
 clouds and the deep rifts of blue where the stars shone 
 faintly. Was ffippolyta asleep at this hour, or pacing the 
 studio in troubled thought as lie was pacing up and down 
 Park Lane? Again he felt tempted to go back. 
 
 He walked a few steps in the direction he had come; 
 then, with a strong effort, frightened and feeling a chill at his 
 art, like one who has heard the voice of an evil being 
 near him, he turned again and went hastily along the de- 
 serted streets, not towards his studio, but towards the river. 
 He could not have explained what lugubrious fancy it was 
 that led him on, neither pausing nor looking back, nor 
 assigning to himself a reason for the way he was travelling, 
 but still moving, as by instinct, always towards the river. 
 In the weird and silent light, shed by a moon which gradu- 
 ally drank up the clouds and seemed to grow larger and 
 larger, he caught a glimpse of his shadow, now in advance, 
 now moving sideways with him, now emerging from the deep 
 gloom of enormous buildings as a drowning man rises for a 
 moment from the waves which are to close over him again. 
 He passed a solitary figure at the turn of a street, and could 
 hardly refrain from asking it what business took it abroad 
 at such an hour. He heard the steady march of a police- 
 man pacing up and down, and the echo from the opposite 
 side of the way, with something of the guilty apprehension 
 that dogs an ill deed; he would have felt easier had no 
 one in the huge city been awake but himself. And still he 
 made for the river. A fresh breeze blew upon his forehead 
 when he emerged from a narrow lane ; he saw the vast 
 shadow of the Abbey, and the moon resting over it ; other 
 shadows came, as it were to meet him and guide him on. 
 In the quiet which had succeeded to the rush and tumult 
 of a London day there was something inexpressibly awful 
 and mysterious ; something as terrible as death, for it came 
 upon him like the cessation of innumerable lives, of myriad 
 activities, like the lying down to a rest which might never 
 be broken, so profound was the silence over it, of millions
 
 chap, xxi THE ORDINANCES OF THE GODS 15 
 
 upon millions. And then he was standing alone on West- 
 minster Bridge. 
 
 For that brief space of time, the river with its multiplied 
 solemn lights stretching far away, the immense radiance of 
 the moon quenching them in one place, contrasting with 
 them in another, all that flood of dreary waters and still 
 drearier memories belonged to him alone. It had no name, 
 no associations with history, no taint of the vulgar day; it 
 was a broad river flowing by a great wicked city down to 
 the unknown sea. And in its deeps were the secrets of 
 wasted lives, a vision of horror not to be explored by the 
 boldest. Yet he would force himself to think of those 
 whom Hippolyta, the pure unsullied Hippolyta, had called 
 her sisters, and with whom she had been willing to make 
 her bed that night. Where he was standing, in another 
 hour, let him but utter the word, she would be gazing her 
 last on earth and sky. He saw her mounting the parapet, 
 heard her cry of despair as the arches of the bridge echoed 
 and re-echoed it in the stillness, watched her as she sprang, 
 as she whirled through the air, as her body struck upon the 
 rushing waters, and her golden hair floated in the light one 
 instant, then was swallowed down into the deeps of death. 
 Another of the pitiful sisterhood to whom suicide opens its 
 ghastly arms, another folded in the embrace of the spectre 
 that knows not how to help sorrow but by slaying ! And was 
 that to be Hippolyta's doom ? ' Not now,' he said aloud, 
 ' not to-night, unless I lose pity for the sake of I know not 
 what poor forms and conventional virtues. It shall not be 
 to-night.' He looked steadfastly down at the river, and 
 from a great distance the whisper was conveyed to his 
 heart, ' Not to-night, do you say ? But another night may 
 come, more desolate than this ; a night when Hippolyta, 
 degraded, ruined, forsaken, the cruel sport of passion and 
 poverty, shall find her way hither, and looking round for 
 one that loved her in the old time and is not near nor will 
 come again, crying out to the silence to have pity on her, 
 shall find no refuge but in these deeps of death. Are you 
 willing that such shall be the end of your romance, of your 
 loyalty?' The great light reflected beneath seemed to be 
 gazing at him.
 
 16 THE NEW ANTIGONE pait n 
 
 Even as the fancy came he beheld — whether with the 
 s of flesh or only with those of the spirit, who shall say? 
 — the depths of the river lit up, its secret places openii 
 he beheld its slimy banks and muddy, festering floor, which 
 some indescribable vegetation clothed and made more 
 horrible, and the dark yellow waters rushing along, ghastly 
 in a pale flame, which gave them a half transparency, and 
 which illuminated that pathway of the drowned as if it were 
 a mausoleum wherein sacrifices to the dead, or on behalf oi 
 them, were to be offered that night. He saw the multitude 
 crowding upon one another, and again they seemed to be 
 each in its own solitude; so that he was oppressed at one 
 and the same time with contradictory feelings of a throng 
 from which there was no escape save into the unlighted 
 abysses beyond, and a loneliness where no voice came. 
 His ear seemed to detect the sound of footsteps moving 
 swiftly or slowly, but oftenest with the dragging gait of 
 despair, moving from the distant city streets, from east and 
 west, from north and south, from the ends of the earth, 
 converging all towards the spot where he was standing, — a 
 iseless, dreadful march of those that did not know one 
 another, nor in this life ever should, but were contributing 
 to swell one host, and precipitating themselves into a 
 common grave. The river itself was peopled with the 
 dead; but still the dead came hurrying, crowding, rushing 
 with maddened steps, or creeping as in a dream, along all 
 the ways which led up to the bridge and into the flaming 
 waters. There was no other sound than the march of 
 innumerable feet, no outcry to pierce the ear of darkness 
 and wake those that slept in their warm beds, oblivious of 
 their brothers and sisters who, fainting under the weary 
 load of life, came to cast it from them into depths where it 
 should be found no more. He heard the steps behind 
 him, around him ; the pavements were alive with them, 
 but the host marching forward was already enrolled in the 
 ranks of death. And as they pressed down into the river, 
 breathless, hopeless, with wild eyes and haggard looks, he 
 saw the numbers of them that had entered into this sabbath 
 of suicides rise in their dripping garments to meet their 
 associates in crime and desolation. The multitude grew
 
 chap, xxi THE ORDINANCES OF THE GODS 17 
 
 and grew; but there was ever fresh room as it moved 
 downward to the remoter places, whence, as it seemed to 
 him, the ascending tide was bringing a noise of the sea 
 and of the night-winds struggling upon it. Here was the 
 waste of the world, the human souls and bodies for which 
 in life no room could be discovered nor a ransom given : 
 here was a redemption wrought for others, for the happy 
 among men, by suffering. But how unlike that redemption 
 spoken of in the churches ! For upon this no resurrection 
 followed ; it was an offering of victims whereof account was 
 not made and whose pains had but one alleviation — that 
 they were ended by death. Or was it possible that the 
 great sea towards which the throng seemed to be moving 
 might prove more dreadful than the river? Had those 
 old tales of the fiery deep, and the streams of lament and 
 forgetfulness, any truth in them which made of suicide 
 not only the dreariest but the deadliest of sins ? What did 
 that stony look in the eyes, what did that scared hue upon 
 the cheeks portend ? A wasted life might then be nothing 
 in comparison with a self-inflicted death. The dark realms ; 
 the infinite shadow ; the jaws which opened from beneath, 
 in the deeps immeasurable; the grave that was but an 
 entrance to a lower grave, which would swallow the living 
 soul as these waters had sucked down the body, — yes, it 
 was more natural to believe in them here, when sin and 
 death met face to face. And was Hippolyta to join this 
 multitude, to dedicate her purity and her young affection 
 to the powers of darkness, turning from the glory of the 
 sun to go down such ways into the everlasting sea, whence 
 no bark would bring her again or any mortal ? 
 
 He could bear it no longer. With these pursuing 
 thoughts behind him, he quitted his station on the bridge, 
 and hastily descended into the streets once more. He fled 
 from himself, from Hippolyta, from the night, from the 
 morning, which had almost begun to dawn while he looked 
 into that awful gallery of the dead. He was utterly be- 
 wildered and undone. Conscience smote him on one side 
 and on the other; whatever he should resolve would be 
 wrong, and fatality was dogging his steps never to leave him. 
 But for a little while, cost what it might, he must become 
 
 vol. 11. c
 
 i S THE h E W ANTlGi. )NE IT 11 
 
 blind and heedless. lie would go home, to resl if it were 
 id let to-morrow bring what it pleased. 
 
 In such confusion did he arrive, wear)- and i hilled to the 
 marrow, at his own house. He let himself in. The moon 
 was still shining when lie entered. Creeping noiselessly 
 upstairs, he undressed in the light which came in at his 
 window, and with a heavy sigh lay down to sleep. "When 
 he woke again it was broad day. A gleam of the early 
 sunshine rested on his face ; and he rose with an instant 
 remembrance of the scenes through which he had passed. 
 
 ' Rupert,' lie said to himself between scorn and pity, 'is 
 this to be the last day of your blameless life? Well, well; 
 and what shall be the reward?' 
 
 He dressed quickly, swallowed a mouthful of breakfast, 
 and went out. After walking through several streets, he 
 looked round at a point where no one seemed to be in 
 sight but the driver of a hansom cab, who was just then 
 passing under the archway of a mews with his vehicle. 
 Rupert hailed him, and bade him drive at his fastest pace 
 to an address in the suburbs. It was a long way off. 
 ' There is not a moment to spare,' said the artist as he 
 sprang in.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 EATING THE LOTUS DAY BY DAY 
 
 The time is a month or so since Rupert's long drive out 
 of town ; the scene an old-fashioned garden, shaded largely 
 with elm and lime, but with sunny spaces too, where 
 flowers and fruits and vegetables seem to be growing side 
 by side in pleasant neighbourhood. A hot July sun is 
 sending down its floods of splendour, but little tempered 
 by the specks of cloud which hang timidly in the sky and 
 are the remnant of a glorious fleece that melted into the 
 azure some hours ago. Three o'clock is striking from the 
 church steeple, which can be seen at some distance peer- 
 ing up through the trees; for, near as it is to London, 
 timber of an honest, ancient sort is still plentiful all about, 
 and especially on the long ascent of the main road, which 
 within the memory of man was the High Street of a thriving 
 village, but is now fresh named, to denote its absorption 
 into the mighty maze of the great city. A second clock 
 makes itself heard in a second church, more modern than 
 the red brick edifice which has served the parish time out 
 of mind — more modern and much nearer, since only the 
 garden wall divides it from the garden. It is a large, 
 handsome building of ragstone, and will look picturesque 
 when the mosses and ivies have grown over it and taken 
 from it the too fresh appearance as if it had been built 
 yesterday. Other houses, of many shapes and varying 
 dates, but most of them counting their century, are within 
 view, each with its own garden, and with rows of plants in 
 bloom at the upper windows — for we cannot see the lower 
 ones here. There is a quiet hum in the atmosphere as of
 
 20 THE NEW ANTIGONE m 
 
 l)usiness, which keeps the place alive and astir, but which 
 has not overpowered its habit of retirement, of well-to-do 
 leisure, of middle-class ease and plenty —perhaps one should 
 rise to a higher strain and say, of refined gentility seeking 
 to combine the neighbourhood of town with trim gardens, 
 winding green lanes, a pathway beyond the palings over- 
 lied with boughs like the boulevard of a foreign city, 
 and detached residences, inherited from one's grandfather, 
 or taken at a handsome figure for a term of years. The 
 prevailing tone is red brick, intermingled with dense green 
 foliage ; the roads are hard and firm, with a layer of white 
 sand just now overspreading them, from which rises an 
 occasional cloud of summer dust. No railway station comes 
 nearer than a mile ; and the omnibuses which convey the 
 pilgrim hither are less gaudily painted than those which 
 perambulate the leading thoroughfares of Town. Smart 
 carriages roll from time to time up the ascent, which is 
 now called in the street directory Bransmere Road ; and 
 their brilliant lamps, when in winter they draw up before 
 various of these fine old mansions towards the dinner-hour, 
 or stand waiting at half-past ten to take their occupants 
 home again, are a pleasant sight under, the trees, like the 
 hugest of fire-flies resting motionless in the shade. 
 
 But why speak of winter on such a day? It is over 
 and forgotten. All the doors and windows stand open, and 
 on the road outside, which is just visible over the garden- 
 gate, one can see the vibration in the air which is caused 
 by a long and steady heat, and is the beginning — and as 
 far as we ever get in England — of the mirage that works such 
 deluding miracles in the countries of the sun. But there 
 is a pleasant feeling of coolness in the central alley with 
 its screen of overhanging boughs. And there Rupert and 
 Hippolyta are walking side by side, slowly, as if to take in 
 the beauty around. They are under the spell of this ex- 
 quisite summer afternoon, when to live is simply delightful, 
 and to be in each other's company the crown of joy. 
 
 Hippolyta speaks. 'I never saw a prettier old garden. 
 
 It is full of flowery nooks where no foot seems to have 
 
 trodden, places all tangled in roses and wildbrier, which 
 
 ■ line day you ought to paint, Rupert. I do not think
 
 chap, xxn EATING THE LOTUS 21 
 
 I have thoroughly explored it yet. As for the house, I 
 give it up. When I fancy the last door has at length been 
 unlocked, the last case of old china discovered, I find 
 another door that I have overlooked in a corner or behind 
 a screen, another room with curiosities enough to furnish 
 a museum of jewellery, glass, and deep-hued porcelain. 
 And the queer, old Dutch pictures, how odd and amusing 
 they look ! What a fairy palace to me, who have never 
 seen such things except in show-houses abroad ! I wonder 
 you could live in London when you had this at your 
 disposal.' 
 
 'I have not had it long to live in, remember. Nor, if 
 you will believe it, should I feel, if I lived here, the inspira- 
 tion to realise beautiful or odd fancies which comes upon 
 me in that dark London house, or while I am endeavouring 
 to save my life in crossing Piccadilly. I used once to 
 think that an artist should paint with the loveliest scenes 
 in view. But now I doubt very much whether it could be 
 done.' 
 
 ' Don't you feel inspired when I am here to be your 
 muse of painting ? ' she asked with her bewitching smile. 
 
 He looked at her very tenderly. ' Inspired to work by 
 and by ; yes. But not when you are present. You send 
 the sunlight into my eyes, and they are too full of colour 
 to see.' 
 
 ' By and by will not be long, Rupert,' she answered, no 
 longer with a smile. ' Your holiday will be out in less than 
 a week, and you must go back to Trelingham. How hate- 
 ful ! Why cannot we stay as we are, and you renounce 
 fame as I have renounced society ? ' But, seeing him put 
 on a serious look, she added, ' Now, you dear boy, smooth 
 out that wrinkled brow. You know I mean nothing except 
 that I want your company always, and grudge every minute 
 of it. You cannot renounce your fame ; neither ought you 
 to throw up your engagement with Lord Trelingham.' 
 
 ' I will, if you wish, Hippolyta. What keeps me to it 
 but a sense of honour? Name and fame were much to 
 me when I had only myself to live for. It is different now. 
 I can paint pictures to please you, or to express my own 
 feelings, as other men write poems or achieve greatness
 
 22 Til! NEW ANTIGONE fabtii 
 
 in war. But for the public, my quondam mistress, I care 
 as little as you do for the flowers you plucked last spring.' 
 
 '\ . Rupert, you are brave and lovin ;. But I am 
 
 not going to make a Tannhauser of you for all that, although 
 I i> Y he thought no better than my Lady Venus,' and 
 she covered her face with her hands. 'You shall return {<< 
 Trelingham ; but what, oh what, am I to do when you are 
 gone? Our honeymoon is past in a moment. So long as 
 you are with me it seems that time stands still; I do not 
 reckon it or mind the hours at all. I hit what a long, long 
 day of emptiness it was when you went up to town last 
 week ! Time stood still in another fashion then. I 
 thought you would never come home. For it is home, is 
 it not, this old house in a garden where you have hidden 
 away your Hippolyta ? At least, I have none if it be not' 
 She looked sad in the midst of her happiness. Rupert 
 had noticed it before. Was it only the thought of parting 
 with him ? He felt uncertain. 
 
 1 1 wish you would tell me, Hippolyta,' he said, in answer 
 to her speech, 'whether you were ever melancholy at Falside?' 
 
 1 1 melancholy ! what makes you imagine it ? Not in 
 the least. When my mother lived, we were the brightest 
 of company ; and though I felt her loss exceedingly, and 
 do feel it, I should be telling you false if I said that I was 
 melancholy about her. It was a different thing from 
 melancholy — pure, unmixed sorrow.' 
 
 ' Yes, exactly. I think that must be very true. But 
 since, since you left Falside, since I brought you here, has 
 there not been a shade of melancholy on your countenance ? 
 I do not mean always ; it was there a moment ago. It has 
 come back since I began speaking.' 
 
 'I cannot see my own face,' she answered, and would 
 have said no more. But something prompted her to con- 
 tinue. • A woman, I can assure you, Rupert, knows very 
 little of her own feelings. She wants a physician of the 
 mind to interpret them, just as wc call in a doctor to make 
 certain that we have a fever. You ask me a question 
 I have put to myself sometimes, but cannot answer. Shall 
 we talk over it? Will you be the physician to enlighten 
 me?'
 
 chap, xxii EATING THE LOTUS 23 
 
 'Then you have been melancholy even in the midst of 
 our great happiness,' concluded Rupert with a sigh. ' And 
 what have you gained by quitting the old paths ? Ah, me ! ' 
 
 ' Do not be troubled,' she said affectionately ; ' am I 
 not a woman and therefore subject to fears, to fancies, 
 to overshadowing from those clouds of ignorance and super- 
 stition which have darkened the lives of one half the 
 human race from the day it began ? My reason tells me 
 that we are, and for a long while must remain, the weaker 
 sex, thanks to the institutions that have made us so. 
 When I tremble and am afraid I know well it is the 
 inherited malady which is giving signs of its existence.' 
 
 ' And is that all ? or do you repent of the step we have 
 taken ? ' 
 
 ' Ask me whether I repent of loving you ! No, Rupert, 
 I could not have imagined in my brightest day-dreams that 
 such happiness was in store. It fills my heart to overflow- 
 ing ; and when you see me cry. as yesterday, you ought to 
 think that it rains out of my eyes, for that is the reason, and 
 will be, if I am agitated, restless, fervent. I must learn 
 music to calm these wild transports. Have not you and I 
 been in the golden heart of joy these many, these too 
 quickly-passing days ? I have felt like one suddenly caught 
 up to the sun and allowed to wander at will through its 
 glowing realms, with radiant lights on every side, and the 
 dark earth so far away I could hardly tell where it was. 
 Why,' she said, laughing, ' you will make me talk allegories, 
 unless you say something yourself.' 
 
 ' But still,' persisted Rupert, ' you have not always felt 
 the radiance about you. The glory has changed, and 
 melancholy come in its stead. Your temperament has been 
 unequal ; and once even, Hippolyta, I thought you avoided 
 me.' 
 
 ' Now you are giving me your own impressions, which 
 may be nearer the truth than mine. It is such a strange, 
 new feeling that you belong to another, and that the free- 
 dom of your former days will never return, is it not ? Then, 
 too, although what I did should be done over again to- 
 morrow, if it were necessary, I am not the bold young lady 
 you might have thought me, judging only by that night. I
 
 2 4 TBS NSW ANTIGONE purr n 
 
 Id at the time; and I daresay courage will never be 
 wanting to me when circumstances are there to call it forth. 
 But my resolution cost me an effort ; the last part of it,' she 
 
 went on, her voire sinking, 'more than I can \^ell account 
 for. I am sure that I do not fear death ; and yet, since it 
 is all over and past, my mind misgives me. I could not, 
 indeed, indeed 1 could not have lived, Rupert, if you had 
 sent me away. And so I tell myself when these sad 
 thoughts come accusing me. It was not that I meant to 
 alarm your affection ; but when I considered the days I 
 should have spent if we were to become strangers, I saw 
 no motive for living. But I did in some way threaten you 
 that night with what I should do, and now I am grieved 
 over it.' 
 
 'Never mind, never mind, dearest,' he said. Their 
 meeting in the studio was a thing he did not wish to recall ; 
 he had put it far from him, and not gone near the place 
 except for a few hours, when he gave orders to have his 
 pictures and painting materials carried elsewhither. He 
 meant never to set foot in it again. For him it would be 
 ever haunted with direful memories. He went on : 
 
 ' From what you say, it is partly reaction, and will go off 
 when you are quite used to your new surroundings. Do 
 not give way to it. I shall never blame you for the past, 
 and you must not dwell any more, Hippolyta, on the acci- 
 dents that have brought us together. If you can resolve, 
 as I have told you with all the earnestness of which I am 
 capable, to go through the ceremonies of marriage, civil or 
 religious, I am here to fulfil my part. I will not torment 
 you about it, or say a single word more except by your per- 
 mission. But, at all events, should you feel regret or dis- 
 comfort, you know the way out of it.' 
 
 ' I do, I do,' she answered. ' You are generous both in 
 what you ask and in what you give up. I am not melan- 
 choly on that score, and not much on any,' she continued, 
 brightening. 'We have talked too seriously, Rupert. Is it 
 not time to drive somewhere and teach me my way about 
 these rustic lanes ? I shall want to know them well when 
 you are in the West Country, — a thousand miles away from 
 me, — since I cannot follow you.'
 
 chap, xxii EATING THE LOTUS 25 
 
 ' I will order the carriage,' he said. ' Go to your room 
 and get ready. There is a drive along the brow of the hill 
 which we have not taken.' 
 
 She ran up the garden with a fleet footstep, and was 
 heard a moment after singing in her room above, as she 
 moved hither and thither. Glanville, his eyes and his heart 
 full of love, gave a glance at her window, where for an 
 instant he saw her dress fluttering when she passed, and 
 went round to the stables a happy yet preoccupied man. 
 What an inexplicable fate was his ! The bright sky and 
 summer hours, in which all things beautiful came forth to 
 view, clad in their gayest attire, the very loveliness and wit 
 of Hippolyta, seemed but to deepen his pensive mood. 
 Their joy had been great — extreme ; too great to last, he 
 would murmur, when he looked on the countenance of his 
 beloved, and observed in it the shade of some bitter or 
 painful reflection, which, like a change in the evening lights, 
 was gone ere he could decipher its meaning. But his own 
 feelings were not unmixed either. He had spoken the 
 truth when, in the long hours of that night-wandering about 
 London, he described himself as no libertine. The record 
 of his life held in it nothing that men count disgrace. It 
 has been widely believed that genius implies or requires 
 self-indulgence, and that only the Fornarina can inspire a 
 Raffaelle. The creed, however, is uncertain, and Rupert's 
 autobiography would, on the whole, have tended to disprove 
 it. I do not say that he was immaculate, that, more in- 
 vincible than Samson, he had never been ' effeminately 
 vanquished.' But if he had now and again yielded to the 
 temptation of a lovely face, a certain fastidiousness of sense 
 held him above the vulgar range of low desire. He was 
 serious, enthusiastic, given to labour, well content with Ivor's 
 friendship instead of a thousand which were to be had for 
 the asking. When love came, he said, he would make it 
 welcome ; and he waited, not impatiently, till its day should 
 'peer forth the golden windows of the East.' He had not 
 been thought the worse company for a little self-restraint, 
 although in consequence he never went beyond civil terms 
 with various great persons in the world of art. When, as 
 will happen, he heard the moral code expounded with that
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE pam ii 
 
 liberty which is thought to betoken a mind above prejudice, 
 he felt little- inclination to assent. Ivor and he m ed 
 
 that a man may discard the official religion, yet be under 
 strict orders from a higher court to ct human nature 
 
 in himself". He did not pretend to be an ascetic or a 
 Puritan, but at six and twenty, he thought, there was no 
 nevd to he in a violent hurry ; he would not squander his 
 youth nor drain a cup to which the gn lantment was 
 
 lacking. It might he interesting to discover when and how 
 he came upon the momentous truth that love is of the spirit 
 rather than of earth and the senses, or by what process he 
 had convinced himself that no warmth of affection will com- 
 pensate for the absence of respect. He believed, too, in 
 love at first sight, and discoursed wisely on the reciprocal 
 attractions that Nature has put into hearts of flesh no less 
 certainly than into threads of steel and amber. But lie- 
 would have resisted his drawing towards Hippolyta had she 
 not seemed in his eyes a lovely, innocent soul of which 
 
 outward beauty was the fitting apparel. And now ? 
 
 I should be describing a phantasm, and not Rupert 
 Glanville, did I pretend that when the cup which held this 
 great enchantment, running over with love, was pressed to 
 his lips, he did not drink deep of its sweetness. Enthusiasm 
 was part of his nature, and he resolved to make Hippolyta 
 happy, and himself through her, — happy as they could 
 be in the abundance of their varied gifts, the freshness of 
 youth, and the enjoyment of love. Putting the world out 
 of view, dismissing every thought of the future, leaving his 
 reputation as a man, his fame as an artist, to take care of 
 itself, Rupert — not unlike the knight of love to whom 
 Hippolyta compared him, but with eyes open and will 
 determined — had come into the Venusberg and was willing 
 to spend, not seven years, but his life to the very end with 
 the lady of his devotion. If, on the one hand, he felt com- 
 punction for the daring step she had taken, on the other it was 
 a dream of his earliest days to sacrifice himself to another. 
 ' All for love and the world well lost' Those were words 
 he would have inscribed on his stainless shield, and counted 
 them a consecration. Had Hippolyta required only the 
 ordinary sacrifice which men approve, because it is cast in
 
 chap, xxii EATING THE LOTUS 27 
 
 moulds familiar to them ! But what was this new virtue 
 rooted in something which to the common judgment looked 
 like vice ? Well, he did not dwell upon it in the first days 
 of their life together. He shut out the judgments of society. 
 Away from Trelingham, from London, where his letters lay 
 neglected, in a house that had few associations with his pre- 
 vious existence, and seeing every moment a companion 
 whose charm grew with the increasing confidence of their 
 intercourse, who suffered from no misgivings as to the 
 legitimacy or the unchangeable character of their relations, 
 but was tranquil, and modest, and delightfully original in 
 whatever she said or did, it is easy to understand how 
 Rupert, like a man carried out to sea upon a great wave, 
 was unable to return upon his former thoughts or to resist 
 the current which drove him onward. He might rue it 
 bitterly afterwards, when the wave was spent or the returning 
 tide had cast him on shore. But there is a strong fascination 
 in the opinion of another when it confirms or excuses our 
 own. Hippolyta did not move, she did not look like a being 
 upon whom degradation had fallen. She kept in her eyes that 
 gaze of seraphic astonishment, as it has well been termed, 
 which, when Nature fixes it in the human countenance, 
 would persuade us against our senses that innocence dwells 
 within. Its light was subdued by melancholy at times ; and 
 who, with the tender feelings of Rupert, could rebuke her 
 then ? He melted into adoring pity, into a childlike devo- 
 tion that knew no bounds, and that uttered itself in terms 
 which breathed the affection, the seriousness, the playful, 
 half-deliberate simplicity of the heart when it is touched 
 to the core. 
 
 The house to which he had taken her seemed made for 
 a romantic chapter oi existence such as they were going 
 through. It had belonged to Rupert from the time he was 
 at school, having been left him by an ancient lady, his 
 grand-aunt, to whom he was very dear, though she seldom 
 was in a state of health which permitted her to have a talka- 
 tive and rather troublesome boy in the house. He had 
 therefore seldom been on a visit at Forrest House, 
 nor, it must be admitted, did he look forward to staying 
 there ; for it seemed to his juvenile apprehension dark and
 
 28 THE NEW ANTIGONE i'\kt ii 
 
 gloomy, full of uninhabited corners, and not lightened up 
 by the extremely white I u e and long trailing garmenl 
 
 black silk, and the black lace shawls, which made up for him 
 the impression of his grand-aunt He liked her in his 
 
 ral way of liking all who were kind to him. But he 
 was glad to be out of doors whenever Miss Atterbury would 
 allow him to run about, and at other times to stay with the 
 Dutch pictures and explain in his own mind the scenes 
 which they delineated. W ben his grand-aunt died he 
 attended her funeral ; and he remembered, but not well, 
 being told by a gentleman in black, who proved in after 
 years to be the family solicitor, that Forrest House and 
 the properties thereunto appertaining were his own, to be 
 held in trust till he came of age. He thought little on the 
 subject ; his father's small estate, lying on the borders of 
 Shropshire, and in a beautiful hilly region, pleased him much 
 better than this old red mansion, nor did he for a long while 
 understand that it brought him a not insignificant part of 
 his annual income. 
 
 Immediately on the old lady's death it had been let, 
 furniture and all just as it stood, to another lady not 
 quite so old. She survived till Rupert was five and twenty; 
 but he never had occasion to make himself known to her, 
 and did not see Forrest House for a good fourteen 
 years. Her death left it vacant ; and the family solicitor 
 was looking for a suitable tenant when Rupert, to his own 
 great astonishment and with a feeling of shame, informed 
 him that he might spare himself the trouble, and that the 
 house was disposed of. What sort of person the incoming 
 tenant was, or on what terms he had taken the place, Glanville 
 did not say. 
 
 On driving thither that morning he had dismissed the 
 cabman at the door, and showing a card from his solicitor 
 to the housekeeper, who had never set eyes on Glanville, 
 he went over the principal rooms. They were in admirable 
 condition, and needed but some few alterations to fit them 
 for Hippolyta. He gave the orders at once, stating his inten- 
 tion of taking possession that very afternoon, and assuring 
 the housekeeper that she should receive a telegram from the 
 solicitor which would authorise these prompt measures as
 
 chap, xxn . EATING THE LOTUS 29 
 
 soon as he had reached that gentleman's office. She inquired 
 the new tenant's name. He had not thought of one, and 
 did not answer on the spur of the moment. To the house- 
 keeper he seemed rather absent-minded ; but the fact was 
 that he could think of no other name than his own. ' The 
 solicitor will tell you,' he said ; and he hurried away. He 
 called the first cab which he saw going down the descent, 
 and paid a hasty visit to his man of law, during which it 
 appeared that Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm, intimate friends of 
 his, wanted the house, and as they happened to be travelling 
 in the neighbourhood would like to make trial of it at once. 
 He was decisive and peremptory ; dictated the terms of the 
 telegram lest there should arise difficulties at the other end ; 
 left the solicitor's office the moment all was concluded, and 
 on the stroke of noon entered the studio. Hippolyta was 
 expecting him. No words passed between them except the 
 brief sentences in which he asked whether she was ready, 
 and what she proposed to do with the luggage she had left 
 on arriving from Falside. It was thought prudent to take 
 it with them ; lost or relinquished luggage gives rise to in- 
 quiry ; and they drove together, for the first time — these 
 engaged lovers — in a London cab, not speaking one word 
 as they went along. They did not even clasp hands. A 
 feeling of some decisive event taking place, too grave and 
 solemn for the expression of any sentiment, was in the 
 hearts of both. Thus they set out on what seemed the 
 interminable drive to Forrest House, and arrived about 
 six o'clock. It was not twenty-four hours since Hippolyta 
 had alighted in Rupert's studio. 
 
 But with the change of scene and of name — for to the 
 latter precaution Hippolyta, though very reluctantly, gave 
 her consent, — with this, I say, their solemn feelings vanished. 
 The artist had disappeared ; the young lady of Falside 
 was known no more. Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm, a young 
 married couple, ardently attached to one another, never 
 seen apart by the neighbours who observed that Forrest 
 House had been let, and unobserved by the rest of human- 
 kind, were living a fantastic, yet a real existence, which 
 seemed to dispense with all ties of duty or obligations 
 towards their fellows. They had but one duty, to be in
 
 30 TB NE pabt 11 
 
 h other's company at all times j but one obligation — 
 
 which they did not appear to think a burden — that of loving 
 
 one another. The)' fleeted the time careles in the 
 
 They received no letters, read no journals, 
 
 eived no visits. The old housekeeper had strict injunc- 
 tions not to admit i d the gate; and when 
 Lme, she was perplexed and horrified on seeing 
 that neither the young lady nor her husband went to 
 church. They might indeed be Roman Catholics, and 
 were perhaps ignorant that the Gothic edifice on the other 
 side of the wall was of that persuasion. She gently hinted 
 as much to Mrs. Malcolm on the Monday morning; but 
 no, Mrs. Malcolm said they were not Roman Catholics. 
 And during the four Sundays of their stay hitherto they 
 had not seen the inside of a sacred building. They spent 
 the Day of Rest exactly like the other six days of the week, 
 in painting and singing, and exploring the old house, and 
 rambling about the garden hand in hand, or driving among 
 the more sequestered lanes. Only once did Mr. Malcolm 
 go up to town; and Mis. Malcolm passed the whole after- 
 noon near the garden-gate, sometimes opening it to look 
 down the road, as though by looking and wishing she could 
 bring him home a little earlier. When he did arrive she 
 was overcome with infantine joy, and laughed and sang, and 
 danced a step or two about him as they went up the path 
 together. Neither housemaid nor housekeeper — there were 
 only these servants indoors — had seen a bride so unmistak- 
 ably in love. And the bridegroom seemed equally en- 
 chanted. 
 
 It was so indeed. Their attachment, sudden as on both 
 sides it had been, like the outburst of birds in springtime 
 under the influence of the newly-brightening sun and fresh 
 warm air, was deep as their nature. Rupert, whose mobile 
 temper and susceptibility of imagination added an intense 
 earnestness to whatever he undertook, was now wrought up 
 to a pure enthusiasm in which he felt like an actor in some 
 
 it tragic movement, the denotiment of which — as on 
 the Roman stage when an emperor commanded — might 
 become not acting but reality. He had lived much alone, 
 and had acquired that turn for concealment or reserve
 
 chap, xxii EATING THE LOTUS 3 1 
 
 which would have led him, without much pressing, to join 
 in any kind of secret undertaking, provided it were not 
 dishonourable. A secret marriage would certainly not have 
 shocked him ; and in keeping acquaintance at bay, invent- 
 ing expedients which might throw them out, or making 
 covert journeys into the blue distance, he would have been 
 as fertile as the heroes of Dumas or Eugene Sue. But 
 then, a secret marriage need not be dishonourable. And 
 was the loyalty which now engaged him to live under cloud 
 of night a thing to be ashamed of? or had he not done his 
 best to persuade Hippolyta, and could he now by taking 
 measures compel her to submit to the ways of the world ? 
 He would not do it, he said to himself; in all but name 
 theirs was a true marriage ; and the sense of mystery 
 heightened his passion. Great as is the force of public 
 opinion, and in various respects more potent than ever it 
 was, it has nothing sacred about it, and a man who chooses 
 to live out of society, or to live in it and be wary, need not 
 fear that his individual freedom will suffer or his comings 
 and goings be severely scrutinised. There are so many 
 standards in the field, that he who does battle against one 
 is pretty sure to find the folds of another waving over him. 
 Rupert, indeed, could not have explained to a man of the 
 world on what conditions Hippolyta had become his with- 
 out exposing her and himself to ridicule. He would have 
 been asked in a bantering voice why he sought far-fetched 
 reasons for what was the simplest thing imaginable. But 
 very few would have inquired, and still fewer cared to know, 
 why Miss Valence had accepted him. All that society 
 demanded of Rupert was to keep his own counsel, go his 
 way, and observe the proprieties. Whether he lived a double 
 life — was Mr. Glanville the famous artist in Belgravia, and 
 Mr. Malcolm the idle young gentleman at Forrest House 
 — concerned nobody but himself. The penalty was for 
 bringing these things on the stage. And Rupert, who was 
 well acquainted with the rules of modern society, although 
 hitherto not called on to practise this particular one, felt by 
 turns amused and melancholy, — amused at lying perdu in 
 such a way when he ought to have been cultivating life in 
 London drawing-rooms and enjoying the season ; melan-
 
 THE NEW A.\ l . pabt ii 
 
 'holy that it was lor Hippolyta's sake he had put on the 
 
 outward seeming of an ill-regulated life, lie shrank from 
 the question how long it might continue. He was in the 
 fairyland of first love, of reverie and romance, of innocern e 
 which took on the colour of guilt, and of guilt whi< h 
 seemed primeval innocence. The world of every day 
 might be near, but it was on the other side of the moun- 
 tains which made a steep inaccessible wall between it and 
 them. The lovers had only to forget ; there came neither 
 voice nor portent out of the rosy sky under which they 
 roamed, or from the trees of the forest which grew up, 
 friendly and largedeaved, around them. 
 
 No portent out of the rosy sky ; but still, as we have- 
 seen, a something in Hippolyta which, like the thinnest 
 cloud, was visible to another, to Rupert, not to herself 
 whom it passed upon. She would be momentarily pensive, 
 leaning her beautiful head upon her hand, with such tender, 
 thoughtful grace as that of Juliet meditating in the balcony, 
 while Romeo stands watching her. But she did not know 
 why she should be less gay at one time than at another. 
 It was a novel experience ; for though she had gone 
 through suffering in childhood, she had not dreamt sad 
 dreams as she did now.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 GO NOT, HAPPY DAY ! 
 
 The explanation which lay close at hand, which indeed 
 Rupert would have been almost glad to receive, that she 
 repented of her daring, and was ready, though ashamed of 
 confessing it, to go through the form of marriage, did not 
 even occur to Hippolyta. It was not true. A universal 
 nonconformist does not feel the shock of any one act which, 
 by itself, would be a challenge to society at large. Why, 
 then, was she melancholy ? She did not know. And, like 
 the determined character she was, she formed a resolution to 
 shake it off. Perhaps it came from having so little to do. 
 She had not been taught to spend her days in amusement, 
 but in labour ; and this life of silken ease did not agree with 
 one whose care had been extended not only to the manage- 
 ment of Falside, but to the large correspondence which she 
 received or transmitted on behalf of Colonel Valence, and 
 whose exercise had been riding over a wild country. 
 
 ' It must be that,' she said to Rupert, as they were driv- 
 ing after the conversation we have recorded. ' I am much 
 like a peasant girl in my tastes ; and although these hours 
 of talking and moving about the garden are exquisitely dear 
 to me, they suppose habits, good or bad, which I have not 
 acquired. You artists, I see, are indolent by nature; you 
 get enough out-door exercise by fancying the landscape you 
 are going to paint, or, perhaps, by looking at one you have 
 painted. But we poor creatures of clay must gallop over 
 the fields, plant the trees, and mow the grass which you are 
 content to be gazing at. Tell me what I should do, not 
 what I should be or suffer • for I was made for action.' 
 
 VOL. II. D
 
 34 THE NEW ANTIGONE part n 
 
 • \ Du talk,' answered Rupert, with his ironical smile, 
 
 'liken great philosopher — I forget his name — who said that 
 action was the end of life. It is :i doctrine that doesn't 
 agree with me. The art of doinL,' nothing demands unusual 
 ■lius in this wretched country, where everybody seems to 
 have lost the knowledge of its existence. Hut it is a very 
 
 fine art indeed.' 
 
 'I daresay,' answered Hippolyta, who had her own 
 small gift of irony; 'and you practise it, don't you, Rupert, 
 when you spend every hour of daylight painting, and all 
 the dark hours in thinking over what you are going to 
 paint?' 
 
 ' I knew how to be idle once,' he replied, 'but it was in 
 my better days, when the first delight of inspiration made 
 work not only impossible but absurd. I should then as 
 soon have thought of painting my imaginations as Adam 
 of leaving Paradise to make himself a plough and raise 
 corn in the North -AVestern territory. My Paradise was 
 within. What did it matter to anybody else if I did not 
 work? I was happy.' 
 
 ' What made you work at last ? ' she inquired. 
 
 ' I do not know. Ambition, I suppose. Or it may 
 have been the awakening of a new faculty which the books 
 describe as the need of expressing one's self. It is a curious 
 law that when we have gone on thinking a certain time we 
 must tell our thoughts to somebody else. Murder will out, 
 and so will genius.' 
 
 ' And love, too,' she said, blushing. ' You have for- 
 gotten that.' 
 
 ' Oh, love,' he said, 'of course ; but love is such a born 
 babbler.' 
 
 ' I was thinking of another kind of love,' she went on 
 when he stopped; 'you must not laugh at it, although in 
 you it has not awakened yet — that love which my father 
 calls philanthropy! Don't you think there maybe a passion 
 of pity, a desire to help human creatures because they are 
 human ? ' She seemed a little anxious to hear what he 
 would say. 
 
 ' My dear,' he answered, 'Colonel Valence is a man of 
 remarkable character and pronounced opinions. I was not
 
 oiiap. xxin GO NOT, HArPY DAY ! 35 
 
 brought up in the same school. I dislike the sight of 
 misery — at least,' he added with a smile which showed he 
 was not serious, ' when it does not lend itself to picturesque 
 treatment. But in abstract virtues I have very small con- 
 fidence. To me the human race seems too large a thing 
 to care about. To tell the truth, I don't care about it. 
 But,' he said, looking at her, ' you have a motive in asking 
 me. What is it, dear? In you these abstract virtues 
 become a quality I can love. Do you want me to turn 
 philanthropist ? I will try, though I warn you the attempt 
 will most likely prove a dead failure. I am no Abou 
 Hassan, if that was the good creature's name that begged 
 the recording angel to set him down as one that loved 
 his fellow-men. I neither hate them nor love them. What 
 I say to them is, you let me alone and I will let you alone. 
 But I can try, you know.' 
 
 ' It is not that,' she answered ; ' I was thinking rather of 
 myself. When you are away from me, what shall I do to 
 keep myself alive ? There is nobody to visit, and I could 
 not subsist on visiting, if there were hundreds. You have 
 forbidden me to engage in household work, so that will not 
 be a resource — at least until I have coaxed you into a better 
 mind. Reading, practising music — oh dear ! what are these 
 but the make-believe employments of a fashionable young 
 person who knows no other way of killing time ? I do not 
 wish to kill time, but to live, and it has occurred to me 
 that I might take lessons in my proper profession — of look- 
 ing after men and women in distress.' 
 
 ' But can you go about and not be discovered ? ' he 
 asked, with the uncertain accent of a man who would like 
 to refuse, and yet was willing to yield for love's sake. 
 
 ' Why should I be discovered ? The only human being 
 that has an interest in me besides you, Rupert, is my father. 
 If I could have foreseen these events I would have asked 
 his guidance. Now it is too late. He gave me no ad- 
 dress ; he said that there was none to give, and I must 
 wait patiently for his return — if return should be possible to 
 him. Our old Dolores will send me the message when it 
 comes. As for others, who is there ? I am quite alone, 
 without friend or relative in the world. The change of
 
 36 Till NEW i'akt ii 
 
 name will he enough to guard against accidents. It would 
 be another thing were you to accompany me, lor you have, 
 unluckily, celebrated features; and others besides Mr. 
 Davenant might remember the portrait in the Academy. 
 Hut, sir, you shall not come anywhere within reach of my 
 poor.' She gave him a (harming look. 
 
 'And will you, Ilippolyta, promise not to visit houses 
 where there is infection? I shall not consent otherwise,' 
 he said in determined accents. 
 
 She reflected before answering. ' I do not think it is 
 quite right to promise absolutely. How could I visit on 
 both sides of an infected house and shrink from entering 
 there? But since you are lord and master, I will en 
 never to do so without consulting you first. Will that 
 satisfy you ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' he replied, ' for I shall never give you permission.' 
 And so it was settled, and Rupert turned the horses' heads 
 towards home. 
 
 They spent the rest of the evening in making arrange- 
 ments for his departure, and planning methods of correspond- 
 ence. The latter was not easy. Hippolyta, as they were 
 sitting after dinner in the twilight, looking out on their 
 garden, suggested that Mr. Glanville might write direct to 
 his friend Mr. Malcolm at Forrest House ; and if Mrs. 
 Malcolm answered for her husband by writing to Mr. 
 Glanville's house in town, whence her letters should be 
 sent on under cover, there would be little chance of detec- 
 tion, especially when she had mastered the new style of 
 caligraphy whereat she was now diligent. To provide 
 against accidents they fixed on a set of enigmatical ex- 
 pressions, which might be inserted in the Times if other 
 channels of communication were not speedy enough. And, 
 at the worst, Mr. Malcolm could telegraph from Forrest 
 House to Trelingham Court. These young people grew 
 merry over the difficulties in which they found themselves. 
 It seemed an excellent, and might prove an exciting, game 
 of hide-and-seek. They did not trouble about the distant 
 future. One thing must be done at a time, one business 
 put out of hand. When the designs in the Great Hall were 
 pretty well complete, Rupert 1 he might leave the
 
 chap, xxnr GO NOT, HAPPY DAY! 37 
 
 rest of the details to one of his friends. In that case they 
 would leave England and fix their home in France or 
 Italy. Much might depend on the adventures, in regions 
 whither Glanville could not follow him, of Colonel Valence; 
 something, too, — the artist murmured in a low aside, — on 
 the development of Hippolyta's character under these novel 
 influences, and with so great a break between her present 
 and her former life. At any rate, they would not stay in 
 England a day longer than was necessary. None are so 
 free as English travellers on the Continent ; they have 
 slipped the collar of their dear native habits, and their 
 reputation, gained at the cost of some eccentricity during 
 the last seventy years, is now well established as men and 
 women who are a law unto themselves. The essential 
 thing was to get quit of Trelingham and its associations. 
 Denying themselves a longer tete-a-tete now was the sure 
 means of making it perpetual hereafter. 
 
 But when, on the morrow, Rupert was gone, Hippolyta 
 shut herself up in her room. She left untasted the dainty 
 meal which had been prepared by the housekeeper. She had 
 never felt so lonely in her life. Sitting at the window whence 
 they had gazed out together at the fading light, and enjoyed 
 the perfumes of the garden beneath them during the long 
 evenings of June, she went over the thoughts they had 
 shared, the words of affection and trust they had spoken. 
 For one short month she had known what human com- 
 panionship was in perfection ; she had tasted the honey- 
 sweet nectar, and its delight, mounting to her brain, had 
 filled every little act and momentary interchange of feeling 
 with unspeakable poetry. This, then, was the crown of 
 life — to love and to be loved; there was nothing beyond it, 
 nothing to compare with it, nothing that would compensate 
 for its loss. But why should she fear to lose it ? Rupert 
 was frank and faithful ; what greater proof could he have 
 given of his ardent devotion ? He would never be false ; 
 the heaven of their love was sure. And yet, and yet, how 
 melancholy was her feeling now he no longer sat by the 
 window, telling her of the thousand things he knew! A few 
 months ago he was a stranger whose life or death mattered 
 to her not at all ; now he was her world, her paradise, her god.
 
 38 THE NEW ANTIGOl pabt n 
 
 While she stayed in her attitude of wistful reflection, and 
 the sky grew clearer and the faint hues of sunset died away 
 into a steely twilight, the forerunner of the stars which by 
 and by would rise in the summer night, she heard the sound 
 of music, of an organ playing and voices accompanying it. 
 in the church whose southern windows were visible from her 
 own. There were lights within, and the stained glass, 
 which must have looked dark to the worshippers, had now 
 become faintly transparent on the outside, showing, although 
 in dull confusion of colour, the forms of saints and angels, 
 of quaint vestments and broad glowing wings, crimson or 
 ruby, intermixed with the gold of sceptres, crowns, Gothic 
 lilies, and other medieval symbols. It was a fantastic, un- 
 real vision, as of life in a child's picture-book, or on a long 
 roll of tapestry, unlike anything we see walking the world, 
 without perspective or proportion, but perhaps for that 
 reason appealing to a sense of dim possibilities which lurks 
 in our severest calculations and is never more awake than 
 when we have lost what we prize. Hippolyta, still chewing 
 the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, at first took no notice of 
 the stained windows ; yet the vision pleased her unawares, 
 the medley of colours made her smile, and if it did not 
 soothe, it distracted her. Imagination played among them 
 and endeavoured to make out the innocent child -faces 
 which were seen in reversed outline, yet even so preserved 
 something of their comeliness, and grew fairer as the even- 
 ing closed in about them. It was a large building, and the 
 windows stood high between their buttresses. More and 
 more distinct and solemn pealed forth the tones of the organ ; 
 its music rolled along the painted windows and seemed to be 
 echoed back from the farther end of the church ; while the 
 voices of the choir, coming in from time to time, rose and fell 
 in a slow religious chant, subdued to perfect harmony where 
 Hippolyta sat listening, — or could it be called listening? 
 for she heard the voices as she might have heard the winds 
 in a forest, not heeding them, though allowing her thoughts 
 to be influenced by their unceasing murmur. She did not 
 know what the voices sang, why the lights were kindled, or 
 the painted windows began to blaze at that hour. These 
 things did not enter into her life, but they exalted and in
 
 chap, xxin GO NOT, HAPPY DAY ! 39 
 
 some degree pacified her melancholy, connecting it with the 
 grave enthusiasm of the unknown rite, with old-time memo- 
 ries and the sadness of the world. It seemed as though 
 out of the darkness had risen a company, strange to her and 
 never before seen, which in language incomprehensible yet 
 significant chanted their sorrows, their hopes, their dim as- 
 pirations, telling her that she was not alone in the troubled 
 night. They were human beings, not supernatural visitants ; 
 but, hidden while they sang, they might have put off the 
 grotesque accidents of humanity, its vulgar habiliments and 
 grossness of surroundings ; they were spirit-voices, uttering 
 themselves from a heart like her own. She listened more 
 intently, and that heart melted. Sweet tears began to flow, 
 tears of compassion, at first for herself, and then for she 
 knew not what, — for the grief which makes men and women 
 desolate, for the heavy fate that weighs upon our mortal 
 frame, for the hope that is long deferred. Her thoughts 
 wandered away from Rupert into realms of vague surmise 
 and meditation. It was an experience not unlike that which 
 had befallen her on the evening of the ball, when amid the 
 strains of joyous music one single note of wailing had 
 brought her the vision of the suffering multitude. But in 
 the great bursts of organ music there was nothing discordant 
 or lightly mocking ; hope and pity were blended in the 
 enunciation of a harmony without end. She did not despise 
 herself for letting the floods of this sacred music pour in 
 upon her soul, as she had been tempted to despise herself 
 during the waltz. For it seemed to her that all the sweet- 
 ness was purchased here by self-sacrifice, by fellow-feeling 
 with them that suffered, — the great article of her creed early 
 and late. She could not have told when the organ ceased. 
 Her mind was far away.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 MA MRUS DATE LI J. I A PLENIS 
 
 When Rupert returned to Trelingham he found many 
 thh "ged, nor was the prevailing tunc similar to that 
 
 which had struck him on his ilr^t arrival. One may truly 
 say, with the French proverb, that love had passed that way ; 
 and though its effects were not visible on the surface, they 
 were none the less real. Tom Davenant, twice foiled in his 
 endeavour to make his cousin the heiress of her father's 
 property, was gone ; nor did it appear when he would return, 
 if ever, during Lord Trelingham's lifetime, lie was now in 
 London with his mother, desperately uncertain what to do 
 next, and projecting an expedition to South America or the 
 Rocky Mountains as soon as he could light upon a com- 
 panion. His absence, silent and shy though the young 
 man had been, left a perceptible gap ; to be with him, 
 Rupert said, was as good as daily bread; it was wholesome 
 and nourishing, although you could not detect a particular 
 flavour in it. But he could no longer be reckoned a 
 member of that household. Lad)' May did not mention 
 him. The Earl was equally reticent. Other guests came 
 and went; it was not a lonely place; but among them 
 Rupert saw none to attract him, and he was not disposed to 
 cultivate them from motives of worldly interest. He threw 
 himself into his task, which had been neglected for so many 
 summer days. He was up early and late, dined by himself 
 as often as at the Earl's table, < . his solitude on the 
 
 plea that he had devoured all his leisure while away, and 
 lived on Hippolyta's letters, which came regularly every 
 morning, forty-eight hours after they were written. For
 
 CHAP, xxiv DATE LILIA 41 
 
 they had to be taken in and re-addressed at his London 
 house. 
 
 One person had remained at the Court whom he heartily 
 wished a thousand miles off; but she had apparently her 
 own reasons for staying. I need not say that it was the 
 Countess Lutenieff. In former days she had taken hardly 
 more notice of him than of ' the mechanic,' Ivor Mardol. 
 She now greeted him ostentatiously, came with her light 
 insouciant manner into the Great Hall, tripped about on the 
 scaffolding to the imminent risk of her own neck, and was, 
 in short, much in his way. Rupert had not the brusque 
 address of some great artists ; he could not be rude to a 
 lady (unless, Hippolyta would have interposed, he happened 
 to be very much in love with her), and he was vexed by 
 the presence and the babble of the Countess without 
 knowing how to get rid of either. Lady May did not come 
 so often. Her manner, too, was changed. She looked at 
 him as much as ever, but she spoke less ; and their confi- 
 dences on both sides seemed to be at an end. She would 
 stand and watch him painting. If he expressed a wish that 
 anything, however slight, should be altered in his room, or 
 in the hours at which the workmen came or went, though it 
 were a passing fancy and he had not dreamt of its being 
 seriously regarded, still the alteration was made, the wish 
 was carried out. He felt uncomfortable ; but with his sense 
 of obligation, which would not rise to gratitude, was mingled 
 a feeling of pity. He was quick enough now to perceive 
 how intense and lasting was the passion which ruled in Lady 
 May. What would happen when she came to know the 
 truth, or, at least, as much of it as the world should ever 
 be acquainted with ? She and Hippolyta could never meet 
 again ; their paths had crossed once, and once only, then 
 each had gone her way. And he was moving, and should 
 ever move, on the path of Hippolyta. How would the 
 Earl's daughter regard their union, which would of course to 
 her have the semblance of marriage ? All depended prob- 
 ably on how it came to her ears. Meanwhile Rupert, 
 wholly delivered from the fancy that she had touched his 
 affection, was so calm, so cold, and so civil, that to one less 
 bent on conquering him the task which May Davenant had
 
 42 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-alt ii 
 
 undertaken would have seemed desperate. Either he was 
 inaccessible by nature, or the conquest was already made — 
 
 by another. She did not appear to think so. She was 
 wary, attentive, engrossed, letting not a hint escape from 
 her, and watching every expression on his countenance, 
 every slightest accident in the day's proccedii; Rupert 
 
 felt that it was so; it gave him a gre.it deal of occupation 
 and made existence at Trelingham a penalty. He was not 
 likely to be drawn away from Hippolyta by such an Argus- 
 eyed creature. But he wished there were a Hermes to send 
 her to sleep with his magic-wand. 
 
 Among other difficulties, one, which naturally presented 
 itself to a lover, was that of visiting Falside, where he 
 wished to consecrate by devout pilgrimage all the haunts of 
 Hippolyta, making his memory identical with hers and tak- 
 ing to himself the past which she had lived without him. 
 Should he go or not go ? It was a serious question. At 
 length he resolved to break the ice. The two ladies and 
 he were standing aloft on a broad scaffold, in front of that 
 picture representing Tristram and Iseult, which as a tableau 
 'jant had stirred Hippolyta's jealousy. Rupert, touching 
 the burnished gold of the chalice with his brush, and keep- 
 ing his eyes on the fresco, said casually, ' I think I shall 
 ride to Falside when I have done this piece of the day's 
 work. ' 
 
 1 To Falside ? ' exclaimed the Countess, looking aside at 
 Lady May. ' Oh, of course, to go on with your landscape, 
 which, by the bye, we have never seen. What a pity it is 
 that such a picturesque little demesne should be left in the 
 charge of a couple of old servants ! It might as well 
 belong to a ghost or a dead man as to Colonel Valence, 
 who is never at home.' 
 
 'But Miss Valence takes care of it,' said Rupert, always 
 with his brush in his hand, intent on the shading of the 
 chalice. He kept good control over his voice. 
 
 'Dear me !' cried Karina, now looking straight at Lady 
 May and addressing her, ' how odd that Mr. Glanville 
 should not know that Miss Valence has disappeared from 
 Falside ! ' 
 
 ' 1 M'-appeared ! ' said the artist boldly. ' What do you
 
 chap, xxiv DATE LIU A 43 
 
 mean, Countess ? Is that a term of romance for something 
 very ordinary ? ' 
 
 ' Ordinary or extraordinary,' she replied, ' it is true. A 
 few days after you went to London — when was it, May ? ' 
 interrupting herself suddenly. 
 
 ' When was what ? ' said Lady May. ' I can't help you 
 to an answer if you break off in the middle of a sentence.' 
 She was blushing, and the plank on which she stood trembled. 
 
 Rupert put out his arm to keep her from falling, and 
 drew her from the edge of the scaffold. ' Take care, 
 Lady May,' he said ; ' there is always danger of accident 
 when people begin talking up in the air like this. They 
 forget that they are not on the ground.' 
 
 ' Thank you,' she said in a low voice, coming nearer to 
 the fresco. She was angry at having betrayed her motion. 
 ' Well, Karina,' she said, recovering herself, ' what were you 
 saying ? ' 
 
 'I was telling Mr. Glanville that Miss Valence had 
 quitted Falside unexpectedly about a week after Cousin 
 Tom's birthday; and that she did not inform us, in the 
 brief note we received, either of her destination or of the 
 causes which led to her sudden departure.' 
 
 There was a certain ill-natured emphasis in these formal 
 words which amused Rupert. He thought himself quite a 
 match for Madame de Lutenieff. So he laughed and 
 answered, ' I did not know you were so much in Miss Val- 
 ence's confidence. Has she been in the habit of notifying 
 her movements and their motives to her feminine acquaint- 
 ance ? And has she really gone ? ' 
 
 'We were not mere acquaintance,' retorted Karina ; 'you 
 may remember, Sir Artist, how anxious she was to be 
 received at Trelingham. One might have supposed it was 
 the chief object of her life. And no sooner is she free 
 of the house, than she vanishes into space without a word 
 of explanation either to my cousin or to me, although we 
 were both devotedly fond of her.' 
 
 ' Don't exaggerate, Karina,' said Lady May from her 
 place near Rupert ; 'you were as fond of her as you would 
 be of a new plaything for three days and a half; if she had 
 not gone you would have got tired and found another play-
 
 44 TH V ANTIGONE pam u 
 
 tiling before long. As for me, 1 never pretended to be 
 enthusiastic about Miss Valem Her wish to put an 
 
 eml to the misun lerstanding between papa and Colonel 
 Valence was no doubt amiable But I could nut care for 
 a young lady who held her principle ■ 
 
 "What sort of principles?' inquired Rupert. lie did 
 not feel much attracted to Lady May while she was speak- 
 ing. She to scorn Hippolyta! It was well for both that 
 he knew how to hold his tongue. 
 
 'Oh, dangerous principles enough,' she answered. '1 
 do not know that I can or ought to describe them ; but 
 you may imagine that Colonel Valence would not teach his 
 daughter the maxims of English society.' 
 
 ' Xow iv// are ex ting - / interrupted the Countess; 
 
 ■ they were not English maxims, I grant. But they were 
 romantic. Do you think, Mr. Glanville,' she went on, 
 'that there is no morality out of England? Miss Valence, 
 my cousin, and I had a famous dispute on that subject 
 before she went. I agreed with Miss Valence, and we were 
 set down by Lady May as exceedingly naughty. Were we 
 not, May ? ' 
 
 ' You misrepresent me,' her cousin answered, 'and you 
 are doing injustice to Miss Valence. But I have no parti- 
 cular pleasure in discussing her views, even if I fully under- 
 stood them. I am not sorry she has left Falside for what 
 may prove a long time. It was a dangerous and difficult 
 connection, as I saw at the beginning. Not indeed,' she 
 hastened to add, ' that any one was to blame, except Colonel 
 Valence for bringing up his daughter on such a system. 
 I am glad we visited her, and glad the acquaintance is 
 probably over.' 
 
 ' Did Miss Valence write that she should be away a long 
 while ? ' asked Rupert. 
 
 The Countess replied, ' She spoke of leaving Falside 
 and being uncertain whether she should return. It was a 
 short note — two or three lines in haste, that was all.' 
 
 ' Something connected with her father's plans, perhaps,' 
 id Rupert ; 'he is a great traveller.' It was necessary to 
 find out whether the Countess suspected anything. 
 
 ' And a great conspirator,' said Madame de Lutenieff. ' I
 
 chap, xxiv DATE LI LI A 45 
 
 should like to know him. What an entertaining history he 
 must have lived through, always plotting and going about in 
 disguise for thirty or forty years, like the villain in a play ! 
 But we don't know whether Miss Valence followed him from 
 home. She may have gone off with one of those dark 
 Italians that used to be seen at Falside. We did fancy, 
 just for a moment,' pursued this hare-brained young lady — 
 ' but of course it was only a joke — that she was not alto- 
 gether indifferent to — to ' she stopped and looked across 
 
 at Lady May. But no help came from that quarter. 
 Rupert felt the blood mounting in his cheeks. 
 
 'Goon, Countess,' he said resolutely; 'you don't finish your 
 sentences this morning.' His tone of calm indifference dis- 
 concerted Madame de Lutenieff, who could not see his face. 
 
 ' Oh, it was all nonsense,' she said with less spirit 
 than usual ; ' but in the country people have nothing to do 
 except to invent stories about their friends. When you 
 left the Court, instead of waiting till Cousin Tom's festival 
 was over, and Miss Valence went away in a hurry, I said to 
 Lady May that perhaps it had been arranged when you 
 were dancing at the dress-ball. But don't be wrathful, Mr. 
 Glanville,' for he had now turned round with the brush in 
 his hand ; ' I am never serious, you know, and I meant no 
 harm.' 
 
 ' Make your mind easy, Countess,' replied the artist ; ' I 
 am not likely to be wrathful over a little bit of romance, if 
 I may apply the word as Lady May did just now. When 
 Miss Valence left the ball to meet her father, I had no 
 more notion that she would be quitting Falside in a week 
 than you had. Less, perhaps. And you cannot guess 
 whither she has gone ? ' 
 
 ' Not in the least,' said Karina, somewhat crestfallen. 
 She had not shaken Rupert's equanimity ; nor was she 
 further advanced on the subject of his relations to Hip- 
 polyta. But there was something else to be attempted, and 
 Lady May's leaving the Great Hall when their conversation 
 reached this point gave her the opportunity she longed for. 
 With that engaging openness which, from being really a 
 part of her character, had been submitted without difficulty 
 to cultivation, and was now a weapon of attack and defence,
 
 46 THE NEW ANTIGONE iai- r n 
 
 she contrived to let Rupert know that Tom Davenant had 
 proposed for his cousin's hand, but with the unexpected 
 
 alt which has been already chronicled. 'Unexpected,' 
 went on the innocent Countess, -for I need not tell you, 
 Mr. Glanville, that Lady May has thereby surrendered, it I 
 should not rather say forfeited, the most splendid prospect. 
 She would have been Countess of Trelingham ; she would 
 have continued to live in the home of her childhood, and 
 to have the control of this great property. But I do not 
 blame her, oh no,' she exclaimed with pathetic fervour ; ' I 
 can guess the reason, and I admire the constancy with 
 which she has resisted temptation.' Her eyes, though not 
 capable of a deep expression, were searching the artist 
 through and through. 
 
 He answered coolly, ' I suppose the reason is not hard to 
 guess. Lady May did not care sufficiently for her cousin, who, 
 if I am not impertinent in saying so, is one of the noblest 
 young men I have come across.' He was returning good for 
 evil, and the Countess smiled. Praise of her prcux chevalier 
 always melted her. 
 
 ' Come,' she said, ' let us be friends, Mr. Glanville. I 
 see you do not bear malice. You are right in supposing 
 that Lady May does not care for my Cousin Tom. Shall 1 
 be indiscreet if I tell you that that is only half the reason?' 
 And her eyes gleamed brightly. 
 
 ' I should be indiscreet, perhaps,' was his answer, partly 
 serious and partly ironical, ' if I allowed one lady to betray 
 the thoughts of another ; although they do say that is a 
 way they have.' 
 
 'For shame, for shame!' she said. 'I shall tell you 
 nothing now, and yet you are dying to hear.' She waited, 
 but he would give her no encouragement. 
 
 ' I am dying to finish my morning's work,' at last he 
 said. It was hardly courteous, but why would she linger 
 there? He went resolutely at his fresco again. 
 
 The Countess thought a little while before setting her foot 
 on the ladder by which she had come up ; and then, with 
 a mischievous smile, said to him, ' I see all your ambition 
 lies in your art. It is very natural, as I can testify, being 
 a sort of artist myself. But should it ever take another
 
 chap, xxiv DATE LILIA 47 
 
 direction, not quite so lofty, and yet loftier, come to me 
 for information.' With which enigmatic sentence she 
 descended to the floor of the Hall and went out. 
 
 Glanville, I am sorry to say, was anything but grateful ; 
 and his comments, delivered under his breath as he went on 
 painting, would have astonished Madame de Lutenieff. For, 
 though dissatisfied with her partial success, she had the 
 witness of a good conscience, and would not have minded 
 explaining to a female confidante the line of conduct she 
 had pursued. There was only one rival in Mr. Tom Dave- 
 nant's affections whom she feared, and that was Lady May. 
 So long as his cousin remained single, Tom was capable 
 of renewing his offer. Were she married, or engaged, and 
 out of the way, Karina trusted that the young man would 
 have eyes for her own attractions, which were not incon- 
 siderable. She had almost convinced herself that Lady 
 May was in love with the artist ; that passionate scene in 
 which Hippolyta had said so little and Lady May had been 
 so vehement was ever present to her fancy ; and in the 
 hope of a further unravelling of the threads she, instead 
 of following Mrs. Davenant and her son to London, had 
 waited for Rupert's return. It was all important that he 
 should know the offer had been made and rejected. She 
 would help him to one of the most accomplished and 
 stately of brides. It was of no consequence that Lady May 
 would have to stoop a little in order to marry him, but of 
 the utmost that he should understand she was there, wait- 
 ing for him to fall on one knee and demand her hand. 
 The Earl would not refuse, and the great danger would be 
 averted. So the Countess reasoned, not foolishly from her 
 point of view. It was a misfortune that Rupert would not 
 accept her confidence, and that Lady May would endure 
 no reference, on her part, to Rupert. How absurdly stiff 
 and straitlaced was the morality of English people ! 
 Even that daring Miss Valence had shown extreme reserve 
 in their last interview at Falside, and was now departed on 
 an errand which might have some romance in it, but would 
 be sure after all to end, as English stories did, with perfect 
 propriety. Karina sighed ; she was not made for this dull 
 realm. She hoped, when the time came, she should per-
 
 |8 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW n 
 
 suade Tom to live abroad ; not so much at I' Paris 
 
 was not itself under the Third Republic — but al Vienna, 
 Venice, Naples, with an interval ou>c in a way at Monte 
 Carlo. The Countess did not play, but she took gi 
 pleasure in looking on while others played 
 
 The development of the drama which she desired to see 
 at Trelingham was, however, interrupted a few days later. 
 The Earl, never very strong, had been ailing for sometime, 
 and his physicians, after consultation, ordered him to take 
 the waters at Schwalbach. He was unwilling to go, but they 
 threatened him with the consequences ; and Lady May, 
 who was really and devotedly attached to her father, added 
 her persuasion. She would of course accompany him. The 
 Countess thought she might join them later on ; and, as 
 Glanville declared that he fully entered into Lord Treling- 
 ham's mind on the subject of the decorations, and would 
 write frequently and give ample details of the progress of 
 the work, it was decided that a move should be made. 
 Thus the artist and Mr. Truscombe would be lords of the 
 domain during his absence; but on Glanville's suggesting 
 that he must occasionally quit the Court for other engage- 
 ments, Lord Trelingham begged him to use all the freedom 
 he might wish. It had been stipulated at the beginning 
 that Rupert should take a fair time over the work and not 
 hurry. When, therefore, he had been some three weeks 
 at the Court, and his impatience to see Hippolyta again 
 was reaching a feverish height, they all, to his infinite content, 
 bade him farewell one fine morning. That afternoon he 
 rode to Falside, and, winning admittance to the library, 
 wrote thence a glowing epistle to Mrs. Malcolm, in which 
 he rejoiced over his new-found liberty, and promised to be 
 at Forrest House within the week. 
 
 He kept his word. Three days of unalloyed happiness 
 passed like a flash of summer-lightning, lambent, swift, and 
 beautiful. It seemed to Rupert that Hippolyta had sub- 
 dued her melancholy. She was adorably candid and child- 
 like, full of pretty fancies and loving conceits, reluctant to 
 let him go, yet comforted with the hope of their union for 
 good and all when the next few months were over. She- 
 had found occupation in gardening, and her list of the
 
 chap, xxiv DATE LILIA 49 
 
 neighbouring poor was beginning to fill. Had she gone 
 near an infected house, or exposed herself to danger? 
 No, she answered laughingly; there was no infection within 
 three miles. She had attended one sick-bed, and meant to 
 attend it still, for it had gained her a pleasant intimacy. 
 Further the story did not go. Rupert, too much in love 
 with Hippolyta to hear all she said, hardly waited for the 
 end of the sentence, but was bursting out, in the manner 
 of happy mortals, with praises of her generosity and de- 
 clarations of his unalterable affection. He went back to 
 Trelingham more in love than ever; and if he did not 
 yield to home -sickness now, it was by dint of incessant 
 occupation. 
 
 The story which he would not let Hippolyta finish was 
 pretty in its way. At Falside she had taken pleasure in 
 her garden, and with help from Andres — who loved her as 
 if he had been her mastiff, and took more care of her than 
 she knew — the flower-beds had flourished gaily, and the 
 wilderness above and below the cascade had blossomed 
 like the rose. It was only to be expected that she should 
 turn to the flowers again for consolation when Rupert went 
 away. There was much to be done in the garden of Forrest 
 House, for it had been neglected somewhat since Miss 
 Foljambe's death. But the more there was to do the more 
 Hippolyta was pleased; and every morning saw her in a 
 costume that the work would not spoil, and in gardening 
 gloves, engaged in weeding and trimming borders, and 
 bringing back the straggling plants into some sort of order. 
 The variety of flowers was unusual, and among them were 
 lilies of all kinds, with many old-fashioned bulbs, tulips and 
 hyacinths, which had been preserved in the greenhouse with 
 more care than the rest. Hippolyta wanted no help ; but, 
 for the rougher tasks, she might obtain it from the man who 
 looked after the stables — a kind of miscellaneous groom 
 and ostler, who did not sleep on the premises. 
 
 She was alone in the garden, then, one pleasant fore- 
 noon, binding up some long creepers which had trailed 
 over a bed of calceolarias, when the housekeeper, good 
 Mrs. Leeming, came to her with a request. Might the 
 gardener next door speak to her? ' Next door ? ' inquired 
 
 vol. 11. E
 
 Tii NE PABT II 
 
 Hippolyta ; 'do you mean at the church ? ' Mrs. Leenii 
 meant at the church, if it was givii ' No 
 
 in the world,' said her n ' why should it?' Well, 
 
 the housekeeper did not know, but some people were set 
 
 rinst Roman Catholics. Not Miss Foljambe, to be bui 
 that charitable lady had a kind word for all the world. 
 And that was why the gardener came. 'Let him come 
 now, then,' said Mrs. Malcolm, who had not learnt to 
 tolerate servants' long stories. The housekeeper beckoned 
 to a man that, during their short colloquy, had been stand- 
 ing at the gate, lie came forward and took off his hat 
 respectfully. He was a fine-looking man of about forty, 
 tall and well made, with a clear glance in his gray ey< 
 and a good address. The housekeeper said, 'Now, Mr. 
 Dauris, tell Mrs. Malcolm what you want,' which introduc- 
 tion over, she discreetly retired. 
 
 Mr. Dauris, thus encouraged, and still more by the ex- 
 pression on Hippolyta's countenance, which was invariably 
 gentle and sympathetic when she came across any of her 
 own class, as she called them, said that he had made bold to 
 come, now Forrest House was let, to beg for some flowers 
 to decorate the altars in St. Cyprian's, of which he was 
 gardener and sacristan. ' But,' he added, ' there is not 
 much of a garden, only narrow strips on the other side of 
 the building, and in a shady corner down by the lane where 
 hardly anything will grow.' He spoke perfectly correct 
 English, without accent either provincial or of Bow Bells, 
 and was indeed one of the many working men that know 
 their native tongue, and are proud of it. 
 
 Two sentences were enough to interest Hippolyta. 'You 
 would like me to give you some flowers for your church ? 
 I will, with pleasure,' she answered ; ' but the garden is in 
 a rather backward condition. Look round and tell me what 
 will suit you best.' He thanked her; and as she walked 
 to the greenhouse, with Mr. Dauris a little way behind, 
 she considered whether he could not tell her something of 
 the neighbourhood and the sick poor whom she was minded 
 to take in charge. She put the question to him. 
 
 'Yes, indeed,' he answered, 'I know most of the poor 
 about here. But it is not exactly a poverty-stricken place.
 
 CHAP. XXIV DATE L1LIA 51 
 
 On this side, along the Hill, you will not find any. You 
 must cross the market and go down into the small streets 
 beyond it, which are beginning to be crowded worse than 1 
 remember them. Our own people live there mostly. But 
 it doesn't matter which door you open ; you will find suffer- 
 ing and sin inside. The fathers at St. Cyprian's are there 
 day and night ; and I often hear them say that they can do 
 no good. I don't wonder at it, seeing how the people are 
 compelled to live.' 
 
 'No, nor do I,' said Hippolyta sorrowfully. And she 
 was abiding within these golden gates, with every luxury at 
 command, a garden and a palace to afford her pleasure at 
 all hours, and neither care nor trouble ! How were these 
 things to be reconciled ? She must not dwell on them. It 
 could do no good just then. 
 
 'What made you come to me for flowers?' she asked, 
 by way of turning the conversation, while she cut the best 
 she could find. 
 
 Mr. Dauris, taking with a smile the bunch she held 
 out to him, answered, ' I thought you might be like Miss 
 Foljambe, who was very good to us and sent in flowers 
 every Saturday for the Lady altar. She was not a Catholic ; 
 but she used to say that flowers were of God's religion, and 
 could do nothing but good to anybody. 
 
 ' She was very right,' exclaimed Hippolyta, pleased with 
 this saying of the lady in whose shadow she dwelt all day. 
 It was like making her acquaintance, though dead. ' She 
 was very right, indeed. A Spanish poet says, " Flowers are 
 the thoughts of everlasting love." I will send you some 
 for the Lady altar every Saturday; and lest I should forget, 
 will you come to me next Saturday morning?' 
 
 ' I shall be much pleased to do so,' replied the gardener, 
 going away. ' But I beg your pardon,' he resumed, in a 
 less cheerful tone, ' next Saturday I must take my poor 
 wife, if she is well enough, to the infirmary ' — he named one 
 at a distance — 'where the doctors have promised to see 
 what they can do for her.' 
 
 ' Is your wife very ill, then ?' inquired Hippolyta. ' You 
 did not mention her when I was asking you about the sick 
 in the neighbourhood.'
 
 THE NEW ANTIG01 PART n 
 
 'She has been ill this long whili aid ; 'but we are 
 
 DOt ill want, thank God. I earn a good income as a gar 
 
 dener — not here at St. ( 'yprian's,' he i ontinued smiling, 'the 
 lathers could n«>t afford it ; but a few doors down when you 
 pass Church banc. Our cottage is at the end of the lane.' 
 
 • but 1 should like very much to be of service to your 
 wile, if I could,' said Hippolyta eagerly. 'What is the 
 matter with her?' 
 
 'We call it a weak chest; but I am afraid it is more 
 serious. The doctor tells me — however, I keep it from my 
 wife, so please don't mention it, for fear it should frighten 
 her — that one lung is quite gone and the other affected. 
 She is obliged to lie down a good deal with pains in her 
 head and back.' 
 
 ' Poor thing, poor thing,' exclaimed Hippolyta ; ' how sad 
 for you both ! Have you any children?' 
 
 'Two little boys,' he answered, 'and a girl. Annie is 
 grown up, she is seventeen.' 
 
 1 And is she at home ? She ought to be a good help to 
 her mother.' 
 
 ' She is generally at home,' was the reply. ' She has 
 been in service, but we did not like it for her. It was in 
 a lady's house near Dorset Square.' The tone in which 
 he spoke implied some dissatisfaction, either with Annie or 
 with domestic service in general. 
 
 ' Well, I am glad you have told me,' said Hippolyta ; 
 ' and do you think Mrs. Dauris would like me to come and 
 see her?' 
 
 ' Surely she would, if you were so kind ; and I should 
 like it too. But we are not in want of anything, thank 
 God,' he repeated, ' and we would not take your time from 
 those that are.' 
 
 'Oh, I will find time,' she answered cheerfully; 'may I 
 come this afternoon, or will it be too soon ? I could come 
 to-morrow, in that case.' 
 
 ' I will tell my wife at dinner-time,' he said, and you 
 will be welcome at any hour. In the afternoon she does 
 not suffer so much from headache.' 
 
 It was arranged accordingly. The gardener took his 
 flowers and withdrew; and Hippolyta, roused at the antici-
 
 chap, xxiv DATE LILIA 53 
 
 pation of having an object for her benevolence, went on 
 weeding and pruning with great animation. She did not 
 know how tired she had been all this while of living like 
 the sleeping beauty in the wood, alone in Elfland, with 
 nothing to do, and her prince travelling in the distance 
 or painting pictures at Trelingham Court. She ate her 
 luncheon with more appetite, and counted the minutes till 
 it was time for walking out. Mr. Dauris had told her 
 how to find the cottage. It was less than a quarter of a 
 mile from Forrest House, at the end of the rambling lane 
 which led by the side of St. Cyprian's, and past detached 
 dwellings with large gardens between them, into the more 
 open country. Rupert and Hippolyta had driven that 
 way once, but she had not observed the gardener's little 
 house, although it might have drawn the attention of a 
 lover of flowers, for it was embowered in honeysuckle and 
 clematis. 
 
 She did not go there direct, but wandered about the 
 countrified paths, under the shade of the great trees which 
 made all that neighbourhood pleasant. Her thoughts were 
 not sombre, as they had been. The conviction of fearless 
 innocence, which in other days had allowed her to roam 
 unattended, with Fancy for her sole companion, was strong 
 within her. It was early in the afternoon, and the sun and 
 the flowers were equally brilliant, when she stopped at the 
 cottage-gate. She saw in front of her a two-storied house, 
 standing back from the gravel pathway, on the edge of a 
 triangular piece of turf which represented, no doubt, a more 
 extensive village-green, now discommoned and taken in by 
 the private dwellings scattered around. In front of Mr. 
 Dauris's cottage were garden-beds, abounding in well- 
 assorted hues, and, as was evident, carefully tended. The 
 little porch in the middle was overrun with clematis ; and 
 when Hippolyta arrived the door stood open, giving a view 
 of the passage beyond, with its strip of cocoa-nut matting. 
 The green pailings matched the green shutters, made like 
 Venetian blinds, which adorned the windows on either side 
 of the porch. It seemed a little nest of happiness, bright 
 and warm, sunshine without and comfort within. ' There 
 is sickness within, too,' said the compassionate Hippolyta,
 
 THE NEW a: past ii 
 
 as she lifted the latch and went up the bit of walk which 
 led to the front door. While she stood there, looking for 
 hell or knocker, a little hoy came running round the corner 
 of the house from the garden behind lie was out of 
 breath, and stopped when he saw the lady, a stranger to 
 him. What a pretty hoy he looked ! The fai I fair 
 
 hair, hanging ahout his shoulders in ringlets, large laughing 
 gray eves, a face ruddy and while with pouting rosy lips, 
 and his little frame panting with innocent life which 
 mantled in blushes on his cheeks. He seemed between 
 five and six, a sturdy boy, wearing his sailor's dress of dark- 
 blue with the pride which attends new clothes in children. 
 After standing still and looking for ;L moment, he came up 
 confidently. ' Do you want mother?' he inquired, ' because 
 she is in that room,' pointing across to the open window 
 on the other side of the porch. Hippolyta was very fond 
 of children. She smiled and held out her hand, into which 
 he put his own with great docility. 
 
 ' I daresay it is your mother I want,' she answered, ' but 
 first tell me who you are?' 
 
 'I am Willie,' he said. Children seldom give you the 
 whole of their name at once. 
 
 ' Willie what?' asked the strange lady. 
 
 ' Willie Dauris,' he answered, with an impatient shake 
 of his curls. 'Come in and see mother. You want 
 mother.' He was very clear on that point, and evidently 
 looked on a cross-examination of himself as time wasted. 
 Hippolyta laughed, and still keeping hold of Willie's hand, 
 knocked at the door on her right. A low voice answered 
 ' Come in,' and Willie pushing open the door, Hippolyta 
 followed. 
 
 The little boy, acting as master of the ceremonies, ran 
 across the room where some one was lying on a large and 
 comfortable-looking couch, propped up with pillows. ' The 
 lady wants to see you, mother,' he said, beginning to climb 
 on the couch. His mother motioned him to be still, and 
 ing him with a thin white hand, turned her head 
 towards Hippolyta, and said in a low but very taking voice, 
 'Are you Mrs. Malcolm?' 
 
 Hippolyta started at the sound of the name. She an-
 
 chap, xxiv DATE LILIA 55 
 
 swered falteringly, ' I — I told Mr. Dauris this morning that 
 I should like to come and see you. He mentioned that 
 you were not well. Did he say I was coming?' 
 
 'Yes,' replied the invalid; ' he told me you would be so 
 kind. You are very welcome, very welcome indeed. Willie, 
 get Mrs. Malcolm a chair, and put it here,' pointing to a 
 place near the couch. ' I lose my voice almost,' she went 
 on, ' when the pain keeps on, and my hearing too. Did 
 you ring?' 
 
 ' No,' said Hippolyta ; ' I was on the point of ringing 
 when your boy — when Willie came. He tells me his name 
 is Willie.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs. Dauris ; ' he is called after his father. 
 He is our youngest. He will be six on the Assumption. 
 A beautiful birthday for him, isn't it ? ' 
 
 Hippolyta was puzzled by the expression till she had 
 thought a little. ' Oh,' she said, ' the Assumption of the 
 Virgin, a festival of your religion. Yes, I suppose you 
 would like that. And are you feeling better this afternoon ? 
 Your voice is quite clear and distinct.' 
 
 • A little better,' answered Mrs. Dauris. ' I hope to be 
 so on Saturday and to go with my husband to the infirmary. 
 It is a long way, but he can borrow a conveyance, he 
 thinks.' 
 
 Hippolyta, delighted with the opportunity, offered her 
 little carriage and insisted with affectionate firmness on its 
 acceptance. She was already pleased with Mrs. Dauris, 
 even as she had been with her husband The light which 
 fell upon the couch from the open window showed the 
 invalid to be a woman of uncommon beauty, with delicate 
 regular features, flushing when she spoke or looked at her 
 visitor. She seemed tall and slender, so far as could be 
 judged from her reclining position, for, as she explained to 
 Hippolyta, she was unable to rise, much less to do any 
 household work, that afternoon. 'The dinner things,' she 
 said, ' are lying on the table waiting for Annie to clear them 
 away. It is a great trial to me, for I was an active young 
 woman, and I never thought to have suffered from this 
 complaint. It is not in my father's or mother's family. But 
 God's will be done.'
 
 56 THE NEW ANTIGONE vk\:x w 
 
 'I saw Annie,' said the little boy, with the brevity of his 
 age 
 
 His mother looked at him uneasily. 'Where did you 
 see her, my darling?' she inquiri 
 
 • I don't know,' he said slowly, as if there was nothing 
 more to be added. And then, after being silent for a 
 minute or two, he chanted again in his pretty recitative, ' I 
 saw Annie in the lane. She was talking to a gentleman. 
 She cried She said I was to go in. But I stayed in the 
 garden.' 
 
 Mrs. Dauris looked agitated. Her hands trembled, and 
 she said, ' That will do, my dear. Next time your sister 
 tells you to come in, you must be obedient.' 
 
 Willie crept close to his mother. ' Have I been 
 naughty ? ' he asked. ' What makes me naughty, mother ? ' 
 The tears stood in her eyes, and Hippolyta could not 
 help pitying her. She felt there was some sad story 
 behind; and though not wishing to indulge curiosity, she 
 would have given much to express the compassion that rose 
 in her heart. An inspiration came to her. With the en- 
 gaging smile which so often hovered about her lips, a 
 mixture of kindliness and pity, she drew near to Mrs. 
 Dauris, and said : 
 
 'I fear I am taking a great liberty, but if you do not 
 mind, since your daughter is not here just now, I should 
 be so glad to do anything you want. Let me put the room 
 straight for you.' 
 
 ' Oh no, you must not do that,' said Mrs. Dauris, eyeing 
 her visitor with a good deal of astonishment, but with 
 affection also. ' You are a lady, and it is not fit work for 
 you.' 
 
 Hippolyta was quite at home in this sort of encounter. 
 'Never mind if I am a lady.' she replied; 'I have not lost the 
 use of my hands. I can assure you that I am an adept in 
 washing dishes.' And without more ado, in spite of the 
 earnest and good-natured remonstrances of Mrs. Dauris, 
 she laid aside her cloak, drew hot and cold water with the 
 aid of Willie, who pointed out where everything was, but 
 dispensed as far as possible with speaking, and was soon 
 1 iiisy in remedying the disorder she had found on her arrival.
 
 chap, xxiv DATE LILIA 57 
 
 It was not a difficult task, and she enjoyed it thoroughly. 
 When all was done she insisted that the invalid should 
 now try to eat something. There was no resisting her ; 
 and the poor consumptive patient made a better meal than 
 she had done for a long while. When it was over they 
 talked a little, and Hippolyta hoped that Annie might come 
 in. But there was no sign of her, and she rose to go. 
 Mrs. Dauris clasped her hand with fervent gratitude ; 
 Willie clung to her skirts, and was undecided whether to 
 stay with his mother and cry, or to follow the lady to her 
 unknown abode. She kissed the child, made Mrs. Dauris 
 promise again to avail herself of the carriage, and went 
 home in that healthy state of mind which is the consequence 
 of any little effort done with simple intent, to be of service 
 to another. About Annie, the girl of seventeen, whom her 
 brother had seen talking to a gentleman and crying, she was, 
 it must be admitted, curious. But her curiosity was in no 
 sense equal to her sympathy. 
 
 Thus began an acquaintance which ripened ere long into 
 friendship on both sides. Mr. Dauris, when informed by 
 his wife of the circumstances of Hippolyta's visit, was at first 
 indignant that she should have been allowed to stoop so low 
 in her great kindness, and ended by conceiving towards her 
 an enthusiastic respect which bordered on veneration. She 
 was so young, so beautiful, and so unaffectedly gracious ; 
 she had such a delicate regard for their privacy, and was so 
 timid in making advances, that in his own mind he did not 
 know whether to call her an angel disguised in weeds of 
 flesh, or a modest maiden whose ignorance concealed from 
 her the humility of her behaviour. She seemed neither 
 humble nor proud ; all she did was with her a matter of 
 course. She asked his opinion about other things than 
 flowers, played with Willie and Charlie, — the elder boy, who 
 had been at school on the occasion of her first visit,— sat 
 for many hours by the side of the invalid, and ministered 
 even more effectually to her sympathies than to her bodily 
 wants. Hippolyta was soon recognised as a frequent and 
 favoured visitor. When her hand was on the latch out 
 came the boys, running to greet her, but making as little 
 noise as they could, not to disturb their mother. In the
 
 58 THE NEW .;:. pabt n 
 
 evening she would sit with husband and wife instead of 
 spending the hours after dinner in her solitary room ; 
 and she heard many a good word from the lips of both. 
 She loved and admired their simple goodni They 
 
 made no inquiries either as to her religious beliefs or her 
 story ; they did not even mention Mr. Malcolm's name. 
 This was not due to suspicion ; it was native delicacy. The 
 young lady did not speak of her husband, and they would 
 not make so free as to begin.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 NEC DIVERSA TAMEN, QUALEM DECET ESSE SORORUM 
 
 Some time elapsed before she came across Annie Dauris. 
 But when she was passing down Church Lane in the dusk 
 one evening, on her way to the cottage, she observed a tall 
 young man standing close to the hedge where a wide-spread- 
 ing beech almost hid him from view, and near him on the 
 farther side a girl whose shawl was drawn half over her face, 
 but the accent of whose voice, though Hippolyta could make 
 out nothing of what she said, was unmistakably like Mrs. 
 Dauris's. The young man was not of the working-class. 
 He was well dressed and had a supercilious air ; while 
 Annie Dauris, if she it was, clung to his arm with what 
 appeared to be the vehemence of affection or exasperation. 
 He heard her with impatience ; flung away her hand, turned 
 to go, but, seeing Hippolyta coming along at a little distance, 
 went back to where he had left his companion. Both of 
 them waited, loitering in the shade with faces averted till 
 Hippolyta had passed by. It was not difficult to guess that 
 they had been quarrelling, and were ashamed to be seen. 
 Annie Dauris was never at home when Hippolyta called, 
 and it was unlikely that she should have recognised in a 
 casual figure passing down the lane one of whose face she 
 could have no knowledge. 
 
 Hippolyta found the gardener and his wife sitting by the 
 open window enjoying the evening air, which was warm and 
 genial. It was one of Mrs. Dauris's good days, when she 
 felt free from headache and could do the light work of the 
 house. Charlie, a bright, fair-haired boy of eleven, was 
 learning his lessons in the garden, sometimes coming up to
 
 60 THE NEW Ah NE pabt n 
 
 the window tO show what he had done to his lather, and at 
 
 other times dropping his hook and Looking oul dreamily on 
 the darkening sky. his imagination full of those strange I 
 
 thoughts and fancies which are seldom written in our too 
 elderly volumes for children. Willie had been put to 1" d. 
 Then a great stillness in the air, and it had a sooth- 
 
 ing influence on them as they sat talking in low tones. 
 While they were thus engaged the door opened, and some 
 one came in Mrs. Dauris looked up. 'Oh, it is you, 
 Annie,' she said. 'We are very dark here. Will you bring 
 the lamp?' Annie, without speaking a word, went out 
 again and returned in a few moments with the light, which 
 she set down upon a table, and then stationed herself at 
 some distance from Hippolyta, in such a position that she 
 could examine the visitor's face at her leisure. When she 
 recognised the stranger that had passed along the lane an 
 hour since, she blushed crimson and turned her head away. 
 She bore a striking resemblance to her mother, — the same 
 delicate and regular features, the same bright eyes, the same 
 slender make and upright figure. But the general expres- 
 sion of her countenance was by no means the same. It 
 was ill-tempered and passionate ; there was an obstinate 
 look about the mouth ; and, for the first time in her life, 
 Hippolyta found herself applying the word 'brazen' to a 
 woman's forehead. She could not have told the reason ; 
 was it the swelling surface above the eyebrows which made 
 an impression as of sullen obstinacy and want of shame ? 
 But Annie was blushing now ; she appeared to be feeling 
 confusion as well as surprise. Mr. Dauris, who had not 
 stirred at her entrance, moved his chair round, and said, 
 1 Annie, come and pay your respects, like a good girl, to 
 Mrs. Malcolm, who has taken such care of your mother.' 
 Annie seemed uncertain whether she would obey or not, 
 but with deliberate slowness she got up from where she was 
 sitting and came forward. Hippolyta held out her hand. 
 She felt for the girl. Annie returned her glance suspiciously, 
 but did not refuse the offered greeting. ' You have never 
 seen my daughter before,' said Mrs. Dauris, 'but I daresay 
 you would have known her in the street if you had. William 
 says she is so like me when we first married.' There was
 
 chap, xxv QUALEM DECET ESSE SORORUM 61 
 
 much affection in the mother's voice ; not anger or coldness, 
 which, under the circumstances, might have seemed more 
 natural. Hippolyta did not know what to reply. But with 
 as much gentleness as she could command, she answered, 
 ' No, I never saw your daughter till this evening. But you 
 are right in saying I should recognise the likeness. I did 
 so at once when I was on my way hither, and Annie was 
 walking outside.' 
 
 The girl looked frightened, and did not speak one 
 word, waiting for the end of Mrs. Malcolm's revelations. 
 What might have been the consequence had Hippolyta 
 gone on with her story it is impossible to say. She judged 
 it, however, expedient not to add anything. They knew 
 their daughter's habits, as was evident from Willie's exclama- 
 tions on the day of her first visit ; neither did it become 
 her to cast a slur upon conduct which, even if it had no 
 justification, in some particulars might resemble her own. 
 She contented herself with putting a question or two, while 
 Annie kept a determined silence, on the kind of service in 
 which she had lived and her special accomplishments. 
 Annie told her at last that she was fond of dressmaking 
 and wanted to go back, not to Dorset Square, but to a shop 
 near Oxford Street, where she had been admitted to the 
 sight of fashionable robe-making when about fifteen. From 
 that establishment, as Hippolyta learned by and by, her 
 father had removed her, and she had then gone into 
 domestic service. ' If all you want is to learn dressmaking,' 
 said Mrs. Malcolm, ' I can give you some instruction 
 myself, and you would be able to take care of your mother 
 at the same time. Would you like to come and see me at 
 Forrest House ? I have leisure on one or two days a week. 
 What do you think, Mrs. Dauris ? Do you approve ? ' 
 Husband and wife were perfectly willing ; but Mr. Dauris 
 subjoined, ' Annie must say her own word in the matter, 
 or she may think we are forcing her. Now, my girl, which 
 would you prefer — to go with Mrs. Malcolm, or to stay at 
 home as you have been doing ? ' She did not give a direct 
 answer, but said, as if it was the same thing, ' I should 
 like to learn dressmaking.' And Hippolyta thought it best 
 to leave the matter so. In her own mind she said that
 
 THE NEW ANTi pabt ii 
 
 Annie would be none the worse for learning, as she 
 tainly should if she came to Forrest House, that her present 
 
 attire was showy and not at all in good taste. .Mrs. Dauris 
 always looked neat and simple in her cotton gown; but her 
 daughter tted a tawdry style, which would have been 
 
 expensive, could she have afforded it, and heightened her 
 bold, shameless air. I lad she not been so pretty, the whole 
 arance of the child, for she was nothing else, would 
 have been exceedingly painful She was like a tainted 
 flower. Where had she gained that early acquaintance with 
 vice and finery? Not at home, as was evident Perhaps 
 there was yet a chance of teaching her better things. In- 
 tractable and sullen though she was, a little incident 
 which happened when Hippolyta was going showed that 
 her feelings were not wholly perverted. 'Good-night' had 
 been said on both sides, and their visitor was passing 
 through the gate, when she heard a step behind her, and 
 turning saw Annie, who had followed unperceived. ' Well, 
 my dear?' said Mrs. Malcolm kindly. Annie laid a furtive 
 hand upon her dress, much in the fashion of a child who 
 wants to whisper something, and said with a downcast look, 
 ' Will you let me come to-morrow for the dressmaking, in 
 the afternoon ? ' Hippolyta assured her of a hearty wel- 
 come ; and the girl went on, forcing the words, which did 
 not seem to flow easily from her lips. ' I like you ; it was 
 good of you not to tell my father what you saw, and not to 
 ask me about it' And when she had said this she let go 
 Hippolyta's dress, and went in again without waiting for an 
 answer. 
 
 She did come next day ; but some time elapsed before 
 Hippolyta could win her confidence. It was during this 
 interval that Rupert returned. While he stayed there was 
 no time to instruct Annie or to call at the cottage. She 
 did not mention the story to Rupert again ; they had their 
 own romance to talk over, and the possibilities of the 
 future to forecast. And so it continued. Whenever, con- 
 ntly with his engagements, the artist could run up to 
 London for a few days, he would spend an hour or two at 
 his own house, arranging: papers and seeing those who would 
 have been surprised or offended were he to overlook their
 
 chap, xxv QUALEM DECET ESSE SORORUM 63 
 
 claims ; but no sooner were these formalities complied 
 with than he vanished into space, and Hippolyta had him 
 to herself at Forrest House. They were wonderfully happy. 
 Meanwhile her interest in the gardener's family con- 
 tinued. The boys, not altogether with Mrs. Leeming's 
 goodwill, were allowed to play about the grounds of the 
 red brick mansion, where no child had been since Glanville 
 himself had paid those dreary visits to Miss Atterbury 
 which he was glad not to remember. But Willie and 
 Charlie, though they could not help doing mischief in their 
 primeval innocence, were very amusing, affectionate, and 
 original, helping Hippolyta with the flowers, wheeling bar- 
 rows of earth or dead leaves, which they occasionally over- 
 set on the pathway to their own extreme delight, and 
 making believe that they were elves in enchanted places, or 
 young princes in search of adventures under the trees of the 
 forest into which they transformed the garden to give them- 
 selves larger scope. They were great favourites with Mrs. 
 Malcolm, whom they worshipped and followed everywhere. 
 But being shy and well brought up, they did not presume on 
 her favour ; and if she told them there was a border they 
 must not dig up, or a room they were not to enter, Charlie 
 not only observed the command himself, but took especial 
 care that Willie, who was younger and more volatile, should 
 not forget it. ' Mrs. Malcolm said not,' was their law of 
 the Medes and Persians which might not be altered. On 
 Saturdays they carried between them the flowers which 
 Hippolyta destined for the church, to their father. It was 
 part of their play to repeat, with childish treble pipe 
 and most naive turns of speech, the legends of the 
 Catholic saints which they had been taught at school ; 
 and their kind protectress, whose presence did not terrify 
 them nor check their harmless babble, listened with more 
 pleasure than she could have supposed to their fantastic 
 stories. But they were instinct with a life and colour 
 which for the moment gave them something like the air 
 of reality. It was like viewing the painted windows from 
 the inside, where the legend came out plain and the figures 
 seemed more human. Both the boys would be story-tellers 
 in turn ; and Willie's slow but vivid imagination, which
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt ii 
 
 wrought confusion in the history, made him one of the 
 most Lovable and laughable of little creatures, Charlie, 
 however, had more feeling. He returned Mrs. Malcolm's 
 affection ardently, and though he was too big at eleven to 
 
 be hanging on a lady's skins, as Willie often did, you might 
 be sure that, it" Elippolyta were within reach, he would not 
 be tar off. Did she leave her hat, or cloak, or gloves on 
 the table, he liked to steal up when he thought no one was 
 looking and to touch them fondly. One thing surprised 
 the religious boy, for such he was, why Mrs. Malcolm never 
 went to St. Cyprian's like his father — and his mother when 
 she was well. On a certain Saturday, when she had made 
 up the flowers into bouquets and put them into the child- 
 ren's hands, as they were going Charlie stopped and, fixing 
 his beautiful eyes on Hippolyta, said to her, 'Won't you 
 come and see them on the altar? They look prettiest 
 there, and they smell so sweet in church.' 
 
 'No, darling,' said Hippolyta with a slight feeling of 
 sadness, ' not now, I am busy. Some other time, perhaps.' 
 The boys ran off; but she repeated mechanically to her- 
 self, ' Some other time, some other time ! Ought I to 
 have said that ? I shall not go to see the flowers on the 
 altar, let them look ever so pretty.' 
 
 Their sister was quite different. She did not enter St. 
 Cyprian's either ; she seemed to have little or none of the 
 religious instinct; and when Willie and Charlie ran and 
 jumped in the garden, she did not join them. Hippolyta 
 was almost too considerate towards the girl, letting her 
 spend long afternoons in the house, and showing her every- 
 thing that she thought would interest her. Annie had 
 never seen such treasures before j they took hold of her 
 fancy mightily, and she was eager to learn the objects and 
 uses of the multiplied curiosities in which the old mansion 
 abounded. She gave careful attention to every word that 
 fell from Hippolyta in illustration of the pictures, china, 
 and the ten thousand knick-knacks which were necessarily 
 not to be comprehended without a gloss by the gardener's 
 daughter. She studied Mrs. Malcolm's way of speaking, 
 and expended thought not only on the patterns of dress 
 which were given her to cut out, but likewise on those
 
 chap, xxv QUALEAI DECET ESSE SORORUM 65 
 
 which were worn by her teacher. Not without a sense of 
 amusement, though with keener feelings of compassion, did 
 Hippolyta observe that she seemed to be going over in her 
 mind a part to be hereafter acted ; to be rehearsing, as it 
 were, the manners and mode of speech that characterised 
 'a lady.' She was equally bold in imitation and timid in 
 putting questions; but there was evidently a multitude 
 of things belonging to this novel sphere that she thirsted 
 to inquire about. Hippolyta, seeming not to mind, let her 
 have her way. Annie began to talk more freely, to give 
 expression to some of her less dangerous inclinations. She 
 was not exactly ignorant or dull, but the first steps in 
 mounting from one's native regions are the most difficult, 
 and she dreaded to set Mrs. Malcolm against her. Little 
 by little, however, the nature of the girl discovered itself. 
 
 There was nothing uncommon, except her lovely features, 
 and they were half spoilt by her sullen look, in Annie 
 Dauris. Between her and thousands of other London- 
 bred girls there reigned an unmistakable family likeness ; 
 but Hippolyta, in spite of her reading and travels, did not 
 know it, and this, the first specimen she had seen, filled her 
 with dislike and amazement. Mr. Dauris sent his boys 
 to the school which was carried on by the fathers at St. 
 Cyprian's, and his girl to the convent. But there was 
 another school which he could not prevent them from 
 frequenting if they chose — that of the children who played 
 with them, and of the London streets. Annie — but I think 
 Mrs. Dauris can begin the story better than I. She had 
 lived through it all. Sitting up on her couch, and pausing 
 from time to time when her breath failed her, she unburdened 
 herself of this great trouble to the young married lady one 
 morning, when Annie was ironing in the little back-kitchen 
 and not likely to interrupt them. 
 
 ' It shames me,' she said, ' to speak about such things 
 in the hearing of a lady like you ; but Annie is not the 
 child she was, and you ought to know her ways. I don't 
 know what came over her when she got to be a big girl. 
 She was as good a child as you would wish to see, and the 
 sisters were very fond of her, till she was twelve or thirteen. 
 And then she took up with some of the bad characters in 
 vol. 11. f
 
 66 THE NEW ANTIGONE part n 
 
 the school, and she was always going about with them at 
 night instead of coming home, staying in the street, and 
 staring into public-houses, and what it was not right 
 
 for her to see. I spoke to her often enough, (i<>d knows, 
 but as soon as my ba< k was turned awaj she would go, and 
 not be home again till midnight perha] . or later. I was 
 afraid William would notice it ; for, though he is a peace- 
 able, religious man, as you may see, he can be very angry, 
 and once he gives way to his feeling I am afraid of what 
 will happen. He did go after her once, and she was 
 obstinate and would not come in ; it was when they were 
 holding a fair in the market, — she said no, she had rather 
 
 v out all night ; and William took her and brought her 
 home, and that time he beat her severely. Oh, dear me, 
 I shall never, never forget it. And it did no good ; she 
 was worse than ever. Many an hour I spent in search of 
 her during the dark winter nights, when she would slip out 
 and run off to her bad companions. And where did I find 
 her, after all? Standing at the bar of a gin palace, talking 
 and laughing with grown men, or coining out of one of the 
 low theatres in the neighbourhood. When she saw me 
 she ran away or hid round a corner, and I have had to 
 come home through rain and snow without Annie. My 
 husband told me it was madness, that I should only kill 
 myself; but I had the feelings of a mother, and I could 
 not see my child lost. It is a wonder that she never got 
 into worse mischief, for the men and the women she made 
 friends of were thieves, and well known to the police. I 
 cannot tell where she found a shelter the nights she stayed 
 out. She would never say, and she seemed not to care. 
 One night she would have spent in the stationdiouse, for 
 she was taken there with others that had been drinking and 
 
 .ting; but the sergeant knew my husband, and instead 
 of taking down the charge, he sent round, like a good man, 
 for William, and her father brought her home. That struck 
 a wholesome fear into her during a week or two ; and then 
 she went away again. We were at our wit's end what to 
 do with her. Isn't it a pitiful tale, Mrs. Malcolm?' she 
 said, turning with wet eyes to Hippolyta, whose silence had 
 deepened with her sympathy and horror. She could not
 
 chap, xxv QUALEM DECET ESSE SOKORUM 67 
 
 speak, but she pressed the poor mother's hand. There 
 was a painful pause. 
 
 ' I don"t believe,' resumed Mrs. Dauris, when she re- 
 covered her breath, ' that there was malice in Annie. She 
 was young and curious ; she had no sense of danger, and 
 of course she liked to see what was going on. That is how 
 we poor people lose our children. They go into the streets 
 and the flood carries them away. We are not the only ones 
 in this neighbourhood that have had trouble with a daughter 
 and shed scalding tears over her ruin. Though, I thank 
 God, Annie is not ruined yet. She has lost her character 
 with the sisters, and the people about think she has be- 
 haved like the rest of her bad companions. But, Mrs. 
 Malcolm, it is not true. I give you the word of a mother 
 that there is not a word of truth in it. Annie will not be 
 said or led by her father, more is the pity; and when he is 
 at home she will not open her mouth, as you saw the other 
 night. The poor child is afraid of him since he beat her, 
 and she is stiff-necked too, and no one can manage her. 
 I do sometimes coax her to talk, and then she tells me 
 things. William doesn't know that Maurice Regan has 
 been near the cottage, and I would not have him know. 
 But Annie confessed it when I repeated what her brother 
 said about a gentleman in the lane.' 
 
 'Oh, indeed,' exclaimed Hippolyta ; 'then Maurice 
 Regan is the gentleman's name. Is he a gentleman ? ' 
 
 Yes, he was a gentleman, and he had seen Annie walk- 
 ing home to her Cousin Harriet's from Mark Tomlinson 
 the draper's near Oxford Street; and he had fallen des- 
 perately in love with her. It was the most ordinary of 
 'London idylls' — gutter-idylls, one should call them per- 
 haps. While Mrs. Dauris went on with the shameful story 
 Hippolyta seemed to hear it all in a dream. The great 
 workroom, with its rows of workers ; the elder girl, 
 Charlotte Fraser, who had 'taken a fancy to Annie,' and 
 showed her fine sights, leading her to music halls, where 
 there was comic singing, with plenty to eat and drink, and 
 nothing for Annie to pay; the well-dressed gentleman that 
 was a friend of Charlotte's, and gave her up to walk with 
 the younger girl he met in her company; the first fit of
 
 68 THE NEW AA PART n 
 
 intoxication, when the mothi . fter Annie, saw her 
 
 with eyes 'at first full ol wild fire, and then as full of sleep 
 
 and Stupidity 'j and the second and the third hi, when a 
 stranger passing along noticed the child of fifteen lying out- 
 side the tavern insensible, with a « rowd standing about hi 
 
 the midnight scenes, when her father and mother w« 
 searching over London for their lo filter j the flights 
 
 from home, the recaptures, the hopeless efforts on the part oi 
 this good lady and that to bring her to a 1 letter mind : and at 
 last, the trembling fear of the poor mother, declining even 
 day to her grave, hut dreading that Annie would break 
 away from home once more and cast herself upon the 
 London streets ; — it was a horrible chapter of existence, 
 more like nightmare than reality. 
 
 But it was also, for Hippolyta Valence, like holding up 
 a] blurred and crooked mirror to her own countenance. 
 'Hie distorted features came back, her own and not her 
 own, as if she beheld them under the oppression of delirium. 
 Why should the sentiment of guilt or shame stir within her 
 bosom, at the thought of Annie Dauris's unmaidenly history ? 
 There existed no kinship, how remote soever, between them. 
 But the caricature of love was hideously grotesque ; its sur- 
 roundings were so vile and mean. The streets with their 
 flaring, murky lamps ; the horrible, glittering gin palaces ; 
 the throng of men and women in rags or in flaunting 
 colours that were ever in motion, in and out through the 
 half-open doors ; the rainy nights, when mud was lying 
 thick in the gutters and the spouts were running with foul 
 water, and along the dark and noisome pathways went 
 to and fro the miscellaneous company of women with 
 their draggled garments and shameless, miserable, wrinkled 
 faces, while their partners in vice reeled along, drunken 
 and riotous, in the full tide of debauch, — all this, which 
 came before her suddenly like a stage built up and illum- 
 inated from end to end in the depth of darkness, was it 
 indeed the realisation of that dream of free love wherein 
 she had delighted as in a thing most beautiful and tender ? 
 Was this the breathing out of pure affection, the blending 
 of heart with heart, the springing up of amaranthine flowers 
 from our mortal mould ? At a glance she seemed to take
 
 chap, xxv QUALEM DECET ESSE SORORUM 69 
 
 in the existence of such a girl as Annie Dauris, — the wither- 
 ing of its innocence and beauty, the stubborn rage, and 
 unfulfilled desire, and ever -renewed thirst for what was 
 forbidden. ' Oh, horrible, horrible,' she said beneath her 
 breath. It made her sick and faint to think of it. 
 
 Mrs. Dauris had not finished speaking when ' Hush !' 
 said Hippolyta, ' I hear a noise this way. ' Isn't Annie 
 coming from the back-kitchen?' They stopped to listen, 
 and the girl entered, with a number of her favourite weekly 
 novelette in her hand. 
 
 ' I have done ironing,' she said. ' Will you let me sit 
 here ? it is so hot near the ironing-stove.' Her face was 
 flushed with the heat, but she looked less ill-tempered than 
 usual. She was certainly pretty, with a sweet expression, 
 something like her brother Charlie's, just then. 
 
 4 What are you reading?' said Hippolyta; 'may I look?' 
 She surrendered her novelette doubtingly. It was not 
 badly printed, but rejoiced in illustrations of a most pro- 
 nounced crudeness and vulgarity, which appeared on the 
 reverse of the thin paper ; and its title was — but there is 
 no reason why the title, though merely high-sounding and 
 silly, should be advertised here. It used to glare from 
 London hoardings in great red and green letters, for the 
 delectation of the passing multitude not so many years 
 ago, although it is now rarely to be met with — at least 
 that is my experience — even in catalogues of second-hand 
 rubbish. About a hundred and four numbers compose this 
 sort of tale, which affects the dramatic suddenness and 
 mysterious endings of Eugene Sue, dashed with the senti- 
 ment of Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds. There is a whole library 
 of such fiction scattered broadcast by our freedom of the 
 press. Hippolyta, better acquainted with Sophocles than 
 with the purveyors of 'romance for the million,' turned 
 over the pages in silent disgust, and gave them back 
 without remark. Mrs. Dauris, meanwhile, said to Annie 
 with her accustomed gentleness : 
 
 'You can come and sit here in a few moments, my 
 dear, when Mrs. Malcolm and I have finished what we are 
 saying. There is something I want to tell the lady.' 
 
 ' About me, I suppose,' returned Annie with great quick-
 
 70 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAST Xl 
 
 . her cheeks lighting up and then turning palej 'wi.ll, 
 I don't i arc. Tell as much as you like, and I will tell my 
 side of the story if I am asked.' And away she went, at- 
 tempting, for the sake of bravado, to hum the notes of a 
 comic street-song under her breath, but not succei ling in 
 getting through it. On the contrary, when she reached the 
 ba< k-kitchen again and sat down by the ironing-hoard, such 
 a sense of wretchedness overcame the unhappy girl that she 
 hurst into a fit of sobbing, and ro< ked herself to and fro in 
 agony. She was miserable indeed; far more so than she 
 would have dared to let her mother know or any human 
 creature. 
 
 But, a few days later, she told as much of ' her own side 
 of the story' as she judged expedient, sitting in Mrs. Mai 
 colm's boudoir, and in answer to the question which that 
 lady put to her in the words, ''Jell me, Annie, who is 
 Mr. Maurice Regan?' 
 
 ' Ah, mother told you his name that afternoon I was 
 ironing, when she wouldn't let me sit in the parlour,' cried 
 Annie; 'but I should have told you myself, all the same. 
 Maurice Regan is the gentleman you saw me talking with. 
 He is — I mean — I am ' 
 
 She was confused and could get no further. Hippolyta 
 came to her aid. 
 
 'You mean to say he is your lover. But when I passed 
 you were quarrelling, I thought.' 
 
 Annie looked down at her work. ' Yes, we were,' she 
 said ; ' but it was only a lovers' quarrel. Maurice adores me, 
 and I adore him.' 
 
 'And was he asking you to do something you didn't 
 like?' inquired Mrs. Malcolm, who thought she had better 
 let Annie tell the story her own way, piecem 
 
 'No, it was not that,' replied the girl. 'I wanted him to 
 take me away. I did,' she repeated, as if in answer to the 
 look of sorrow and astonishment on the lady's countenance. 
 ' I hate staying at home. Father makes it so miserable. 
 And I hate him,' she concluded vehemently. 
 
 I lippolyta put her hand on the wicked lips of the child, 
 saying softly, ' My dear, my dear, don't utter such wrong 
 woids. Your father is a good man, and he loves you.'
 
 chap, xxv QUALEM DECET ESSE SORORUM 71 
 
 'Why did he beat me then?' cried Annie in a shrill 
 voice, pushing away the gentle hand which would fain have 
 stilled her irreverence. ' He shall not have the chance of 
 beating me long, I can tell him.' She spoke loud, as if 
 there was some one in the next room that would hear what 
 she said. Hippolyta was more grieved than shocked. How 
 to bring back so wayward a being to the sense of duty ? 
 
 ' I suppose,' she said after a pause, when Annie had 
 had time to reflect, and had begun to fear the consequences 
 of speaking out loud in such a grand room and before such 
 a fine lady as Mrs. Malcolm, ' I suppose your father wanted 
 to break you off being out late at night, in the streets. 
 You cannot blame him for that.' 
 
 ' Yes, I can,' said Annie, her spirit rising again ; ' I 
 wasn't doing anything. Why shouldn't I go about like 
 other girls, instead of moping indoors ? If I had always 
 kept in the house I shouldn't have come to know a soul at 
 Cousin Harriet's. Maurice says father was cruel to beat 
 me, and he hates him too.' 
 
 ' But why do you like running about after dark, 
 Annie?' It was Hippolyta's purpose to probe as deeply, 
 and yet as delicately as she could, into the mind of this 
 rebellious creature, and to discover, if possible, a remedy 
 for the unhappiness she was causing herself and others. 
 Annie did not hesitate. She replied : 
 
 ' I do like it, and I always did. If I stay with father 
 and mother, it is all reading good books and talking as the 
 priest does in church. I cannot stand it. I like doing as 
 I like. Why should I be different from the other girls ? 
 They talk and sing and dance with their young men, and 
 go to music halls, and they have nice things to eat and 
 
 drink, and some of them don't work at all ' She 
 
 stopped. She was going a step too far in her confidences, 
 as she could perceive, being quick enough in her way, by 
 the growing paleness of Mrs. Malcolm's cheek. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Hippolyta in a low voice, ' there are thousands 
 that never put their hand to anything useful. Would you 
 wish to be one of them, you poor ignorant child?' She 
 turned a wistful glance towards Annie. That young lady, 
 but little abashed, made answer :
 
 72 THE NEW ANTIGONE pam U 
 
 'I need not be one of them, if I can get Maurice to take 
 me with him. He has plenty of money and a beautiful 
 
 house, with servants, and horses, and carriages ' 
 
 'Then you have seen the house?' said Mrs. Malcolm, 
 interrupting her; 'and it was there you went when your 
 father and mother lost you, before Miss Thatchford took 
 you into her service?' While she spoke Annie was listen- 
 ing attentively, but she would not answer for some time. 
 She seemed to be turning over a resolution in her mind. 
 Once and again she studied the lady's expression with a 
 sharpness beyond her years, until at last, being appa- 
 rently satisfied, she said somewhat less impetuously than 
 usual : 
 
 'If you would not let anybody know that I asked, I 
 should like — oh, you are such a good lady, I know you 
 will help a poor girl in distress. It is no use telling father 
 or mother, it will only make things worse. Do let me say 
 it all to you, in confidence, as if I was going to confession. 
 Please, will you, ma'am?' She was very imploring. 
 Hippolyta considered. Annie would keep her secret, as 
 she had kept it hitherto, unless the promise was made that 
 it should go no further. And might it not be the girl's 
 salvation for one of her own sex to become in this way her 
 guardian ? 
 
 'Very well,' said Hippolyta at length. 'I promise not 
 to repeat what you are going to say, unless it is the only 
 way to save you from the danger you have run into.' 
 
 ' It will not be the only way,' she replied, ' as you will 
 see when I give you the account. But you do promise ?' 
 Hippolyta repeated the assurance. Annie became very 
 thoughtful, and broke down several times in trying to begin. 
 It was with great difficulty that at last she said in a broken 
 voice : 
 
 'When you saw me and Maui ire we quarrelling. 
 
 I own it now, because I want some one to help me so 
 badly. He went away in a passion, and I haven't — I 
 haven't seen him since, and I don't know where he lives, 
 and it is like being alive and yet screwed down in a coffin 
 to live as I have been living all these weeks.' She gasped 
 for breath and words failed her, as she put down the skirt
 
 chap, xxv QUALEM DECET ESSE SORORUM 73 
 
 she was working upon in a helpless way. She looked not 
 only miserable, but ill and feverish. 
 
 'But surely,' said Hippolyta, moved with great com- 
 miseration towards her, and forgetting the circumstances 
 which would have seemed to make this turn of events 
 desirable, 'if he loves you, he will come again.' 
 
 ' I don't know, I don't know,' sobbed Annie. ' He did 
 come, twice, to see me in the lane, and when he began 
 each time he was ever so kind and affectionate ; but he 
 got angry as soon as I asked him to take me from my 
 wretched home. He said he was not ready, and I ought 
 to wait and not be such a trouble. And then, when I 
 began to press him a good deal more, he was so out of 
 temper that he turned his back and walked away as fast as 
 possible, and he would not come back when I called and 
 ran after him. And he does not write or anything. What 
 shall I do ?' she cried wildly. ' If I cannot find him again 
 I shall go clean out of my mind.' 
 
 ' And you have no address, no means of writing to him ?' 
 inquired Mrs. Malcolm, her heart touched at the sight of 
 distress which it had evidently cost an extreme effort not to 
 show at the cottage, in the presence of the unhappy girl's 
 parents. What a mockery was the so-called love of this 
 Maurice Regan ! 
 
 'There never was any address, and I haven't got a 
 morsel of his handwriting,' said Annie with reluctance. 
 ' We used to meet him, when I was with Cousin Harriet, 
 at the Oxford or the Metropolitan, or wherever he sent 
 word to Charlotte Fraser. Afterwards Charlotte and I 
 didn't speak, but he would wait till I came out of the 
 workroom in the evening, and come up as I was going 
 home, and tell me where to meet him later.' She paused. 
 
 ' But when last you left home, was it not to go to him ? ' 
 Hippolyta felt she must ask this question. Annie's thoughts 
 seemed to wander while she was answering. 
 
 ' I couldn't stay quiet,' she said, ' that was why I ran 
 away. I wanted to see Maurice ; and though he knew I 
 lived out here, he did not come as I thought he would. So 
 I made up my mind to go and look for him at the old places 
 where we used to meet. I had some money he gave me ;
 
 74 THE NEW ANTIGO* PABT ii 
 
 hut I was hardly certain whether Ins right name even was 
 
 what he said Only I did love him, and I do still ; and I 
 
 don't <arc what he docs, I shall always be faithful to him.' 
 The tone of intense gravity with which Annie uttered tl 
 words, coming in the midst of real and undisguised trouble, 
 would have amused Hippolyta at another time. Annie 
 Dauris believed in the mock-heroic, and had no doubt 
 practised it diligently. She must be fancying herself just 
 then one of the distressed damsels whose abandonment by 
 their lovers made the middle chapters — as it were the third 
 and fourth acts — of those melodramas in prose which were 
 the staple of her reading. But, unluckily, all the wretched- 
 ness was real ; and the melodramatic winding-up was yet in 
 the far distance, if it would ever come at all. 
 
 'Did you find him in the old places?' was Hippolyta's 
 next question. 
 
 ' Not for several nights, I didn't. I went all about, but 
 I couldn't ask any one. I thought of waiting for Charlotte 
 Fraser, but I was not going to give her the laugh over me ; 
 and I didn't know but he might have gone back to her, 
 just for amusement, because he always told me he had not 
 cared a bit about Charlotte. No more he had, I am sure. 
 And I did see him at last, one night, as he was coming 
 out of the Oxford. I ran to him and he seemed very glad. 
 He called a cab and told me to get in, and gave the cabman 
 the address, but I couldn't catch it.' 
 
 ' Did he go with you ? ' said Hippolyta, waiting for the 
 answer. 
 
 Annie did not return her glance, but answered 
 quietly, ' No, he didn't go with me. And I wouldn't stay 
 when I got there, late as it was. I got out of the cab and 
 waited near the house a good many hours, until it began to 
 rain. And he never came ; and I was so desperate I went 
 back all the way in the rain, and I don't know what I did 
 the next days. I was mad, I think. It was after that Mrs. 
 Wardlaw found me and took me to Miss Thatchford. And 
 then the meetings began again, for I could get out unob- 
 served, and this time I went to Charlotte Fraser's and we 
 made it up. She did not care for him cither. She had 
 got somebody else, and she told him so, — better off, as she
 
 chap, xxv QUALEM DECET ESSE SORORUM 75 
 
 said, than he would ever be ; but it was all brag, I daresay. 
 But still, all the same, she was not jealous, and we used to 
 meet one another sometimes at the house where she lived. 
 That is one of the reasons why I never had Maurice's 
 address. But I must get it now, or I shall do something 
 to myself. Do you think he is gone for good ? Oh, don't 
 say that you think so.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' answered Hippolyta very slowly, and as if 
 some unseen power were putting the words on her unwilling 
 lips. ' Would it not be the best for both of you ? ' 
 
 ' But I tell you, dear lady,' cried Annie, in her despera- 
 tion, rising to her feet, ' that we love one another ; I know 
 we do. It is as sure as God is in heaven. He told me 
 again and again that he was never happy without me ; he 
 counted the minutes till I came. And I am never happy 
 when he is away,' she said, falling back into her chair. ' Oh, 
 if you know what it is to be wild with love, and to pine and 
 die because you can't be near the man your heart is set on, 
 do help me to find Maurice again. If I only knew where 
 to write I would go down on my knees and thank you. 
 He would be sure to come when I told him I was dying 
 for the sight of his face once more.' 
 
 She was pitiably in earnest now, not melodramatic. 
 Hippolyta, divided between her early feelings and the 
 rapidly growing conviction that, love or no love, Maurice 
 Regan was a scoundrel, did not know how to reply. She 
 sat in front of the hysterical, passionate girl in silence, dis- 
 mayed and terrified, unable to put forth a syllable which 
 should express her feelings. But where intellect failed 
 the heart knew its way. Rising and going near to Annie, 
 she drew the unfortunate child to her breast, and while 
 Annie wept the bitter, hopeless tears of disappointed affec- 
 tion, Hippolyta mingled her own with them. For a while 
 there was no other sound in the room. Then, lifting her 
 face to the lady whose arms were clasping her, Annie said 
 in a whisper, ' Do, please, find out the address for me.' 
 Hippolyta shook her head sorrowfully. She was still unde- 
 cided whether she ought to encourage any hope in that 
 direction. What made her at last say, in almost as low a 
 whisper as Annie's, the words that she had dreamt would
 
 :<• THE NEW ANTIGONE pam ii 
 
 never have passed her lips? Was it an inspiration, or 
 was it. a surrender? She did not know. The sentei 
 was short and simple enough. She said, ' But, Annie, 
 would Mr. Regan ever many you?' 
 
 The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she 
 coloured from brow to chin; a deep swarthy hue accom- 
 panied with a burning sense of shame overspread her whole 
 nntenance, her eyes filled with hot tears, and, unclasping 
 Annie's arms, she went hastily towards a table that stood in 
 a dark corner of the room, as though searching for some- 
 thing. Annie, on the point of replying, was startled into 
 silence. What had come over the lady ? Was she suddenly 
 taken ill? That, perhaps, was the explanation, for Mrs. 
 Malcolm, after moving the ornaments about which lay on 
 the carved wood table, returned with a richly-chased flask 
 of sal-volatile, which she opened, and sprinkling some on 
 her handkerchief put it to her forehead. 
 
 • Have you got a headache ? ' inquired Annie, brusquely 
 to be sure, but not without feeling, thoughtless as she com- 
 monly was of the sufferings of any one but herself. 
 
 1 It is gone now,' said Hippolyta, laying down the flask. 
 She could not continue the conversation which was raising so 
 great a storm in her breast. But she must inquire of Annie 
 what her design had been in beginning it. ' What do you 
 want me to do ? ' she said, almost in the tone she would 
 have employed towards a stranger whom she distrusted. 
 Annie, intent on her own projects, did not observe it. 
 
 ' I want Maurice's address,' she answered, ' and you 
 could get it from his brother the clergyman, Mr. Philip 
 Regan, if you asked him, without saying who it was for. If 
 I went to him he would perhaps give me in charge for 
 coming about the house. At any rate he would never tell 
 me, for he doesn't want me to know ; he thinks I am 
 Maurice's ruin. He said so that night in Dorset Square.' 
 
 ' But I am not acquainted with Mr. Philip Regan,' re- 
 turned Hippolyta ; ' he would not be likely to tell a stranger 
 who did not explain her purpose.' 
 
 'Oh, but you are a lady, and if you called on him the 
 clergyman would very likely tell you anything you wanted 
 very much to know. I can show you where he lives. He
 
 OHAP. xxv QUALEM DECET ESSE SORORUM 77 
 
 goes a good deal among the poor people in his neighbour- 
 hood. It is near Saffron Hill. I have been there ; I went 
 with Charlotte once to hear the singing at the Italian church, 
 and as we were coming home she pointed to the other 
 church that Maurice's brother belongs to. Maurice lives 
 somewhere else, by himself, he told me.' 
 
 Annie was beseeching and tearful, but she did not know 
 the difficulties that lay in Mrs. Malcolm's path, or the feel- 
 ings, so entirely different from her own, which struggled for 
 the mastery in Hippolyta's bosom. There was the danger 
 of an expedition into the heart of London, with all that 
 might spring out of meeting a clergyman who, if he came 
 so much in contact with the poor, would perhaps have 
 heard of Colonel Valence, and might know those who would 
 recognise Colonel Valence's daughter. But the main peril 
 was of another kind. Had not fortune been dealing ten- 
 derly with Annie Dauris in taking away her unprincipled 
 admirer and putting a great distance between them; and 
 would it not be doing the girl an injury, an irreparable 
 injury, to help towards a renewal of their acquaintance? 
 On the other hand, she was not only foolish but stiff-necked, 
 and more likely to run the worst risks than to give up the 
 chance of discovering where Maurice Regan lived. With 
 an invalid mother, and a father whose control over her was 
 utterly at an end, she needed a friend, a counsellor, prepared 
 to watch every step she took. 'There is none but I,' said 
 Hippolyta to herself. ' And how can one that has assumed 
 the character of a Mrs. Malcolm be a protection to such a 
 girl as Annie ? ' 
 
 While she was turning over these things painfully in her 
 mind, and her young companion sat looking and waiting for 
 an answer, the street door was heard to open and close, and 
 a step came along the hall. Hippolyta started up and threw 
 down her work. She recognised the footfall outside. ' It 
 is Rupert, — Mr. Malcolm,' she said in a hurried voice, and, 
 leaving Annie, she ran out of the room. The sound of 
 joyful exclamations and lovers' greetings reached the girl 
 where she sat, and brought tears of rage and envy into her 
 eyes. Why were other women to be so happy and she so 
 miserable? Mrs. Malcolm was good, but she could have
 
 7 s THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt n 
 
 hated Mrs. Malcolm ; she hated all the world In a few 
 minutes Hippolyta came back, radiant, glowing with the 
 unexpected delight of Rupert's presence. 'You must 
 
 now, my dear child,' she said, taking Annie affectionately 
 round the neck; 'we shall not be able to do any more 
 dressmaking to-day.' 
 
 The other, rising up to go, turned her large eyes upon 
 Hippolyta and only replied by repeating h tion, 'Will 
 
 you find out for me about Maurice?' 
 
 The happy woman, rapturous at her own lover's arrival, 
 could not be prudent or selfish then. She answered, 'If 
 Rupert will allow me to go to Saffron Hill — if he does 
 not think it wrong — I will call on Mr. Philip Regan, and 
 tell you what he says.' 
 
 Annie lifted Hippolyta's hand to her lips with sudden 
 passion, and went aw
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 IF LOVE BE FREE ? 
 
 Rupert's coming was not due to any sudden event, either 
 pleasant or the reverse, at Trelingham. It was simply the 
 escapade of a young man who is very much in love, and 
 who discovers, or makes, in his daily pursuits an occasion 
 for running off to the well of golden water, and there taking 
 long draughts of felicity when no one is looking. As soon 
 as the feeling of Hippolyta's presence which he carried with 
 him into the West Country from Forrest House grew dim, 
 a devouring melancholy seized upon him, a longing for 
 which there was no anodyne, a ' weariness of all things 
 which did not remind him of the maid of his heart, and a 
 fever which seemed to infect him when he touched any 
 trifle she had handled or come near. He wrought then 
 like a man who is aware that one day's labour will pur- 
 chase seven days' enjoyment, — fiercely, furiously, with his 
 genius concentrated in every stroke, and a haste that is 
 possible only to a spirit set on fire. He never painted so 
 admirably; it was the passage of the beautiful, swift light- 
 ning over the face of a landscape, lambent, not destructive, 
 adding a divine, an incomprehensible splendour to the 
 colours and shapes of every day. But no sooner had he 
 reached a stage where, without harm to the design, he 
 could pause, than some attraction powerful as the magnet 
 drew him to London. Now it was the need of refreshing 
 his imagination by studying the great pictures — on which, 
 in passing, he bestowed a glance, and hurried away from 
 them to Hippolyta. Now it was an interview with some 
 old friend who would be gone in a week, and whom he
 
 TH VE PART II 
 
 must therefore catch on the wing, But when he did catch 
 him, Rupert seemed preoccupied, amazed, drowned in 
 reverie, not equal to conversation, though capable of 
 dden speeches who try and were so remark 
 
 able that even those who had anticipated wonders from 
 their brilliant acquaintance, felt in him something original 
 and undreamt of hitherto. Or it would he the need of 
 rare and curious ingredients for his palette, which no one- 
 could choose but himself; or of the learning on the subject 
 of King Arthur which was locked up in out-of-the-way 
 books. It was something or nothing, and the French 
 philosopher who invented 'occasional causes' would have 
 smiled in his grave to find such a powerful demonstration 
 of them in Rupert Glanville's comings and goings. 
 
 But the beginning, the middle, the end of the story was 
 Hippolyta and ever Hippolyta. 'Thine eyes are lodestars,' he 
 would say, with the infantine plagiarism of lovers who think 
 that A Midsummer Nighfs Dream and Romeo and Juliet 
 were indited for their particular use. To arrive unexpectedly; 
 to rush into the presence of Hippolyta palpitating with 
 eagerness and the haste of his long expedition ; to dine 
 
 a-tete amid the antique curiosities and delicate English 
 comfort of that red brick mansion in whose oak-panelled 
 rooms the ghost of his great-aunt, trailing her silks and 
 laces, and shocked out of her propriety (even as a well- 
 informed spectre) by the sight of such romantic love-makii 
 was perhaps still wandering after nightfall ; to discourse of 
 ten thousand nothings as if they had infinite importance, 
 making them the strings on which love's sweet voluntary 
 was played; to laugh and be serious and move with sudden 
 
 ht into the fiery empyrean, Love seeming all the while to 
 hold the secret of life, and existence so abounding in joy 
 that for very excess it was transmuted into pain; to be 
 wrapt in the flame of another's being and to feel all one's 
 faculties alive to their uttermost height, — what was Rupert 
 that he should resist the spell or put from him the over- 
 whelming ecstasy of these things, and be content with a 
 work-a-day world which glared upon him, hot and dustv, 
 when Hippolyta was not there ? Again and again he fled 
 to his enchanted island. He was lost, rapt out of the
 
 chap, xxvi IF LOVE BE FREE ? 81 
 
 sphere of things beneath the moon ; he had broken through 
 hedge and thicket, through thorn and brier, into the palace 
 of the Sleeping Beauty, and, oh joy and wonder ! it had 
 only a single tenant who waked when his eyes were bent 
 down upon her, and lived upon the breath of his lips. The 
 tumultuous company of king and chancellor, of knights 
 and serving-men, and all their noisy array, had sunk into 
 a deep sleep, out of which, for his part, he desired never to 
 awaken them. Why should not he and Hippolyta go on, 
 loving and being loved, in the secrecy which increased 
 their happiness a thousand fold and kept friends — those 
 worst of foes — at a distance ? ' We do not want the 
 palace to wake up, do we, Princess ? ' he said to her play- 
 fully as they were walking up and down the central path 
 of the garden once more. No, Hippolyta would have left 
 them gladly to their slumbers. But she had a question to 
 ask. Might she call on Mr. Philip Regan ? 
 
 It was not without blushing on her side, and a good 
 deal of laughter from Rupert, that she contrived to get her 
 question out. And who was Mr. Philip Regan, if he might 
 be so bold as to inquire, demanded Rupert in turn. A 
 clergyman ? Oh, indeed ! And so Hippolyta wanted to 
 see a clergyman, after all. She had come round, then, 
 from her obstinacy ; she had begun to think marriage in 
 a duly licensed building not so wicked as it appeared a 
 few months ago. Well, he had no objection. But, half 
 in shame and the least bit inclined to be angry with her 
 adored Rupert, she answered no, it was not as he supposed, 
 and, if he would promise to keep quiet and not laugh at 
 her, she would tell him. The artist, however, was in that 
 mood of abounding joy which the old wise Greeks thought 
 unseemly for a mere creature of a day, whose happiness 
 might be blown to dust by the passing wind, and which 
 they esteemed the forerunner of Nemesis. He was quite 
 sincere in declaring that he would marry Hippolyta when 
 she pleased ; but if that was not her motive in seeking 
 a clergyman, — if, as seemed probable, it rose out of her 
 enthusiasm for the poor of the neighbourhood, he would 
 neither meddle nor mar, in accordance with the resolution 
 he had taken at the outset. What did she want of Mr. 
 
 VOL. II. o
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE paet a 
 
 Regan? Hippolyta, somewhat confused by his previous 
 
 jesting, could not answer in a moment ; she hardly knew 
 whether, in seeing Maurice Regan's brother, she intended 
 to thwart Annie's wishes or to forward them. And the 
 confidence which, on this seemingly unimportant subji 
 might have been established between herself and Rupert 
 was made impossible by his fit of light-mindedness. In- 
 stead, therefore, of telling him Annie Dauris's story, she 
 contented herself with saying that Mr. Regan had it in his 
 power to assist the family of the gardener in whom she had 
 taken an interest ; but that it was a long way to Saffron 
 Hill, and she had not been able to decide on risking a 
 drive into the heart of London. All this sounded very 
 like what Glanville had anticipated. He would have been 
 alarmed had she spoken of visiting a fashionable preacher 
 at the West End ; but Mr. Regan was not known to him 
 by name and could not be famous, while any chance of 
 discovery in such a region as Saffron Hill was not to be 
 imagined. He had implicit faith in Hippolyta, and, merely 
 renewing his stipulation that she should not enter a place 
 where there was risk of infection, and should withhold her 
 address from Mr. Regan, he gave his consent. How 
 seldom we know which of the cards we are holding in our 
 hand will win or lose the game ! To Glanville the clergy- 
 man was nobody; and Annie Dauris was not even a name; 
 yet, if he could have been more sober amid the enchant- 
 ments of that evening, if the frolic laughter of a spirit 
 unbent had been kept in check, he might have discerned 
 that Hippolyta, though no longer melancholy, was medita- 
 tive, and after a new fashion. 
 
 More than once during those days Annie passed by the 
 garden-gates; but, always seeing Mr. Malcolm, she did not 
 venture in. She knew that Mrs. Malcolm would be kind, 
 she was never anything else ; but, so long as her husband 
 stayed, there was no hope of her leaving Forrest House 
 for an instant. How long, then, would he stay ? To 
 Annie it was a matter of life and death. Hippolyta, mean- 
 while, was like a water-lily floating in its dream ot beauty 
 on the tranquil waves, her thoughts absorbed, her feelin 
 strung to their highest pitch of intensity, her sadness gone,
 
 chap, xxvi IF LOVE BE FREE? 83 
 
 as Rupert perceived, and her attachment to the beloved 
 becoming more and more a part of her existence. What 
 could she desire that was lacking? News of her father's 
 whereabouts? Yes, it was strange he did not write or 
 send a message to Falside. But she resolutely put that 
 trouble away from her, like one who is on a voyage and 
 knows that months must elapse ere he can reach the home 
 he has quitted, or need take up again the cares he has left 
 behind. In the midst of such a vast expanse of happiness 
 around her, it was not difficult to forget the past or to 
 paint the future in hues of Paradise. Three or four 
 days of perfect love, cloudless and serene ; so many hours 
 during which the heart was steeped in bliss, the imagination 
 laughing and gay in its fairy visions — hours at once long as 
 eternity, swift as thought, and like some momentary crisis 
 that can never be blotted from the memory, — were they 
 over so soon, and was Rupert to be spirited away once 
 more to that Hall of Frescoes where she saw him, in his 
 artist costume, beautiful and strange as a god, not hers, 
 but dedicated to another service ? Yes, they were over ; but 
 she must not sit down to weep. Why should tears be the 
 price of that happiness ? She would help some one else 
 to be happy; she would take charge of Annie Dauris, since 
 there was no creature near who deserved her attention 
 better, none whose rescue would bring so much joy to the 
 good people whom she had found worthy of her affection. 
 When Annie came next to the gate Mr. Malcolm was 
 gone ; and on inquiry she learnt that Mrs. Malcolm had 
 set out soon after him, and would not be back till evening. 
 But the housekeeper did not know that Hippolyta had 
 resolved on a visit to Saffron Hill. It was to be a secret 
 from Annie, unless good was certain to come from telling 
 her. 
 
 Hippolyta, meanwhile, though acquainted with London 
 in her frequent journeyings to and from abroad with Colonel 
 Valence, was not at home in the purlieus of the Italian 
 quarter, and she had some difficulty in finding her way. It 
 was no part of her intention to disclose whence she had come 
 to Mr. Regan, and accordingly she sent back the carriage to 
 Forrest House when it had conveyed her a couple of miles
 
 &| THE NEW. ANTIGONE i-vuth 
 
 in tli. tion of London. Walking some distance along 
 
 the high road, she engaged the first cab that came towards 
 her, and had herself driven to Hyde Park Corner. I i 
 she alighted again, turned down two or three streets, hired 
 cond cab, and was taken, according to her directions, 
 within a short distance of the church that Annie had pointed 
 out as the one to which Mr. Philip Regan belonged. It 
 was shut, as most London churches are on week days, or 
 as at least they seem to be when one passes by ; and this, 
 in particular, had a padlock on its rusty gate. Hippolyta 
 looked round for the clergy-house. There was no building 
 near that corresponded with her rather vague idea of what 
 such a residence should be : the surroundings were poor and 
 squalid ; the people she saw going in and out of the various 
 houses were emphatically ' low ' — that is to say, not only 
 poverty-stricken, but brutish-looking ; — and though many 
 of the houses were large and of massive construction, their 
 general appearance was one of such pervading filth, misery, 
 discomfort, and, she would have said, of such engrained 
 wickedness, that she felt sure no minister of a Gospel dwelt 
 in any of them. She bethought herself of reading the 
 notices which were posted up on the church door, behind 
 the rusty grating. They dealt with the things of this world, 
 with dog taxes and carriage licenses — the latter absurdly 
 out of place in a quarter which was traversed only by cabs 
 in their flight east and west, or by great drays and butchers' 
 or costermongers' carts. The only carriages likely to be 
 seen within a large radius of St. Audry's Church were, said 
 Hippolyta to herself, the hearse and mourning-coach of the 
 undertaker. Parochial announcements, too, stared her in 
 the face ; but it would seem that in the modern significance 
 a parish was not the fountain of heavenly grace to those who 
 dwelt within its borders, so much as a corporate body bent 
 on exacting two shillings in the pound under severest threats 
 from the subjects over which it ruled. On other sheets 
 were published the hours of service and the amount of the 
 Sunday collection, distributed in columns according to the 
 silver and copper pieces of which it was made up. In a 
 corner of the last Hippolyta read the address of the church- 
 wardens; but, so far as she could conjecture, these gentlemen
 
 chap, xxvi IF LOVE BE FREE? 85 
 
 abode at a distance, and the morning would be spent in 
 seeking either of them. Were the clergy always so difficult 
 to discover ? She had thought of them as making a part 
 of the buildings in which they officiated, but it would seem 
 she was mistaken. What should she do next ? 
 
 The way in which Colonel Valence had educated his 
 daughter led to her being, in the presence of a trifling em- 
 barrassment like this, wild and shy. Clergymen were so 
 closely bound up with that huge imposture called the social 
 organism that Hippolyta, in endeavouring to find one of 
 them, had something of the feeling which possesses a recruit 
 who enters for the first time on a field of battle. She was 
 excited and, perhaps it will be doing her no great injustice 
 to add, slightly afraid. The medieval superstition which 
 made men begin a story with the solemn announcement, ' in 
 those days the devil walked openly in the streets of Heidel- 
 berg,' was paralleled to a certain extent by Hippolyta's 
 shuddering reflection that she, a daughter of the Revolution, 
 had come in search of that reverend vice, that sage iniquity, 
 which, in the person of Mr. Philip Regan, was then stalking 
 abroad through the streets of London. But she must find 
 him • and after some hesitation, she entered one of the 
 nearest houses, the door of which stood open, and knocked 
 timidly. There was no answer for a time, but the scudding 
 of children's feet was heard behind the partition, and by 
 and by a room door opened and a tall, slatternly woman 
 came out. She listened impatiently to Hippolyta's ques- 
 tions, eyeing her elegantly -dressed visitor with marked 
 disdain ; for there is the pride of Diogenes trampling on the 
 pride of Plato in many an unkempt and ragged woman, when 
 she brushes against another of her sex in silk attire. The 
 only answer this virago made was that if the stranger would 
 give Susan a penny, Susan would show the way to Mr. 
 Regan's. Hippolyta was willing to give Susan many pence 
 when she saw the pale-faced little thing, with her miserable 
 frock reaching hardly to her knees, and an old straw bonnet on 
 her head as much too large for her as the shabby frock was 
 too small. The slatternly woman, among whose goods and 
 chattels Susan was evidently reckoned, told her daughter 
 in a loud voice to show where Mr. Regan lived and come
 
 86 THE .\ .\7 i vitT ii 
 
 horn • straight when she had done so instead of playing in 
 the gutter. Hippolyta spoke a word or two of kindness to 
 the child, but she did not seem to notice it, and went on 
 before, her head han little on one side and her l- 
 
 rinding the way mechanically. It was no distance. In a 
 side street about five hundred yards from St. Audry's stood 
 the small, dingy-looking house in which Mr. Regan had set 
 up his modest establishment as a bachelor or celibate clergy- 
 man. Hippolyta kept the child with her till the bell was 
 answered. A decently-attired elderly woman came to the 
 door, and, in reply to inquiries, informed Hippolyta that 
 Mr. Regan was out on his usual morning round ; that it 
 was uncertain when he would come in, and that if her busi- 
 ness was pressing the only chance of transacting it at once 
 would be to follow the clergyman on his beat, which was 
 fairly regular, and catch him as he went from house to 
 house. Seeing the little girl by Hippolyta's side, the good 
 woman gave her some particular indications as to the quarter 
 of the parish Mr. Regan was visiting ; and Susan, with the 
 sharpness of her sex and bringing up, nodded intelligently 
 and set out afresh, nothing loth to guide Hippolyta on her 
 travels. Questions put at diverse points of their pilgrimage 
 elicited the information that the minister had been seen a 
 few minutes previously going into a house in what I will 
 call Denzil Lane, — for the true name is too well known. 
 Here, then, Hippolyta dismissed Susan after giving her a 
 little more than she had promised. 
 
 It was a fine old street was Denzil Lane, with noble but 
 shamefully dilapidated houses, once the mansions of illustrious 
 families, on both sides, interspersed with miserable tene- 
 ments huddled one against another and in the last stages of 
 decomposition. The house to which Hippolyta was shown 
 had a large entrance-hall and magnificent oak staircase, which 
 were both dimly lighted from a great window on the first 
 landing, every third pane of which was broken, and the rest 
 discoloured with smoke and festooned with antique cobwebs. 
 Throughout the building one might catch the sound of 
 voices in the different rooms and the movement of a nume- 
 rous life, for it was densely populated from the cellars, which 
 lay in darkness under Hippolyta's feet, to the roof that
 
 chap, xxvi IF LOVE BE FREE? 87 
 
 covered in a multitude of dismal attics. Knocking gently 
 at the door on her left hand, Mrs. Malcolm inquired again 
 for the whereabouts of this troublesome Mr. Regan. This 
 time she received a civil answer from the woman who 
 appeared on the threshold. ' Yes, Mr. Regan is upstairs, 
 in the first floor front, but he may be there a long while. 
 He always stays when he finds Mr. Mardol here.' 
 
 Hippolyta looked at her in astonishment on hearing the 
 name. Could it be Ivor Mardol ? What was he doing at 
 such a time in such a place ? ' Does Mr. Mardol live in 
 this house?' she demanded, anxious to hear further about him. 
 
 'Oh no,' was the reply; 'Mr. Mardol is a good 
 charitable gentleman, as well known in all the neighbour- 
 hood as Mr. Regan himself. They often meet in this way.' 
 And the civil, talkative woman proceeded to express her 
 wonder that they agreed as they did, and that they never 
 had high words between them, considering that Mr. Mardol, 
 like Mr. Minns, the tailor upstairs whom he visited, was 
 an infidel, and Mr. Regan not only was a clergyman, but 
 wore vestments on Sundays. 
 
 This was decisive. ' It must be the same,' said Hippolyta 
 to herself. But how extraordinary that, in making inquiries 
 about a stranger like Mr. Regan, she should have come 
 upon the man whom she had been instrumental in sending 
 away from the Hermitage, and whose absence, during those 
 eventful weeks, had determined the course of her whole 
 life ! Should she endeavour to see and talk with him ? 
 He might be able to tell her something of her father. But, 
 on the other hand, she had never learnt, or indeed cared to 
 learn, by what name Colonel Valence was known, if known 
 he personally was, to Ivor Mardol. While she was debating 
 in her own mind, a door opened above and some one began 
 to descend the stairs quietly. ' Ah,' said the woman, ' Mr. 
 Mardol is coming. He has left the clergyman behind.' It 
 was impossible for Hippolyta in the obscurity of the entrance 
 to discern more than the figure of a young man coming 
 down the stairs. But as he drew near and the light from 
 outside fell upon his face, she uttered a cry of amazement, 
 and went back some paces, almost into the street. Her own 
 face, which had been in deep shade, was now lighted up in
 
 88 THE NEW ANT1G0: pakt m 
 
 turn: and Ivor Mardol, for it was he, startled on hearing 
 the voice and hastening to discover who it might be, when 
 he saw Hippolyta paused, and tor an appreciable space ol 
 
 time looked at her fixedly without saying a word. They hoth 
 offered a picture of surprise and astonishment Hippolyta 
 was the fust to recover. She held up her hand in a peculiar 
 way. Ivor grasped it, let it fall, and whispered the only 
 words he had yet thought of addressing to this strange 
 young lady. She replied in the like whisper, adding aloud, 
 ' I know your name, Mr. Mardol, though we have never 
 met before.' 
 
 He drew her back into the dark entrance. ' You are one 
 of ours,' he said ; ' have you come with a message for me?' 
 He was calm, but exceedingly yrave in voice and mann< r. 
 No, she told him, their meeting was accidental ; she had 
 intended to find Mr. Regan. Then, remembering what 
 she had heard from the woman who was standing by, and 
 who had viewed their introduction of themselves to one 
 another with great admiration, Hippolyta asked him whether 
 he knew Mr. Regan intimately. 
 
 ' As intimately,' answered Mardol, ' as one knows a boy 
 that has been at school with one. Mr. Regan and I were 
 
 in the same class at . We were not friends, however, 
 
 and not enemies. Naturally, on leaving school we went 
 our several ways, but when he came to work in these parts 
 our orbits crossed again, and we are often in the way of 
 meeting. If you wish to speak to Mr. Regan I will ask 
 him to come down. What name shall I say?' 
 
 'Wait a moment,' answered Hippolyta; 'perhaps I need 
 not speak to him. Tell me, do you know his brother, Mr. 
 Maurice Regan? My business concerns him rather than 
 the clergyman.' 
 
 Ivor considered before replying. He scanned the un- 
 known visitor from head to foot, looked down, and said in 
 a serious tone, ' I hope, my dear young lady, if I may take 
 such a liberty, that it is no personal interest which prompts 
 you to inquire for Mauri) e Regan. He is a dangerous man.' 
 
 ' You do know him. then !' she exclaimed, 'anil you can 
 help me. But why do you call him dangerous? You con- 
 firm my suspicions.'
 
 CHAP, xxvi IF LOVE BE FREE? 89 
 
 ' He is one of ours, too,' said Ivor, with a look of 
 mingled pain and displeasure ; ' one by whom we shall gain 
 little credit. If you will tell me why you are looking for 
 him, I in turn will tell you all I know about him.' 
 
 ' Most willingly,' said Hippolyta ; ' but where can we 
 speak? This place is too public and we shall be inter- 
 rupted.' 
 
 ' I will arrange that,' he replied. ' Here, Mrs. Scruton,' 
 turning to the civil person, who was still at her door, ' have 
 you the key of the committee-room ? I want to show it to 
 this lady.' Mrs. Scruton, after a minute or two of search- 
 ing, handed him a large key, and he beckoned Hippolyta 
 to follow him along the hall. When they were quite in the 
 gloom of the staircase Ivor found a door on their right 
 which no eyes, save those accustomed to the darkness, would 
 have perceived. The key turned easily in the lock, and 
 they entered a vast but desolate apartment which may have 
 served in happier days for a drawing-room, though now it 
 was bare of all that could make it pleasant or habitable. 
 Some wooden benches were ranged along the walls ; a table 
 covered with moth-eaten baize stood at one end and beside 
 it a wooden arm-chair, which Ivor presented to Hippolyta. 
 She would have begged him to be seated, but there was 
 not another chair visible. He laughed and drew one of 
 the benches forward, and seating himself at a respectful 
 distance from her, said in a low, earnest voice, 'Begin.' 
 
 Sympathy is never a matter of words, nor can the 
 utmost eloquence so easily convey an assurance of it as 
 the tone, the look, which expressing that something in us 
 that lies deeper than speech, are powerful enough to create 
 in an instant the warm, comfortable atmosphere in which 
 we disclose our very soul to the listener. So was it now 
 with Ivor and Hippolyta. By a subtle, instant process she 
 knew that she had found a friend, and Ivor knew equally 
 well that the young lady in whose presence he sat, and 
 whose every word and motion had the highest distinction, 
 was sincere, unworldly, and simply intent on doing good. 
 She unfolded to him the story, so far as she was acquainted 
 with it, of Annie Dauris, her passionate folly and despairing 
 love for a man who seemed to have abandoned her and
 
 90 THE NEW ANTIGONE 1 aut n 
 
 me his way. She added the dreadful suspicions which, 
 from Annie's behaviour at their lasl meeting, she could not 
 hut have formed. Ivor listened without interrupting the 
 
 recital, asked no questions till it was ended, and said 
 merely as Hippolyta concluded, ' V. I did you propose 
 to tell Mr. Philip Regan? the whole of this sad affair?' 
 
 'Yes,' said Hippolyta; 'I would have let him know 
 everything, if he appeared to be a man of sense and judg- 
 ment. If not, I would have asked him for his brother's 
 address, and endeavoured to see him myself. Something 
 must be done, or Annie will throw prudence to the winds 
 and either disgrace her family or perhaps put an end to her 
 wretched existence. She is not only giddy, but a slave 
 of impulse.' 
 
 'Ah,' cried Ivor, standing up, ' is it not a heartbreak to 
 hear such things ? Maurice Regan is one of the thousands 
 that join our movement under false pretences, from their 
 hatred of moral order and discipline, not from any wish to 
 set their brethren free and lift them higher. He is a liber- 
 tine, not a Liberal; but he thinks it is all one. I remem- 
 ber him, too, at school, — unruly, indulgent in every way 
 that was then possible to himself, and hard as the nether 
 millstone to others. He has since run through a younger 
 brother's fortune, and plunged headlong into dissipation such 
 as London offers on all hands to the base. He is a quick 
 writer, speaks forcibly and fluently, and has rendered services 
 to us in the press. But though I never thought he had prin- 
 ciple, of course I was unaware of the miser)' he has brought 
 on this poor girl. And now, you say, he has cast her off.' 
 
 ' Entirely, it seems, unless something can be done to 
 unite them. I do not suppose she will ever be happy with 
 such a man ; yet anything is better than to see her good 
 father and mother so miserable.' 
 
 ' But,' said Ivor, turning his serious glance towards 
 Hippolyta, 'what can be done? I know the man's 
 philosophy, as he calls it. He will never marry her, for he 
 does not believe in marriage.' 
 
 Hippolyta trembled from head to foot. A feeling of 
 sickness came over her, and she clung to the arms of the 
 chair to keep herself from falling. What could she say ?
 
 chap, xxvi IF LOVE BE FREE? 91 
 
 in what way conceal her emotion? There was a difficult 
 pause. 
 
 ' No, I suppose not,' she said at last ; ' but you — I — 
 those who accept the Revolution, the principles of '89, do 
 we believe in marriage ?' 
 
 Ivor came to her with an air of infinite distress. ' I im- 
 plore you,' he said with the most intense fervour, ' tell me, 
 assure me that this is indeed the story of a third person, 
 that — pardon me, I am too bold — that you are not Annie 
 Dauris.' 
 
 Hippolyta smiled faintly. ' No, I am not Annie Dauris,' 
 she said, regaining the control over her voice that she had 
 lost; 'it is another's story, not mine. I should not dare,' 
 she went on more steadily, ' to suggest in the hearing of a 
 clergyman like Mr. Philip Regan the view I have expressed 
 to you. Surely, Mr. Mardol, there can be no mistake as 
 to the teaching of our religion. The free union of equal 
 men and women is incompatible with marriage. If it is 
 not, we are riveting again the chains that were smitten 
 asunder when the churches went down.' She could face 
 him now, this ambiguous son of the Revolution. 
 
 ' I see,' he answered imperturbably, ' you are romantic. 
 Excuse the word. I know the feeling, for I have gone 
 through it. How shall I convince you that you are wrong?' 
 He seemed to be pondering the matter. Hippolyta was too 
 proud to submit to this. 
 
 ' Nay, rather,' she exclaimed, ' how convince me that 
 you have not forsaken the very principles of liberty and 
 equality, if you are prepared to defend the iniquitous traffic 
 in the souls and bodies of women which goes by the name 
 of marriage ? ' 
 
 ' Nay, nay,' he said. ' Let us use a little patience. I 
 will convince you, if you do not shrink from the proof.' 
 
 ' I shrink from no proof,' she said, rather hotly. It was 
 too much. And he had been so full of sympathy while 
 she was telling her tale ; she must have been deceived in 
 the man ! 
 
 ' Ah, but the proof I have in view is no less appalling 
 than to plunge your arm up to the elbow in molten iron. 
 There is but one cure for the stage of sentimentalism in
 
 9a THE NEW ANTIGONE *kxi w 
 
 which all lu'. ists find themselves sooner or later; 
 
 and that is contact with reality. It is wry trying to the 
 heart and the nerves, however good tor the head.' 
 
 'I had imagined,' said Hippolyta scornfully, 'that it v. 
 contact with reality, with lite, which created Revolutionists. 
 Is not that your experience ?' 
 
 'No douht,' was his answer; 'hut where many of us 
 have mistaken, and constantly do mistake, is in beii 
 satisfied with our first knowledge, and losing touch of things 
 when we go on to mould our philosophies, our Utopias. 
 We look once, when we should look twice and thrice.' 
 
 'What do you understand by looking twice and thrice? 
 Finding an excuse for the rulers of mankind and turning 
 back to the ancitn rigime ? ' 
 
 1 Not quite that, or I should have the courage, I hope, 
 to declare that the Revolution and I had parted company. 
 I mean, looking beyond to-day and to-morrow, considering 
 what will happen when we have pulled down what is yet 
 standing in our way. It is not enough to establish anarchy, 
 as our friends now appear to have resolved. We must go on 
 to establish that which, one day or other, ought to succeed 
 anarchy — the kingdom of justice and of human brotherhood.' 
 
 'I am still in the dark,' said Hippolyta; 'apply your 
 doctrine of second and third thoughts to marriage. The first 
 thought, you will allow, is Free Love; every man and woman 
 to choose the manner, the length, and the terms of union.' 
 
 ' Yes, the romantic stage ; degenerating in men like 
 Maurice Regan into the stage of libertinism. Oh, I know,' 
 he went on, lifting his hand as if to deprecate the expression 
 of arguments familiar to him. 'You will say the abuse of 
 Free Love is not greater, that its dangers are even less, than 
 the abuse of marriage. But let me finish my prologue.' 
 
 Hippolyta, who had risen in her vehemence, sat down 
 again. Ivor continued : 
 
 ' When we turn our eyes upon life, as it is and has been, 
 we are appalled at the multiplied serfdoms which go to 
 make it up. Church, State, family, profession, rank in the 
 world — what are these but names of long-established, deeply- 
 rooted servitudes from which we can escape only by going 
 into the wilderness? The present order of things is
 
 chap, xxvi IF LOVE BE FREE ? 93 
 
 founded upon manifest or disguised slavery. Neither 
 those that command, nor those that obey, are free. The 
 king wears a golden chain, the convict an iron one; but 
 the king can have his will as little as the convict. Yet all 
 this heaping of serfdom upon serfdom does not end in 
 happiness. Some internal disease appears to be eating out 
 the vitals of civilisation ; and our Socialism and Nihilism 
 are but desperate remedies for the universal gangrene. 
 See how far I go with your first thoughts. Is it far 
 enough ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' answered Hippolyta ; ' I will tell you when I 
 have heard your second.' 
 
 ' How wise women can be sometimes ! ' he said, smiling. 
 ' I am not sure that you will like my second thoughts. 
 They may be brought under a single axiom ' 
 
 ' And that is ? ' 
 
 'That man is a spiritual being, and can therefore be 
 neither saved nor lost by a change of institutions which in 
 their nature are mechanical. Or put it this way, man is 
 made by character, not by laws or ordinances.' 
 
 'My dear Mr. Mardol,' cried Hippolyta, 'that is the 
 old Christian fallacy. Do not laws create, modify, and 
 mould character? What but a difference of institutions 
 has made the Turk other than the German, or the Hindoo 
 other than the Mussulman ?' She would have drawn out 
 her instances, but Ivor by a sign entreated her to pause. 
 
 ' Excuse me,' he said, ' you are talking the dialect of 
 the eighteenth century; and that is the old leaven of 
 Revolutionists. We should have made further progress if 
 we had not yielded to that fallacy, which the Nihilists 
 begin to see through. At the root of all institutions lies 
 the national character. I admit that enormous changes 
 ought to take place ; I am doing what I can, as an indi- 
 vidual, to help on the transformation. But, when all 
 possible changes have come to pass in the outer world of 
 law and custom, nothing will have been done unless a 
 change has taken place in the inner world of the spirit. 
 And now I will tell you how this bears on Free Love. We 
 want all institutions cleared away which fetter a woman's 
 power of saying no. We want every means bestowed upon
 
 94 THE NEW NE part u 
 
 her by which she shall conic to a full freedom of choosii 
 — a matter with which law lias hardly anything to do, ami 
 custom almost everything. Hut I e provided only 
 
 by a right education of women.' 
 
 •Quite so,' said Hippolyta; 'that is what I have always 
 believed, but would you have marriage ii ble except 
 
 by the legal process that drags a woman in the mire ?' 
 
 ' Now you have touched my second thoughts. Are the 
 difficulties surrounding marriage artificial, that is to say of 
 man's making, or do they exist in the nature of things?' 
 
 'How like a Socratic question !' she said, laughing, and 
 Ivor joined in the laughter. 
 
 'A strange sort of question in Denzil Lane, is it not?' he- 
 cried. ' but this is one of the points on which my brethren 
 and I cannot agree. So they have excommunicated me.' 
 
 ' What ! ' said Hippolyta, becoming serious in a moment, 
 'you are jesting. It is impossible that you should speak 
 so lightly if the thing had happened.' 
 
 ' Well, it has happened. I do not wish to sail under 
 false colours. I thought, in fact, when you disclosed to 
 me your connection with the society, that you had brought 
 me a message from the chiefs.' 
 
 ' And that was why you looked so grave,' exclaimed 
 Hippolyta, with compassion in every feature. 'Oh no, 
 no, I had rather be excommunicated myself. But do tell 
 me, if it will not distress you, how such a deplorable mis- 
 understanding can have arisen ? ' 
 
 ' It is no misunderstanding. In the society to which 
 you and I belong, founded as it is on a social creed, 
 speculative differences lead to very practical results. I 
 must not disclose what is, after all, the secret of others ; 
 and I could not tell it now in any case. The quarrel is 
 that deep one between the century which gave birth to the 
 Revolution and the century which is guiding it throu 
 infancy. I believe there are difficulties — mysteries, if you 
 like to call them so — in the nature of things, which must ever 
 limit our aspirations towards an earthly Paradise. And I 
 do not believe that to revolutionise all our institutions will 
 have the effect which the brethren anticipate. As I say, 
 the multitude are romantic and sentimental ; they have not
 
 chap, xxvr IF LOVE BE FREE ? 95 
 
 read, they will not study, the annals of the past. And they 
 little see that when they have abolished Church, State, and 
 family in the old forms, all three will spring up again in 
 the new.' 
 
 ' Oh, this is melancholy,' cried Hippolyta. ' I know not 
 if it is one degree better than my father's gloomy prognos- 
 tications.' 
 
 ' Who is your father, may I ask ? ' inquired Ivor. 
 
 Hippolyta hesitated. If Mr. Mardol were no longer on 
 friendly terms with his old companions there might be 
 danger in giving him the full answer. She said, therefore, 
 in an off-hand way, to dismiss the subject, ' My father is a 
 philosopher and inclined to be a Pessimist.' Then, with a 
 change of tone, ' But where is your proof that conventional 
 marriages are better than Free Love.' 
 
 ' I did not say that,' he replied ; ' but if you would wish 
 — I should say rather, if you can endure — to see a world 
 where Free Love reigns supreme and unchecked, I can 
 assign you such guides, good and worthy persons of your 
 own sex, as will show it you.' 
 
 1 In what part of the world ? ' demanded Hippolyta. 
 
 'Here,' he said, 'on all sides, within a radius of a 
 couple of miles. Have you the heart to go down into 
 these depths ? You are romantic, and naturally so, since 
 you have dedicated your youth to the Revolution, like 
 those passionate, intellectual women — true Sibyls and 
 Amazons of our modern world — who lead the van in 
 Moscow and St. Petersburg. But the young are enthusi- 
 astic without knowledge, as the old have knowledge with- 
 out enthusiasm. Come and study life where it may be 
 seen in myriad forms, all strangely, dreadfully instructive ; 
 
 and then tell me what you think of Free Love, Mrs. ?' 
 
 he paused inquiringly. 
 
 ' Mrs. Malcolm,' she said with no tremor in her accent. 
 Yes, she would come and see things with her own eyes. 
 ' I am not afraid of truth or reality,' was her proud declara- 
 tion to him. But she must not forget Annie. ' Can you 
 get me Maurice Regan's address ? ' she said, rising to go 
 when it had been settled that she was to return and begin 
 her voyage of exploration in three days.
 
 96 THE NEW ANTIGONE paw n 
 
 'I will inquire of his brother, and let you know,' replied 
 Ivor; ' but, it" 1 may oner one final piece of advice, it would 
 bo that you do not communicate with your young friend 
 until you have gone over some at Least of the scenes to 
 which yen will he taken. A desperate girl is, no doubt, 
 one of the most fearful responsibilities you could have. 
 but, on my honour and conscience, I do not think she 
 could do anything worse, let her do what she might, than 
 fall again in the way of Maurice Regan. She has perhaps 
 escaped ruin once ; but that sort of miracle is too rare to 
 be looked for a second time. But you should watch over 
 her as well as you can.' 
 
 He took up his hat where he had laid it on the green 
 baize table, led Hippolyta to the door, which he locked, 
 and asked her whether she would permit him to send for 
 a cab. The day was fine, and, thinking she had better 
 walk a little way, she declined. Ivor Mardol watched her 
 depart, and, with an expression on his face which betokened 
 meat pity and equal doubt as to the destiny of such a frank 
 and determined nature, restored the key of the committee- 
 room to Mrs. Scruton, and went away in the opposite direction. 
 He could not get the thought of Mrs. Malcolm out of his 
 head that evening. Still enamoured of the lady whose 
 bright eyes, had she been acquainted with his folly, would 
 have scorned him at Trelingham, Ivor had only a calm, 
 but a very sincere, interest to bestow upon any one else. 
 I le was in great trouble ; his views had been altering and, 
 as it seemed to him, enlarging for a number of years, and 
 they had now brought him into a situation of such peril 
 and loneliness that, but for his work among the poor, he 
 must have sat down and eaten his heart with grief. From 
 Hippolyta's conversation, from her way of putting what she- 
 had had to tell, he divined that there was a deep unsettle- 
 ment beneath the daring opinions to which she had given 
 utterance. Was she, like himself, ready to pass from im- 
 plicit faith in the ways and principles of the Revolution to 
 the severest criticism of them? No, not ready, far from it. 
 But suspicions were rising up in the secret chambers of her 
 heart and would not be lulled to sk
 
 PART III 
 
 ARE THE GODS AWAKE? 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE DEEPS OF HELL 
 
 True to her appointment, Hippolyta arrived in Denzil 
 Lane on the day and hour fixed by Ivor Mardol. The 
 place of meeting was the committee room, and Ivor came, 
 as he had promised, accompanied by one whom he thought 
 well qualified to guide Mrs. Malcolm through the labyrinth 
 of London misery and to bring her out unscathed. It was 
 a lady of high standing, great wealth, a heart larger than all 
 the wealth of the world, and that wonderfully humanising 
 experience which forty years of service among the poorest 
 outcasts could not have failed to give. Miss Desmond, the 
 daughter of an untitled but very ancient and noble line, was, 
 in all but name and outward habit, a sister of charity. 
 Endowed with a fortune in land and railway shares which 
 amounted to some score of thousands a year, and which was 
 entirely at her own disposal, she had early come to a deter- 
 mination that it should be spent in the endeavour to diffuse 
 a little happiness around her. For she was modest and 
 unassuming, with that quick discernment in matters of 
 benevolence — she had no great learning or accomplishments 
 of any other kind — which enabled her to see, almost in her 
 first year's novitiate among the byways of the world, that 
 
 VOL. II. h
 
 98 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt ill 
 
 money is only the beginning, and that philanthropy, like 
 most things worth pursuing, is an arduous enterprise, she 
 perceived that it was surrounded with difficulties; that it 
 required a special tact it the result was not to he waste of 
 resources, Ingratitude, the demoralising of those who had 
 seemed already at their lowest, and the added sufferin - 
 which arise at the remembrance of opportunities lost. 1: 
 was clear that she must give something more than money 
 and kind words, — she must give herself. The resolution 
 cost her an effort. Miss Desmond's charity, flowing from 
 a tender heart, was allied to the many virtues, and no less 
 to the many vices which may spring from a quickness to 
 feel and to suffer. She was naturally fastidious, shrinking 
 from the sight of pain, and disposed to be indignant with 
 those she could not help, from the very keenness of her 
 sympathy with them. But she was, too, a simple-hearted 
 Christian, not minding the varieties of creed which she took 
 for granted among the other inexplicable facts around her ; 
 she read her Bible and found good in all its pages. ' To 
 succeed through failure,' that was her device. Had any one 
 accused her of paradox she would have answered quietly, 
 ' Come ami see,' pointing to the work of rescue which had 
 been accomplished by following these divine tactics. She 
 gave her time, her thought, her affectionate care, her never- 
 ceasing diligence, to the task of winning from the miserable 
 wretches whom she had taken for her province a little 
 human trust ; and when the heart was opened on both sides 
 she gave wisely and abundantly of the lesser gifts, not now 
 as a matter of pity and alms-deeds, but as to her brothers 
 and sisters. For one that understood this exquisitely 
 humble and loving spirit there were ten, there were fifty, 
 ready to mock and to deceive. She knew it and bore the 
 heavy burden as her Saviour bore the Cross on which He 
 was to redeem the world. And she had her reward, often 
 unexpected, but always exceeding great. The delight of 
 her life was to save the young out of that terrible devouring 
 fire through which they are passed to a worse than Moloch. 
 She had ransomed many hundreds and sent them to the far 
 continents which have been created to redress the injustice 
 and lighten the shameful misery of a civilisation become so
 
 chap, xxvii THE DEEPS OF HELL 99 
 
 chaotic as our own. ' Her children,' for so she called them, 
 wrote from all parts of the world to their mother, encouraging 
 her by the prospect of their well-doing to continue this task 
 of diving for pearls in the deep sea. She was a beautiful, 
 welcome figure as she appeared in the fever-haunted dens and 
 crowded fetid dwellings into which she never hesitated to 
 pierce her way. It was on such errands of charity, now some 
 years ago, that she had come across Ivor Mardol. Their work 
 did not clash, and he was so gentle, clear-minded, and self- 
 sacrificing, so little disposed to introduce dogmatic quarrels 
 where the great text of love sufficed for a whole Gospel, that 
 Miss Desmond and he became ere long the closest of friends, 
 and she employed him to distribute her charities in many a 
 case which did not seem to admit of her personal intervention. 
 Such was the guide whom Ivor had designed for Hip- 
 polyta. Knowing only that the young lady who called 
 herself Mrs. Malcolm was of ' the movement,' and that she 
 had been led, by her innocence and enthusiasm as he did 
 not doubt, into one of the most fatal delusions which 
 attended, if was not a part of, the revolutionary creed, he 
 could not give Miss Desmond any information as to her 
 antecedents or present mode of life. But he said enough 
 to suggest that here too a good work might be accomplished 
 if Mrs. Malcolm were allowed to go with her. Hippolyta 
 assured him that she desired to labour among the people, and 
 that all she sought was a sufficiently wide sphere, and some 
 one to warn her when she was likely to make mistakes. All 
 this, it may well be supposed, Miss Desmond cheerfully under- 
 took ; and their first interview brought out the most amiable 
 qualities of the two women, so much alike in what they felt 
 for the suffering multitude, and in all else so decidedly 
 contrasted. Hippolyta Valence was at this time in the 
 bloom of youth and beauty ; she loved and was beloved ; 
 she did not anticipate sorrows of her own, and the immense 
 happiness she enjoyed gave her a courage in dealing with 
 the miseries she came across which added something heroic 
 to her dauntless character. She still looked forward to 
 playing a noble part in the revolution which was to bring 
 all good things; and the sense of failure was an experi- 
 ence she had never gone through. Moments, I have said,
 
 ioo THE NEW ANTIGONE r in 
 
 of passing melancholy ir, but 'hey were Like rij>i>les 
 
 on the stream raised l>>' a breath of wind and dying down 
 with it into the smooth waters. 
 
 How little did all these traits resemble the elderly Miss 
 Desmond, now close upon her sixtieth year, of plain though 
 not unlovely countenance, with silver gray hair and slightly 
 wrinkled forehead, tall and thin, not much given to smiling 
 
 ept when children came about her, and with a heart 
 in which the sorrows of so many had taken up their 
 abode ! There was an air of tender resignation, or of re- 
 signed hope, in her movements, and a quietness in her 
 manner of speech that seemed to make of the world in 
 which she lived habitually one huge hospital, and of herself 
 an unwearied seldom-sleeping nurse by the bedside of 
 patients innumerable. And she had that calm wisdom 
 which grows up in the soul and governs the thoughts when 
 all the evil places of life have been explored with the ray of 
 sunshine we call goodness. In Hippolyta there was, despite 
 her marriage that was n > marriage, the naive goodness of 
 childhood; she knew L^e world as in a picture-book. 
 Whereas the spotless maid n lady, upon whose reputation 
 no breath of slander had pas. ed, went to and fro among the 
 horrors of the great city as ar angel might descend into the 
 lake of fire, and by virtue of tie heavenly element he brought 
 with him return unharmed into the presence of the Most 
 High. It is not knowledge that leads to wickedness always; 
 indeed, I would rather say, there is a degree of knowledge 
 with which wickedness is incompatible. And thus that 
 strange-looking angel, Miss Desmond, opening her wings to 
 shelter the young and beautiful Hippolyta, and bidding her 
 fear no evil, descended with her into the Inferno of London. 
 
 There is a story told of one of the modern Catholic 
 saints — is it San Filippo Neri, the Florentine? — who en- 
 deavoured to convert a young man of the world, the 
 wicked world of other times, not ours, from the errors of 
 his ways, but in vain. To all his admonitions the pleasure- 
 seeker returned a mocking laugh. ' I see,' said the saint 
 gravely, ' that I must deal with you in earnest. Kneel 
 down and lay your head on my knee.' The young man, 
 still laughing, did so. Filippo Neri laid both his hands on
 
 chap, xxvii THE DEEPS OF HELL 101 
 
 the bent head before him and prayed for some moments in 
 silence. When he had ended he said, ' Now, get up and 
 go your way.' The young man arose, his countenance fixed 
 in horror, and departed without saying a word. But from 
 that day he was a changed being ; and those who knew him 
 intimately whispered, that while he bent his head upon the 
 saint's knee he beheld the underworld opened beneath him, 
 with its vision of fire and hopeless torments. Such was the 
 experiment Ivor Mardol was now attempting with Hippolyta 
 Valence. What was to come of it the sequel must disclose. 
 That young man converted by San Filippo Neri did 
 not speak often of his vision. There are many reasons, 
 apart from a divine command, which seal the lips of those 
 who are best acquainted with the secrets of the prison-house. 
 It is enough to have been in hell. The horrors and fears of 
 that abyss, which spouts its dark fire into the atmosphere 
 of many a proud city, will not bear to be dwelt upon in the 
 tender light of day; and no reader will expect from me 
 more than the abstract and brief chronicle of what Hip- 
 polyta beheld during those months, — they were few but 
 actively spent — in which she accompanied Miss Desmond, 
 and laid to heart the revelation that was awaiting her. 
 What did she see, you ask ? Nay, rather, what did she not 
 see, of things that would dim the very eyes of God with 
 tears where He sits in glory, were it not for some secret 
 anodyne that He keeps for the world's healing in His own 
 good time ? She descended into depth below depth ; she 
 heard the lives, recounted by themselves, of those to whom 
 misery was their proper element ; she gathered up the sighs 
 of innocent children blasted by evil ere they knew that good 
 existed ; she attempted, but in vain, to reckon up the pangs 
 that made each particular agony ; she drew back to con- 
 template the universal woe in its length and height and 
 breadth ; but the spectacle was too much for her, and she 
 could not see for weeping. 'Why,' she asked herself won- 
 deringly, ' how did life continue under these iron laws ? 
 What hindered men and women from making an end of it 
 all with themselves?' The conception of life to which she 
 had been accustomed was an harmonious development 
 of all its faculties under the guidance of reason ; she
 
 102 THE NBW ANT2 past m 
 
 had ever upon her lips such words as love, progress, light, 
 the true, and the beautiful Her world was an ordered 
 music into which discords came only that they might en- 
 hance the effect. Not that she had dreamt the music was 
 everywhere or always playing. That the multitudes were 
 miserable had been, as she told Ivor Mardol, the founda- 
 tion} the justification of her creed. But she seemed to have 
 been speaking by rote when this immense and hideous 
 tapestry, painted in all lurid colours, was unrolled be- 
 fore her. The creating word of her universe was love. 
 And here, what had love become? It was little to say 
 she had left the realm of humankind to lose herself in a 
 howling wilderness of wild beasts. These were not wild 
 beasts ; they were men and women. That was the cul- 
 minating horror. Upon the rage, and hunger, and passion 
 of the brute-world instinct puts a check. The tiger, when 
 he is sated, falls asleep ; the boa is torpid when he is 
 gorged with prey. It was the absence of a governing 
 principle, the boundless lust, the steady unintermittent fury, 
 the feeding of death upon death, which made even Hip- 
 polyta's pitiful heart long for a flame to run through the sky 
 from east to west and devour the uncleanness, though it 
 should lick up with the same tongue whatever life was found 
 within the horizon. There was no law, there was no light, 
 there was no shame. She saw only a festering heap of 
 human beings, flung on top of one another and kneaded into 
 a pestilential mass by the iron heel of necessity. And morn- 
 ing after morning flowers sprang up on the black dunghill 
 and turned their leaves hopelessly towards the sun that 
 would not shine on them, and withered, and were trampled 
 into the foul mass. For in this horrible world children 
 were born by the hundred thousand — delicate children, 
 sometimes beautiful, with their large tender eyes, always 
 frail and in need of sustenance and of love. Every 
 house into which Miss Desmond led her swarmed with 
 children as a hive swarms with bees. When they were 
 fortunate they died young. And how short was the youth 
 of those that lived ! At six years old a child in the deeps 
 of London has seen most that can happen of foul, unclean, 
 and heartbreaking on this planet of ours. but ere its
 
 chap, xxvn THE DEEPS OF HELL 103 
 
 birth it is predestined by the laws of the dark realm into 
 which it must enter to be a devil's child and never to know 
 the face of its Father in heaven. Its very breath and 
 bones are made of vice. The typical child of the well-to- 
 do classes looks beautiful, strong, happy, and innocent. 
 The typical child, encountered again and again by Hip- 
 polyta as she moved in that short radius of which Denzil 
 Lane was the centre — the angel of the house whom she 
 beheld in every nook and corner of that dismal universe — 
 was ugly, deformed, ailing, accustomed to stripes and blows, 
 full of premature greed, a thing of rags and disease, old in 
 sin, and steeped in impurity. No hand of redemption or 
 blessing had ever come nigh it. And was there any pro- 
 duction of Nature alone so complete in hideousness ? 
 
 To be suddenly flung out of the blue ether into the 
 abysses of death ; to exchange the feeling of Rupert's love 
 with all its glowing lights and hues of romance, as softly 
 blended as the prismatic sheen of the dove's neck, for the 
 desolation into which no love came, — this was the experi- 
 ence which Hippolyta had chosen to undergo. Her 
 existence had been merged in his ; they two were all the 
 world to one another, and their life had taken the grandest 
 sweep towards the Ideal, for it was full, and actual, and 
 unselfish, and its fulness consisted in their thinking high 
 thoughts and sharing in the most exquisite sentiments to- 
 gether. Now was Hippolyta to see how differently things 
 might be ordered for men and women of like texture with 
 herself and Rupert. The one great, astounding, miserable 
 fact which smote her in the face wherever she turned was 
 the absence, the utter ignorance on all sides, that such love 
 could exist. The genius of Dante, it is well known, has 
 conceived the central core, the innermost circle, of his 
 Inferno as not fire but thick -ribbed ice. The breath of 
 Lucifer freezes ; it does not burn. This unexpected and 
 most awful thought, containing in itself more than the poet 
 was perhaps aware, recurred to Hippolyta many, many 
 times during her pilgrimage among these living damned. 
 She had expected to find an outburst of love, wild and 
 exuberant as spring on the plains of the East. She found 
 the very opposite. Instead of tropical heat and the quick
 
 '04 VTIGONE part in 
 
 succession of sentiments which might be justified in the 
 poet's eyes by their warmth and intensity, what she Der- 
 ived was — how shall I express it? — a cold fury, a chill 
 and dreary animalism, in which the embers of human feel- 
 in- were hardly to be discerned. All things here had a 
 wan, spectral appearance, not inconsistent with murderous 
 impetuosity or the frenzy of hate and desire. But love? 
 Ah, now she began to understand what a solemn and sacred 
 word it was, how little to be confounded with the instincts 
 which, having full sway among these dreadful simulacra of 
 humanity, were but a madness added to the rest which 
 made ascent towards the light impossible. Without saying 
 it to herself, or indeed knowing that such a truth was be- 
 coming luminous to her, she felt that the noble conception 
 of love had its roots in the reverence and reserve, in the 
 great all-surrounding atmosphere of modesty, which makes 
 the distinction between true refinement and barbarism, be 
 the latter never so gilded. Where shame is wanting, love 
 cannot exist. In these regions there was no such thing as 
 solitude, privacy, or a house with closed doors. There was 
 not room to move in, not air enough to breathe. The con- 
 fusion of ages and sexes, of strong and feeble, even of good 
 and bad, was beyond description. No slave-ship was ever 
 more crowded than the miles of narrow streets through 
 which Hippolyta, shuddering and sick at heart, was forced 
 to thread her way. For those who dwelt in them Nature 
 had no meaning ; the green of the meadows, the grace of 
 field and forest, the beauty of running water, nay, the very 
 lights of heaven did not exist for them. All they knew 
 was this living prison of human bodies which hemmed them 
 round, and from the walls and roofs of which came in- 
 cessantly, as in a falling shower, sounds of blasphemy, rage, 
 cursing, pain, hunger and thirst, intoxication, insanity, and 
 murder. It was not to be thought that love could unveil 
 its shy face amid such horrors. The charm of love is, in 
 the for once poetical imagery of Swedenborg, that it draws 
 two spirits from the ends of heaven to meet and embrace, 
 obeying the secret laws of affinity which make them and 
 them only fit for one another. How preserve such tran- 
 scendent personality in the thick of such a crowd as was
 
 chap, xxvn THE DEEPS OF HELL 105 
 
 here battling for life and trampling the fallen into a gory 
 slime ? It was a strange place to come to for the revela- 
 tion of the sacredness, the singleness, so to speak, of love. 
 Yet this was what Hippolyta learnt ; and on her first 
 meeting with Ivor Mardol she put her experience into such 
 words as would most forcibly express it. They were to- 
 gether again in the committee room, where Hippolyta was 
 waiting for the arrival of Miss Desmond. 
 
 ' But I cannot agree with you, Mr. Mardol,' she con- 
 tinued, 'that I have witnessed the evil consequences of 
 Free Love. I see no love anywhere in this frightful chaos.' 
 
 ' It is exactly the same thing,' he answered, not at all as 
 if uttering a questionable saying. 
 
 ' The same thing to love, and not to know its meaning ? 
 You are bent on mystifying me, I perceive.' 
 
 ' Not at all. Both are forms of infinite caprice, of 
 desires not brought under reason. Free Love and unbridled 
 passion will ever be one to the multitude at large. If by 
 Free Love, indeed, you mean the choice by one man of 
 the one woman in all the world that Nature destined for 
 him, and passing by all others as objects only of chivalrous 
 devotion, not of personal attachment, do you know what 
 star will rise in the sky of humanity ?' 
 
 1 Tell me,' she said, with great earnestness. 
 
 'The star of Duty,' he replied. 'There can be no 
 rational freedom in love, or in aught else that belongs to 
 our nature, when Duty is cast out.' 
 
 ' And is it a duty,' she inquired, her eyes glowing as she 
 spoke, ' to go on pretending to love when affection is dead ?' 
 
 ' No ; but affection which has once taken on itself the 
 yoke of duty will not die ; it partakes of the spirit's immor- 
 tality. You are still persuaded, I see, that instinct, passion, 
 and true love are but different names for one feeling. It 
 is not so, believe me. The human element which trans- 
 mutes instinct and passion to love is the will lighted up 
 by reason.' 
 
 ' Then love is never spontaneous, and your philosophy 
 transforms it to a palace of ice.' 
 
 ' Nothing was ever more spontaneous than love ; but not 
 all that is spontaneous should be confounded with it.'
 
 io6 Till NEW ANTIGONE I in 
 
 'Ah, here comes Miss Desmond,' cried Hippolyta, re 
 lieved at her appearance, fox she was beginning to feel a 
 vague trouble like the first slight symptoms of a dangerous 
 
 illness. ' I will go with her, and leave you to your abstrac- 
 tions, which do not suit me at all. I am sure Miss I 
 inond is not a Stoi 
 
 'And you think. I am?' inquired Ivor with his usual 
 serenity; 'well, never mind. Only apply what I have been 
 saying to any cases you may meet in your excursion to-day, 
 and let me know whether the idea of duty is not a key to 
 unlock even a larger number of doors than your idea of 
 sacred personality, — with which, observe, I have no quarrel. 
 But we should beware of idols, and look life in the face. 
 You will pardon my unmannerly presumption.' 
 
 He went away, convinced that Mrs. Malcolm would not 
 let his words fall to the ground. She had that within, he 
 felt sure, which prompted her to find a solution of some 
 difficult problem closely affecting her happiness ; though 
 what it was he neither asked nor desired to know. He 
 had learnt that it is best to wait until people begin to speak 
 of their own accord. It w r as a simple w r ord, Duty, but an 
 infinite idea ; and he knew how far it had led him on the 
 path he was pursuing. If Mrs. Malcolm had need of it, — 
 and with her the superstition of Free Love was evidently 
 more than a mere opinion, — she would be reminded for- 
 cibly of its sacred character, of its supreme worth, by the 
 contrast of so many myriad lives in which it found no 
 place. ' Freedom,' he murmured as he went along ; 
 'yes, the freedom to do right. That will carry us a little 
 farther, I trow, than the freedom to destroy a man or an 
 institution which happens to stand across the path of pro- 
 gress.' 
 
 He was not mistaken. Hippolyta dwelt more than she 
 would have been willing to confess on those Stoic aphor- 
 isms, as she called them by way of lessening their import- 
 ance. But her expeditions into a strange and dismal realm, 
 these dazzling cross-lights, and great spaces of darkness, 
 where it seemed that neither Conservative nor Revolu- 
 tionist could discover a pathway, inflicted on Hippolyta the 
 sense of deep disappointment, and little by little drew the
 
 chap, xxvir THE DEEPS OF HELL 107 
 
 clouds over her sky. Was it so very hard to make things 
 better? Miss Desmond, though faithful to her task day 
 and night, evidently thought so. Ivor Mardol thought so. 
 Her father, who had begun with an impassioned belief that 
 the progress of the Revolution meant universal happiness, 
 had grown pessimist and saturnine as he reckoned up how 
 little had yet been done. When Hippolyta spoke in the 
 old eloquent way to Mardol of reconstructing society from 
 summit to foundation, he answered sadly that the creative 
 spirit did not come at call, and we wanted rulers of men 
 not partisans of chaos. ' When you have got your anarchy,' 
 he said with a melancholy smile, 'what will you do with it?' 
 Hippolyta could not refute his doubts. She had lived in 
 dreams, then, and the waking reality did not at all resemble 
 their pliant lovely shapes. It was stern, cold, unmanage- 
 able, like granite which has been melted but once by the 
 primeval fires and can never be moulded again by the 
 forces at man's command. Colonel Valence's daughter 
 became at times unhappy, with a sensation as if she too 
 were lying under anathema and had brought a curse, she 
 knew not how, on herself and the miserable creatures 
 whose wants she was endeavouring to supply. 
 
 A more tangible discomfort was the impossibility of dis- 
 covering a trace of Maurice Regan. She could not now enjoy 
 the leisure which had been hers at the beginning of her stay 
 at Forrest House, and consequently she saw Annie Dauris 
 not nearly so often. But whenever she did, the girl cried like 
 a feverish child, ' Can you tell me anything of Maurice ? ' 
 Hippolyta had consulted Ivor Mardol ; and by his advice 
 she neither called on Mr. Philip Regan nor told Annie that 
 she would do so. Ivor made inquiries of the clergyman 
 from time to time, but he received the invariable answer that 
 Maurice Regan's only address was at his chambers, that he 
 never came there but had his letters sent on, now to one 
 place, now to another, and that apparently he lived a 
 wandering life and was not to be met in London. Hip- 
 polyta did not see the advantage of telling these things to 
 Annie ; they would only make her restless, and, on the 
 whole, if, as time went on, Maurice Regan kept out of her 
 sight, she might give up the expectation of finding him,
 
 108 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAST m 
 
 and resign herself to the life in her mother's cottaj 
 There .she would be safe whatever happened Mrs. 
 Malcolm did not venture to express her more painful 
 thoughts to the gardener's wife. She hinted somcthin . 
 but Mrs. Dauris was very ill, did not realise what she 
 heard, and repeated her assurance that Annie had only 
 been foolish, not wicked. The girl herself was obstinately 
 silent. Thus matters stood when Hippolyta, after a hard 
 day at the East End, came in late and tired. She made a 
 light dinner, and lying down, fell into a deep sleep which 
 lasted longer than usual. About eight next morning she 
 was awakened by the entrance of the housekeeper, who, 
 with many apologies for disturbing her, announced that the 
 little boy, Charlie Dauris, was in the hall, and begged 
 earnestly to see Mrs. Malcolm. ' Does he say what it is 
 about?' inquired Hippolyta, sitting up as she spoke. 'No, 
 ma'am,' replied the good woman ; ' I asked him, but he 
 would not tell. He was crying, though ; and I have no 
 doubt they are in trouble. Perhaps his mother is worse.' 
 The thought startled Hippolyta, who remembered how 
 delicate Mrs. Dauris had been looking lately. She sprang 
 up, and sending Mrs. Leeming downstairs, said she would 
 come in a moment. What could it be ? Making a hasty 
 toilette, she ran down into the hall, where Charlie was 
 standing, his eyes fixed on the ground, and great tears 
 rolling down his cheeks. Hippolyta kissed the boy, — who 
 was, as I have said, a favourite of hers, and of a very feeling, 
 affectionate nature, — and took him into the dining-room. 
 ' What is it, Charlie dear?' she said anxiously. 'Is your 
 mother not so well?' 
 
 ' Mother is very ill,' he answered ; ' but it is not that. 
 It is Annie. Oh, Mrs. Malcolm,' he said with a fresh burst 
 of weeping, 'Annie's run away again, and she left this letter 
 for you on her bed. Mother found it this morning when 
 she went to call her.' And so saying he gave a sealed 
 envelope into Hippolyta's hand. She went towards the 
 light to read it. There were only a few lines, hastily 
 scrawled, but when Mrs. Malcolm arrived at the end of 
 them, she turned deadly pale, and sat down like one about 
 to faint, putting her hand to her forehead in great and
 
 chap, xxvn THE DEEPS OF HELL 109 
 
 evident distress. It was shocking ; it confirmed her worst 
 expectations. 
 
 Annie wrote, in haste and agony, that she dared stay at 
 home no longer. She reproached herself bitterly for not 
 being so frank with Mrs. Malcolm as she ought to have 
 been. The story she had told her about Maurice Regan 
 was not the whole truth. He had been her true love, but 
 he had ruined her; and she was going now to find the 
 father of the child that should be born to her, and in case 
 she could not find him to put an end to her misery. She 
 would never, never come home again. She begged Mrs. 
 Malcolm, for the love of God, to break the news as gently 
 as she could to her poor mother. 'It will be her death,' 
 were the concluding words of the letter ; ' but I cannot help 
 it. I must go.' 
 
 Hippolyta did not know which way to look. She was 
 dazed and confounded. While she had been endeavouring 
 to rescue strangers at the other end of London this un- 
 happy child had escaped her at her own door. How 
 convey the fearful news to the mother, who would perhaps 
 die of a broken heart, or to the father upon whom Annie 
 had always so unjustly cast the blame of her wicked 
 conduct ? Oh, what a desolate home would that be when 
 they knew the reason of their daughter's flight ! The boy, 
 meanwhile, stood looking at Mrs. Malcolm with tear-filled 
 eyes, not venturing to ask her what his sister had written. 
 But when he saw how she began to cry, he ran to her and 
 put his arms affectionately round her neck. ' Poor Charlie,' 
 she said, pressing him to her, ' you have a bad sister. Never 
 mind, we must do what we ought.' And, rising up, she 
 hastily poured out a glass of water and put it to her lips. 
 She could touch none of the breakfast that lay on the 
 table. Her one thought was to go immediately to the 
 cottage and do what she could to comfort Mrs. Dauris. 
 The lady and the child were soon on their way, Charlie 
 holding her hand fast and looking up to her from time to 
 time as with panting breath they hurried along. Before 
 they could reach the gate they saw Mrs. Dauris waiting for 
 them on the threshold. Hippolyta keeping the letter in 
 her bosom, where she had unconsciously thrust it, embraced
 
 no THE NEW ANT1 pam hi 
 
 the poor invalid with overflowing sympathy, and led her 
 without saying a word into the house. There Mr. Dauris 
 
 sat expecting her in the arm-chair by the window, his head 
 bent upon his breast, d in painful thoughts. 
 
 1 Iippolyta had never fulfilled such a task as now devolved 
 upon her. To acquaint these friends whom she loved and 
 pitied with their daughter's dishonour, to hint at her 
 probable fate unless immediate steps were taken to find 
 out whither she had gone, to soften their despair, and 
 induce them to master their grief lest it should prove the 
 occasion of Annie's irremediable ruin ; — and to do all this, 
 knowing that she could not appeal to religious principles in 
 which she did not believe, or comfort them with the possi- 
 bility of a marriage that would be the remedy of past and 
 future ; — it seemed a thing beyond the strength of woman. 
 But Hippolyta was self-denying to an heroic degree. She 
 would not utter what she did not believe. Nevertheless 
 with tact and gentle feeling, in accents wherein all the 
 tenderness of her nature found expression, she unfolded to 
 them the story of shame. She could not hinder it from 
 overwhelming them. It was a thunderbolt that smote the 
 fabric of their happiness at the four corners and brought it 
 to the ground. In comparison with the sin, the disgrace, 
 the horror of what had befallen them, death was nothing. 
 
 ' I could have borne to see her die,' said Mrs. Dauris, 
 falling back on her couch and clasping her hands wistfully, — 
 ' that would have been only giving her back to God from 
 whom we received her. But to think that my Annie 
 should be her own murderer and perhaps her child's.' She 
 could say no more. 
 
 ' God's will be done,' said her husband reverently. ' I 
 tried to bring my daughter up well. She has turned out 
 perverse, and now we must bear her shame.' 
 
 Hippolyta suggested that Maurice Regan might yet be 
 found. If Annie did not come upon his traces, they, with 
 his brother's assistance, perhaps should fare better. 
 
 'I doubt it — I doubt it,' replied the gardener after a 
 moment of sad reflection. 'And what though we do? 
 We cannot compel him to marry the wretched creature he 
 has ruined.'
 
 chap, xxvi i THE DEEPS OF HELL ill 
 
 It was impossible, in a house where the new ways of 
 thought had not penetrated, to whisper that if the two 
 young people were in love they might be happy together 
 without marriage. To her intense surprise Hippolyta felt 
 that the mere suggestion, though confined to her own 
 breast, was not right. Would not perfect reciprocal affec- 
 tion, then, be enough unless marriage came to add its 
 consecration ? She sat thinking over it. When a little 
 while had passed, and they were still silent, considering 
 what to do first, she said hesitatingly, ' But I cannot help 
 believing that he really did care for Annie ; in which case, 
 if he can only be told what has happened, he will come to 
 her rescue.' 
 
 'Care for Annie,' echoed Mr. Dauris with deep disgust 
 in his tones ; ' forgive me, my dear lady, you know too little 
 of the world or you would not say that. He cared for her 
 as much as he would for a wildflower plucked out of a 
 hedge. He cared for himself, the dastardly villain ; that 
 is all such men care for.' 
 
 The gardener rose and went to the door. ' It is the old 
 story,' he said very bitterly ; ' I must go to the police station 
 once more and tell them to make inquiries. I shall soon 
 be well known there, with my runaway daughter.' 
 
 ' Oh Annie, Annie,' sobbed the mother, as her husband 
 went out, ' how little you thought of the trouble your 
 wilfulness would bring on us all. See what it is,' she con- 
 tinued, turning to Mrs. Malcolm, ' not to have any rule or 
 check but your own pleasure. It means misery to every 
 one belonging to you.' 
 
 What could Hippolyta say ? She was stricken dumb. 
 
 But there was little occasion for her to say anything. 
 The question was what could be done. Mrs. Dauris 
 became so affected by the thought of Annie's past mis- 
 conduct and present danger that she went from one 
 fainting fit into another ; and it was all Hippolyta could do 
 to attend upon her while Charlie went to Forrest House to 
 fetch Mrs. Leeming. For there was no one but the elder 
 boy to watch over his mother ; and it seemed advisable to 
 communicate at once with Ivor Mardol, whose address 
 Mrs. Malcolm fortunately knew. He was well acquainted
 
 112 TH GONE i hi 
 
 with the ways of under-round London; he could ind' 
 Mr. Philip Regan to make inquiries for his brother, and at 
 the same time could plant scouts in the neighbourhood 
 which Annie Dauris had been wont to frequent Ilippolyta, 
 
 therefore, made haste to leave Mrs. Dauris in competent 
 hands, took a melancholy meal at home, standing up in 
 her desire to have done with it, and ordered the carriage 
 to take her to Mr. Mardol's house, in Grafton Place. She- 
 had never been there previously, nor was she aware of the 
 trade or profession, if any, to which Ivor belonged. It was 
 so considerable a distance that the coachman, surprised, 
 repeated the address to make sure he had not mistaken. 
 She bade him impatiently drive on. The day was cold 
 and the air brisk. To make sure of Mr. Mardol Hippolyta 
 had despatched a message by telegraph, asking him not to 
 leave Grafton Place till she arrived. 
 
 During the long journey, wrapped in the costly furs that 
 Rupert had presented to her when the cold set in, 
 Hippolyta had leisure for thinking. Her thoughts were 
 far from pleasant. She blamed herself for not having 
 offered better advice to Annie Dauris, whom she had 
 encouraged, it now seemed to her, in making sentiment the 
 mainspring of all her actions. Why not have shown her 
 the folly of such ill-assorted love ? Why, at least, not have 
 put by the side of her wild romantic notions the stern truth 
 which even at that moment she, Hippolyta, was learning 
 under the guidance of Ivor Mardol and Miss Desmond? 
 Why not have made more strenuous efforts to elicit her 
 secret ? But no, she had been absorbed in self, eager only 
 to make out a strong case for that yielding to impulse 
 which was the cause and explanation of Annie's downfall. 
 Oh, she could have reviled herself bitterly ; no words of 
 condemnation could be too severe for her. If Annie had 
 gone to such a friend as Miss Desmond, how differently 
 matters might have fallen out. Then she began, as we all 
 do when most occupied with the troubles of another, to 
 look into her own situation. It was no longer so plain to 
 her as it had been. True, she had wronged nobody, had 
 brought no desolation to her father's heart, nor dishonoured 
 his gray hairs. What she had done and was doino;, the
 
 chap, xxvn THE DEEPS OF HELL 113 
 
 manner of life to which she had given herself, would have 
 received Colonel Valence's approval, she knew quite well, 
 had she been able to inform him of it. Her action was 
 not the fruit of a passionate impulse ; it had been calm and 
 deliberate. Nor was she prepared to allow that society 
 had the best of the argument, in spite of Ivor Mardol's 
 demonstration from the chaotic deeps of life. It did not 
 touch her, though it might be applicable to such as Annie 
 Dauris. For all that she could not resist the uneasiness 
 which seemed to be creeping over her, like a fog which 
 makes the lights indistinct and the ways uncertain. She 
 wished — and yet again how could she wish ? — that Rupert 
 were at home. He would have aided her to think as she 
 ought. But not so, he would have encouraged her scruples, 
 for he desired nothing so much as that they should marry 
 like the rest of the world. There it was, — the rest of the 
 world, the hardness, injustice, cruelty, luxury, unmanliness, 
 the atheism of that most despicable and sordid kind which 
 consists in blinding our eyes to the godlike which is in 
 man. ' Ah,' said Hippolyta more than once as the carriage 
 bore her along, ' I knew well it was the heart of the 
 question. To surrender that one point is to acknowledge 
 that there is no remedy, that men and women must go 
 on suffering, hating, despairing, trampling down others, or 
 being trampled on themselves. I will not believe it. Free 
 love may be an impossible dream ; these laws of marriage 
 are a real and present slavery.' But again she asked her- 
 self whether she was not hurrying forward in the hope of 
 finding Maurice Regan and persuading or compelling him 
 to marry the girl whom he perhaps had ceased to love ? 
 ' What a tangle life is ! ' said Hippolyta. 
 
 The carriage stopped. Mrs. Malcolm looked out and 
 saw a small, but rather quaint-looking house, two stories 
 high, with a clean pavement in front of it, and a strip of 
 open ground on each side, making with the wall of the 
 adjoining houses a sort of passage leading probably to some 
 enclosure beyond. She caught a glimpse of tall wooden 
 beams standing upright, or slanting across one another 
 at the end of the passage, and making that appearance 
 against the sky which in a city always reminds one of ship- 
 
 vol. 11. 1
 
 ii 4 THE NSW ANTIGONE part in 
 
 building. It was, in fact, a joiner's yard, with sawmills 
 attached, and the smell of fresh wood had something in 
 
 it briny and sea-like. Hippolyta alighted, and at that 
 moment Ivor Mardol opened the door and hade her come 
 in. She entered after a word to the coachman, whom she 
 desired to wait, as there might still be need of him. 
 
 The entrance-hall in which she found herself was square, 
 with a low ceiling of some ancient woodwork; and tin. 
 walls were hung with engravings or decorated with exquisite 
 specimens of carving. A low, broad staircase, dark and 
 polished, with massive wooden rail, led to the upper apart- 
 ments. To the right a curtain of gilt leather hung over and 
 concealed the entrance to Ivor's workroom. Holding it 
 aside, the engraver, as that room would soon declare him 
 to be, made way for Hippolyta, who was so tired that she- 
 threw herself into the first chair she saw, and being more 
 agitated than at any former time in her life, more even 
 than the night when she came to Rupert's studio, on sitting 
 down burst into tears. 
 
 Ivor was alarmed and distressed. Ready, on receipt 
 of Mrs. Malcolm's telegram, to believe that something had 
 happened, he did not know what to conjecture. Jiut he 
 had seen enough of the lady before him to be assured that 
 she was of a high-strung, resolute nature; and the fact that 
 she kept her residence and the circumstances of her life a 
 mystery, not only from himself, but from Miss Desmond, 
 indicated that there were reasons for doing so of which her 
 present visit to him might be the consequence. However, 
 though Mrs. Malcolm wept, she did not faint. In a little 
 while she recovered ; and begging pardon for an unseason- 
 able exhibition of feeling, which, as she said, could only add 
 to the trouble, not lessen it, she proceeded to tell him the 
 story of Annie Dauris's flight. 
 
 To Ivor, who did not know Annie Dauris, but saw 
 much in Mrs. Malcolm to draw forth his admiration and 
 esteem, it came as a relief. He had feared for the lady 
 herself; the girl's case, though pitiable in the extreme, was 
 one of every day. She might not be found ; Maurice 
 Regan, even when found, might decline to acknowledge 
 or assist her. But Ivor would do all that lay in his power.
 
 chap, xxvn THE DEEPS OF HELL 115 
 
 He thanked Mrs. Malcolm for coming to him. It would 
 save time if they drove at once to Mr. Philip Regan's and 
 let him know the circumstances under which his brother's 
 presence was immediately required. Hippolyta, who had 
 anticipated all this, offered him a place in her carriage, and 
 they set out. 
 
 ' Shall you be leaving any of your work that requires to 
 be finished ? ' said Hippolyta as soon as they were seated. 
 ' I forgot to ask you before, I was so confused. Let me 
 make it up to you if you are. I am rich,' she added, 
 smiling rather mournfully, — ' richer than I have any right to 
 be.' 
 
 'You are very kind,' said Ivor; 'and I will let you 
 know if anything of the sort happens before we have found 
 Annie Dauris. But I, too, am richer than I ought to be. 
 I have made money in unexpected ways, which I hoped to 
 contribute towards the expenses of the "movement." But 
 now I am cut off from the rest, I do not see my way to 
 employing it profitably.' 
 
 ' Why were you cut off? ' asked Hippolyta ; ' believe me, 
 I do not ask in a spirit of feminine curiosity, but because, 
 woman though I am, my relations with the various branches 
 have been extensive, and I might be able to help you to- 
 wards reinstatement' 
 
 'You might do much,' he said, with his serious playful- 
 ness. ' No, my dear lady, unless a great change comes 
 about in others — which is every day less likely — nothing 
 can be done. If I could disclose the nature of my offences 
 you would agree with me. They are the most serious, 
 short of betrayal of secrets, that can be imagined. I am 
 a lapsed heretic,' he went on half to himself, ' and fit only 
 for the stake.' 
 
 It is next to impossible to carry on a conversation in 
 any vehicle making its way thro Jgh the streets of London ; 
 and but few words passed betveen Ivor and Hippolyta as 
 they went towards St. Audry's. Their interview with Mr. 
 Philip Regan was brief, and resulted only in their receiv- 
 ing the address of his brother Ma irice's chambers. For, 
 though as a clergyman he was pioperly and profoundly 
 shocked, he seemed to take it as a matter of course that
 
 u6 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt in 
 
 Annie Dauris had been the tempter and Mr. Maurice 
 m the tempted. He was too well acquainted, he said, 
 with the character of young women of that class to have 
 any doubt on the subject It seemed to Ilippolyta that 
 she had come unexpectedly in contact with a Pharisee : 
 and, although she had heard of his kindness to the poor, 
 and knew he spent much of his time in visiting them, she 
 could not help fancying that he looked on himself as 
 exceedingly (lean, and on those to whom he stooped as 
 exceedingly the opposite. With scornful amusement she 
 pictured the surprise and disgust which would have taken 
 hold of this handsome, clean-shaven, scrupulously fitted-up 
 ecclesiastic, had he learned what manner of woman it was 
 that came to plead the cause of Annie Dauris within his 
 gates. He would write to his brother, certainly; but he 
 trusted that Mrs. Malcolm was quite sure of the facts on 
 which she was now moving. Hippolyta replied immediately, 
 ' I am sure that Annie has left home ; I believe she is a 
 ruined girl ; and I have every reason to think that she has 
 gone in search of Mr. Regan. All I ask of you is to inform 
 that gentleman, if you know where to reach him, of the 
 contents of Annie's letter. I suppose,' she added with 
 some bitterness, 'it is only unbelievers like Mr. Mardol 
 that think a woman as well worth saving as a man.' The 
 clergyman bowed stiffly and led them to the door. He 
 gave less credit to Annie Dauris's story than ever.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 WRECKED ! 
 
 Such was the first of her weary and fruitless journeys, 
 undertaken by Hippolyta during that day and the next two 
 or three, in search of her lost and fallen sister. Not find- 
 ing Maurice Regan at his legal address — but, of course, 
 they had not expected to find him there — Ivor sat down 
 and wrote him a brief account of Annie's disappearance, 
 requesting him to let her parents know if he was acquainted 
 with her whereabouts, as the police were already engaged 
 in searching for her ; and if he were not, to take such steps 
 as lay in his power towards her recovery from the danger 
 into which she had plunged. The next point was to visit 
 Charlotte Fraser, who either could not or would not give 
 them any information, except the names of certain persons, 
 lower than herself in the social scale, with whom Annie had 
 been wont to consort. The places where these women 
 abode did not seem fit for Mrs. Malcolm to approach. 
 Ivor promised that he would make all needful inquiry, and 
 let her know the result. She begged him to address her 
 at the gardener's cottage ; for, even in this crisis and be- 
 wilderment of her faculties, she was still uncertain whether 
 Rupert would wish his friend to know that she lived at 
 Forrest House. So far as Ivor was concerned she need 
 have had no anxiety. He was ignorant of Rupert's con- 
 nection with that red-brick mansion, as ot the extent and 
 situation of his property altogether, except that of the house 
 in town at which he had once stayed. 
 
 They were three long and miserable days, while a bitter 
 east wind was blowing under the darkened sky, and in
 
 u8 THE \. W ANTIGONE pabt hi 
 
 Hippolyta's heart there was wing distress and 
 
 heaviness which she could not account for, even when she 
 thought of the trouble in her friends' home. Certainly it 
 was sad to look on Mrs. Dauris, now sinking into a state of 
 perilous exhaustion, her appetite gone, and a severe headache 
 and racking pains in the chest making her almost insensil 
 to the cause which had brought her low. Annie's father was 
 still more to be pitied. At times even his religious faith 
 threatened to give way; he sat in mournful silence, or 
 broke out into sharp words of reproach against his mis- 
 guided child ; and only Charlie's affection and thoughtful 
 care prevented him from yielding to the demon which 
 always lurks at such a season of misery near the threshold 
 of the poor. It was the boy of eleven whose gentle ear- 
 nestness kept the grown man from forgetting his sorrow in 
 drink. But he had set his children a good example of 
 which he was now, in Charlie's piety and devotedness, reap- 
 ing the fruit. Mr. Dauris was a good man and a true 
 Christian ; he knew that he must not yield ; but desperation 
 was ever whispering that he might as well yield now as 
 afterwards. 
 
 'You see,' he said, 'Mrs. Malcolm, we have done 
 our best, but Annie has proved too much for us. Her 
 mother will die ; and what does it matter how I live ? 
 But yes,' interrupting himself, ' it does matter, and you 
 do well to rebuke me with your looks. I beg your pardon. 
 I ought to have more trust in the goodness of God.' 
 
 Hippolyta said all she could think of to comfort him. 
 The struggle of such a man under temptation was dreadful 
 to see. Could a foolish love in one young girl's bosom 
 work so great harm ? What a contrast between the happy, 
 peaceful husband and wife, patient in spite of their trials, 
 as they had appeared on her first knowing them, and the 
 shattered home where every divine light seemed in danger 
 of being quenched ! The shock to this good man's virtue 
 affected Hippolyta evei more than the ruin of his happiness. 
 ' It is little to be unhaj py,' she thought, as she went away 
 that evening ; ' one may be unhappy, yet endure it. The 
 horrible change is when < ne falls from the ideal and is 
 willing to believe in universi • disorder, as though it were no
 
 chap, xxvni WRECKED! 119 
 
 use to hold by what is good.' She dwelt repeatedly on 
 these things in her own mind while going to and fro next 
 day in the haunts of Annie Dauris. She called on Ivor 
 Mardol, hoping there might be some fresh intelligence. 
 But there was none ; and at the close of a weary afternoon, 
 dismissing the cab which brought her to the bottom of 
 Bransmere Road, she began to walk towards home. 
 
 ' It seems very late,' she said to herself, pulling out her 
 watch. It was just half-past seven. While she stopped to 
 look at the time, for it was anything but a bright evening, 
 she noticed that a number of persons were going by her up 
 the Hill, and that no one was coming down. She looked 
 round and found herself in the midst of a not inconsiderable 
 crowd, all going apparently the same way. Some were well- 
 dressed, but the greater number, both men and women, 
 belonged to the labouring class, and many of them were 
 thinly defended against the cold. Hippolyta walked on 
 with them, wondering, in an absent, tired fashion what 
 could be taking all these people past Forrest House. But 
 her wonder ceased when she came to her own gate and 
 saw that they were entering the church beyond. As she 
 paused with her hand on the lock she heard the organ rolling 
 out its solemn music, and perceived a dim light shining 
 through the stained glass windows, the confused emblems 
 of which she had tried to make out the first evening when 
 Rupert quitted her. She was exhausted with the long 
 day's work. The sense of loneliness and uncertainty 
 which for some weeks past had been gaining on her was 
 now at its height ; and she felt in that dangerous mood 
 when the slightest token, one way or another, determines a 
 nature like Hippolyta's to make an experiment with the 
 unknown, in the hope of finding what has been sought to 
 so little purpose elsewhere. After reflecting for a moment 
 she turned from her own gate, drew her furs about her, 
 let down her veil, and followed into the church with the 
 multitude. 
 
 It was already thronged, and Hippolyta had some diffi- 
 culty in making her way through the narrow porch and past 
 the still narrower doors which opened inside it, under a gallery 
 at the west end. A few jets of gas, at long intervals, cast
 
 THE NEW ANTi it hi 
 
 their uncertain flickering light on the crowded benches at 
 
 which the people wen- already kneeling, str i i I beads 
 in the hands of most. They were engaged, as it would 
 
 in, in public prayer, for a low monotonous hum, broken 
 only by the click of the beads, ran from time to time 
 through the building. Hippolyta could perceive, when 
 she was able to find a place, that there were kneeling 
 forms likewise in the chancel, which by that dim light 
 seemed to be a great distance from the western porch. 
 And they, too, from time to time, murmured something of 
 which she could only gather the sound without being able 
 to understand in what language it was spoken. A devout 
 woman, seeing her standing up, made way for her at the 
 end of a bench near the wall ; and Hippolyta, unable now 
 to move in advance or to retreat by the way she had come, 
 judged it prudent to kneel like the others lest she should 
 draw their attention. The monotonous prayer ceased ; the 
 people stood up and sang a hymn ; the jets of gas were 
 turned to their full height on both sides of the central aisle ; 
 and Hippolyta, raising her eyes, saw that an ecclesiastic, in 
 a white surplice, and with an embroidered scarf over his 
 shoulders, was standing in the pulpit about halfway between 
 the altar and the west end of the church, waiting in silence 
 till the people had taken their scats again and were quiet. 
 
 Now that the church was lighted up Hippolyta was able to 
 judge of its extent, which, though not vast, like those of the 
 immense cathedrals she had visited on the Continent, was 
 considerable and imposing. It was built in a pure style of 
 pointed architecture ; and the clustered columns, with their 
 slender shafts and deeply-wrought capitals, gave it an air of 
 loveliness which enhanced the beauty of its proportions. On 
 either side were chapels with lamps burning in front of their 
 altars, while a profusion of statuary under niches seemed to 
 betoken that the heavenly citizens were come down to dwell 
 with their brethren on earth and offer them protection in 
 exchange for homage. There were pictures here and there- 
 on the walls, but it was impossible for Hippolyta to make- 
 out the subjects. At the extreme end of the church a soli- 
 tary lamp glowed crimson within the < ham el. The stained 
 imagery of the windows, luminous outside, was black and
 
 ciiAi". xxvin WRECKED! 121 
 
 indistinguishable viewed from within. Every nook and 
 corner of the church now seemed filled with people like 
 those Hippolyta had met coming up the Hill. It took them 
 some little while to be seated and to have finished coughing. 
 Meanwhile the preacher stood still with an open book on 
 the desk before him, and a crucifix in his left hand. 
 
 He was by no means a striking figure, although the calm 
 decision of the attitude in which he stood betokened some- 
 thing not quite commonplace. He seemed of about the 
 average height, or a little more, with dark, close-clipped hair 
 and beardless face, very dark steady eyes, and the worn ex- 
 pression of countenance which is so frequent in Roman 
 Catholic saints of an ascetic type, — an expression to be 
 rendered by some such phrase as ' fasting from earthly joys.' 
 His hands were thin and nervous, brown rather than white, 
 and now kept motionless, one resting on the edge of the 
 pulpit, the other grasping the ebony cross on which glim- 
 mered the dead -pale figure of ivory. Amid a hush of 
 perfect silence he stooped, took up the book, and gave out 
 these words in a clear low voice : 'In the sixth chapter, twenty- 
 third verse, of his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul has 
 written, " The wages of sin " — he paused, seemed to lift the 
 crucifix ever so little, and to let it fall as he uttered the 
 conclusion of his text — "is death.'" 
 
 There is nothing, there is everything, in the inflection 
 of a human voice. Hippolyta's mental wanderings were 
 arrested. This unknown man had as yet pronounced not a 
 word of his own, and he was already speaking to her ; his 
 accents came close round her heart. Was there likely to 
 be any wisdom with which he was conversant and which 
 she had yet to learn? Impossible. Nevertheless she 
 seemed to say to him under her breath, ' Speak on, what is 
 your message ? ' 
 
 He was already speaking in the same searching, musical 
 tones — slightly foreign she thought them — that gathered 
 volume as he went on, and rose gradually to a steady height 
 at which they seemed to float over the assembly. Not a 
 word was wasted ; clear and distinct each of them fell upon 
 the ear and pierced into the spirit, carrying with it a sense 
 of truth rather than of passion, of what must be said
 
 TE •" A.\ 1 . VWA 111 
 
 because so things were, rather than of rhetoric framed to 
 delight or to hold the fancy i Hippolyta could in- 
 
 terpret their music, she could follow their eloquence. The 
 doctrine, abounding in brief allusions as to things well 
 
 known, she did not grasp. But again and again, when the 
 preacher turned a swift glance to the crucifix and once more 
 bent his eyes on the audience, it seemed to her that he as 
 well as they, and they no less than he, were conscious of an 
 awful presence wherein whatever he said took on it the 
 impress of eternal, absolute truth. 
 
 He spoke of their gathering that night as to an enrol- 
 ment on the eve of battle. They were to range themselves 
 under a standard, to take the oath of allegiance to a cap- 
 tain, and to look the campaign in the face on which they 
 were entering. How should they choose if they knew not 
 the difference between the contending causes ? Let them 
 not enrol themselves except in the light of knowledge and 
 as prepared for the extremities of war. They must be ready 
 to submit to the event, for it was not here as in the battling 
 of earthly powers, where quarter was given, prisoners taken 
 alive, and a peace made at the end. Each party would in- 
 flict on the other all it could of defeat and disaster. This 
 at any rate was sure. Would they ask proof at his hands ? 
 He held forth the crucifix. Such, he repeated in grave 
 emphatic terms, was the culminating victory of the powers 
 of evil, which they wrought upon the leader of the hostile 
 array. They stripped and scourged Him ; they made Him 
 an open shame ; they reft Him of friends, followers, ad- 
 mirers, so that He fell down wounded and alone under the 
 shadow of death ; and as He lay a helpless captive they did 
 with Him what they would, flouting and mocking His pre- 
 tended majesty with the purple rags of kingship and a crown 
 of wild brier. He made no complaint ; He was but enduring 
 what a man must expect from his enemies. It was the 
 fortune of war. Neither did He beg their mercy when 
 they smote Him through with nails and fastened His dying 
 body to the Cross ; what else should they, being the powers 
 of darkness, do with one that could never own their 
 dominion or be their friend ? He stretched out His hands 
 to the hammer which drove in the spikes ; He bowed His
 
 chap, xxviii WRECKED ! 123 
 
 head, the thorny wreath wounding it, upon the pillow they 
 had made for Him. 'Was that all?' asked the preacher, 
 as he looked round upon the silent audience. 'Was the 
 cup drained to the dregs ? Not so ; there remained a bitter 
 draught, compared with which all bodily pain was little. 
 From His Cross Jesus, opening His eyes on the world, 
 meditating on the years He had spent, saw words and 
 works alike frustrate, the good defeated, evil triumphant ; 
 power, and wealth, and dominion, and knowledge, and 
 religion itself, in the service of a lie. He was hanging on 
 the Cross, not worshipped on the throne of the world. Why ? 
 Because the world was Satan's and all it contained. There- 
 fore Christ was made an outcast, and His efforts came to 
 naught. Suffering and death were the penalty of rebelling 
 against the dominion of crowned and sceptred evil. In this 
 sense, too, the wages of sin is death. To resist sin is to die.' 
 
 Hippolyta listened as to the opening bars of a symphony 
 which unlocks the feeling and brings into vivid present- 
 ment vague thoughts one has had for years — thoughts that 
 have wandered formless through the heavens like an unseen 
 vapour which is not yet capable of taking the appearance of 
 a rain-cloud. What were the powers of evil which had the 
 sovereignty of lower things ? Were there any such ? or 
 was it a parable for the unlearned to which she was thus 
 giving ear? 
 
 The preacher, who seemed to be uttering thoughts given 
 to him at that very instant, resumed. With the passion 
 and death of his Master he bound up the misery, degrada- 
 tion, pain, anguish, torture, disappointment, of every human 
 life. He might, like Hippolyta, have been dwelling in the 
 deeps with those to whom light and hope were denied. 
 His voice trembled and grew husky, his eyes filled with 
 tears. ' Sorrow is universal,' he cried ; ' it is like the air of 
 heaven, we cannot live out of it. And what shall we say ? 
 Has it no meaning, no purpose?' A mild light kindled in 
 his eyes. 'Brethren,' he went on, as under the inspiration 
 of a loftier spirit, 'it has a meaning and a purpose. Its 
 meaning is the moral of the Cross — the wages of sin ; its 
 purpose is the triumph of the Cross, it is redemption.' 
 And soaring up into the unseen, which alone, as he de-
 
 134 TH IGONE i'ai.i in 
 
 clared, is true and everlasting he exalted that life of Christ, 
 that heavenly existence, which began with His defeat and 
 death on Calvary. 'Was there,' he asked, 'any other way 
 of winning mankind, or of overcoming the powers of dark- 
 ness save by this supreme resignation? And who was it 
 that failed and suffered loss in the battle which cost Jesus 
 of Nazareth His life, His earthly honour, His glory, nay, the 
 very peace of His human soul ? Was it Jesus or Satan 
 that came to naught on that day?' Then, enlarging on 
 this strange philosophy, he showed how sin, the one 
 absolute disorder, brings with it all others, and is from the 
 first an admission of defeat ; how it untunes the universe. 
 While goodness, which has the promise of life in itself, can- 
 not die. The triumph of time is for the powers that have 
 no dominion beyond it, but can only look for a certain 
 dreadful coming of judgment when time is past ; the good 
 alone does not, cannot perish, but is everlasting. And 
 again he asked in piercing tones, with his eyes on the em- 
 blem which he seemed to study as a book, ' Is Jesus dead ? 
 or does He not give the mightiest token of life by making 
 all those live that believe in Him ? They conquer them- 
 selves by His indwelling spirit ; and when a man has be- 
 come his own captive, he has subdued the world. Christ 
 reigns in hearts innumerable of men and women ; on them, 
 as on Him, sin has done its worst ; it has inflicted death, 
 not once, but every time the cup of pitiless suffering has 
 been held to their lips. But can it do more? The pain 
 which destroys only this lower happiness has become, for 
 such, redemption without end.' 
 
 Then he depicted, with forcible and gloomy eloquence, 
 the lot of those who, shrinking from earthly pain, have 
 chosen sin and its eternal remorse. At the foot of Calvary 
 he seemed to open the bottomless pit wherein all they dwelt 
 to whom the harmony of God's law was turned to discord. 
 e were the martyrs of evil who made their own hell : 
 no God made it, but they themselves, lighting up in their 
 own breasts the fire they could never put out. The wages 
 of sin ? What were the wages of hatred, envy, drunken- 
 ness, unhallowed love, indulgence of self-will? And was 
 there any principle anywhere that could so change the
 
 chap, xxviii WRECKED / 125 
 
 nature of things as to hinder these from having their con- 
 sequences ? To resist sin was to suffer a momentary death, 
 to enter heaven, like St. Laurence, through a curtain of 
 fire ; to yield to it was to take into one's bosom the seed 
 of everlasting death, and to dwell in the world of horror we 
 had created for our Paradise. Would they choose Christ 
 with His Cross or Satan with his fiery crown ? There was 
 no halting or being neutral on this battlefield; to be 
 neutral was to be defeated ere a blow had been struck. 
 
 For a long while, Hippolyta thought, the voice continued 
 in this strain ; but though its sound fell upon her ears she 
 was not hearkening. She had heard enough. Sitting there 
 alone, unfriended, and worn out with her three days' search- 
 ing, she felt like one that, watching from the deck of a 
 deserted vessel, beholds the dawn breaking over a wintry 
 and wreck-strewn sea. The illusions of life were at an end. 
 She was wounded to the heart's core. Had she, then, chosen 
 hitherto the service of darkness, imagining that it would usher 
 in the kingdom of light? She remembered the text of 
 her own gospel, taken from Goethe, Im Ganzen, Guten, 
 Schonen fest zu leben. If the preacher were not wholly 
 wrong, what a mockery it was ? Not order but disorder \ 
 not good but evil ; not the beautiful, but this monstrous 
 thing called sin — such had been the deities worshipped in 
 her ignorance. She bowed her head in her hands and wept 
 hot tears beneath her veil. 
 
 Suddenly, while the voice of the preacher still resounded 
 in the pulpit, Hippolyta saw the vast congregation rising to 
 their feet. Innumerable lights twinkled over the church; 
 almost every one present held a taper which seemed to have 
 been lit at a preconcerted signal. The preacher's face was 
 half-turned away to the high altar. Hippolyta, doing 
 mechanically like the others, rose from her seat ; and the 
 devout woman next to whom she had been sitting put a 
 lighted taper into her hand, which, not knowing why, she 
 held aloft as she saw them all doing. The people began, 
 with the thunder of their many voices, to repeat a solemn 
 formula after the priest ; and Hippolyta, her ear more 
 accustomed to what was going forward, could now dis- 
 tinguish words renouncing evil and dedicating those who
 
 i26 TE V ANTIGONE r in 
 
 uttered them to the service and the Cross of th.-ir Redeemer. 
 She could not join in the words, but her tears fell 
 The good woman near looked at her very kindly. And 
 while she was endeavouring to conceal her emotion, she 
 happened to look across the church, and there, not a long 
 way from the pulpit, she saw. William Dauris standing with 
 a taper in his hand, not bowed down with sorrow as when 
 she parted from him the evening before, but erect and firm 
 in attitude, repeating the words of dedication and renounce- 
 ment, while the tears ran down his cheeks. A sense of 
 thankfulness relieved the fulness of Hippolyta's heart ; if 
 she, too, continued weeping it was not with such extreme 
 desolation. There was one, at least, who had vanquished 
 his great enemy. 
 
 She could not tell what followed ; her mind was all ab- 
 sorbed. The twinkling tapers were put out ; lights appeared 
 far away in the chancel blazing over the high altar and 
 around it ; figures in strange raiment came and went ; the 
 smoke of incense ascended clouding the lights ; and music 
 seemed to be filling the high roof above and rolling its 
 waves on every side. It did not soothe, it excited her. 
 She became conscious that she was meditating a daring 
 resolution. At that moment she thought of no one but 
 herself and the Form that seemed to be gazing at her still 
 from the crucifix. There was an interval of intense still- 
 ness ; the organ had stopped, all heads were bent, and she 
 saw something — she could not tell what — going forward at 
 the altar. Thrice she heard the tinkle of an unseen bell ; 
 and the music broke out again. Then the congregation 
 rose from their kneeling posture and began to move down 
 the aisles towards the door. Many of the gas-jets were 
 turned off; but one or another in Hippolyta's neighbour- 
 hood was still kept burning. She knelt and covered her 
 face with her hands. Deep thought kept her immovable. 
 
 But ere long, when she lifted her head, she saw the 
 preacher in his black habit and white surplice coming with 
 rapid step down the church towards where she was kneeling. 
 \Yhen he had arrived within a few paces of her, he turned 
 and opened the half-doors of a tall upright construction in 
 dark wood, which somewhat marred the architectural beauty
 
 chap, xxvin WRECKED ! 127 
 
 of the Gothic building and reminded Hippolyta of the con- 
 fessionals to which she had on one or two occasions seen 
 people resorting in the churches of Paris and Rome. It 
 was, no doubt, a confessional. She watched the ecclesiastic 
 enter and fasten the doors after him ; she heard the click 
 with which he drew aside something within ; and she saw a 
 man and a woman take up their position at each side, 
 where a curtain more than half- concealed the kneeling 
 figures. After a while one of them rose and went away, 
 followed, at no great interval, by the other. No fresh 
 arrivals came ; and the priest, opening one of the upper 
 partitions into which the doors were divided, looked out 
 into the church and saw Hippolyta. She was kneeling still. 
 He drew back, opened the other partition, and appeared as 
 if sitting in a tribunal waiting till Hippolyta should come. 
 As the fancy struck her she rose hastily, and without con- 
 sidering what she was doing, threw herself on her knees in 
 the confessional. There was a wire grating between her 
 and the priest ; and all she could make out was the glim- 
 mering of his white surplice. In an almost inaudible 
 whisper he muttered some words, the sense of which was 
 lost on her. She did not speak ; and after that one brief 
 sentence neither for a time did he. At last, finding her 
 so silent, he bent his head near the grating and said very 
 distinctly, ' Will you not tell me, my child, when was your 
 last confession?' 
 
 ' I don't know,' replied Hippolyta, confused ; 'lam not 
 of your Church. I am of no Church. I am not a 
 Christian.' 
 
 ' Poor child,' said the priest, more grieved apparently 
 than astonished ; ' why do you say you are not a Christian ? 
 Have you been unfaithful to your baptism? So have 
 we all.' 
 
 Hippolyta felt encouraged by his calmness. But what 
 had she to say? 
 
 ' I have never been baptized,' she answered. ' I do not 
 believe in the Christian creed. But I am in such trouble ; 
 
 and what you said to-night made me think ' There 
 
 was no possibility of going on, she was so agitated. The 
 priest heard her sobbing.
 
 ia8 THE NEW ANTIGOl it hi 
 
 'Yes,' he said very gently after a while, 'it made you 
 think? What did it make you think? Tell me.' 
 
 'Oh,' she replied wildly, 'I am one of those that have 
 chosen the wrong side. Is there not a woman in your 
 Gospels named Magdalene? I have been, I am now, a 
 Magdalene.' 
 
 ' Do you mean, my poor sister,' he said in the same calm 
 voice, like that of a physician at the bedside of a patient, 
 • that you are living in sin ?' 
 
 ' I mean,' was the answer given with heaving breath, 
 1 that I have scorned to believe in marriage, and have 
 thought love by itself enough. My husband is not my 
 husband ; I would not let him marry me.' 
 
 ' Was he willing to marry you?' inquired the priest. 
 
 'Yes, yes,' she said, weeping again ; ' it is all my fault. 
 It was I, in my pride and foolishness, that persuaded him 
 to do evil. How shall I repair it? What must I do?' 
 
 'You must repent,' answered the priest gravely, 'as 
 Magdalene repented of a lesser fault. For she yielded to 
 passion ; and you, my sister, have perverted the very 
 principle on which purity and all human affections rest.' 
 
 ' How did Magdalene repent ? ' said Hippolyta, with 
 a sudden flush upon her face which made itself felt in 
 the darkness. 'Tell me, for the love of good, what did 
 she do?' 
 
 The answer came slow and distinct, ' She followed 
 Christ to Calvary and clung to His Cross. She lived and 
 died for Him.' 
 
 When Hippolyta heard these words she waited for no 
 more. Rising and turning from the confessional, she ran 
 with a lightningdike speed to the door, and was lost in the 
 night. 
 
 The priest looked sorrowfully after her fleeting figure 
 and shook his head. What would become of the strange 
 penitent ? 
 
 Hippolyta did not go far. At first the violent agitation 
 of her spirits made it seem stifling to enter a house, and 
 she walked down the Hill until she reached the turn where 
 it became the London Road. It was a cold raw evening,
 
 chap, xxviii WRECKED ! 
 
 129 
 
 and chilled her to the bone ; but the physical discomfort 
 did her good by recalling her to the things of the lower 
 world ; and after wandering for some half hour, she re- 
 traced her steps till she arrived at her own door. It was 
 open, and the housekeeper, who appeared to have just come 
 in, was taking some letters out of the letter-box, which, on 
 seeing her mistress, she handed to her. Hippolyta looked 
 at one of them. It was in her father's handwriting, re- 
 directed from Falside. The other was from Rupert. On 
 seeing it a terrible feeling of sickness and misery took 
 possession of her whole being. She stood under the lamp 
 which hung in the middle of the hall ceiling, tore open the 
 enclosure, and read its contents. They were brief. Rupert, 
 in his usual tone of devoted affection, announced that he 
 should be coming up to London that very day, but should 
 arrive too late to come on to Forrest House. He would 
 settle some little business next morning as early as possible, 
 and she might expect him, at latest, by twelve o'clock. 
 Hippolyta shivered, put the letter in her pocket, and on 
 Mrs. Leeming's inquiry whether she would now dine, as 
 it was getting late, she merely shook her head, and went 
 slowly upstairs to her room, in which lights were burning. 
 When she reached it she looked round as if in search of 
 some object. What it was soon appeared. Among the 
 many costly ivories with which her boudoir was decked 
 Hippolyta had one day noticed a crucifix of exceedingly 
 noble and finished execution, due probably to the hand of 
 a Flemish artist of the Renaissance. An instinct had led 
 her to take it down from the wall where it was hanging, and 
 put it away out of sight in a drawer. She had a touch, if 
 not more, of that dislike for seeing the emblem of sorrow 
 continually before one's eyes which has distinguished various 
 poets and poetic natures of the century ; but whether it was 
 that or something deeper which had prompted her to hide it 
 long ago — what a weary time it seemed — she would have 
 been unable to say. Now she took it out again, and set it up 
 where the strong and steady light of z, .lamp would fall upon 
 it. Her next action was to lock the door of her chamber 
 and draw the curtains across the window, so as to shut out 
 the view of the garden, — a measure hardly needed, for the 
 vol. 11. k
 
 1^0 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-akt m 
 
 darkness outside was very great Not a breath of wind 
 stirred among the dry branches or the foliage of the ever- 
 ns. In the house, as all round, a perfect stillness 
 reigned. 
 
 And in the silent night, amid the solitude of her own 
 room, Hippolyta paced up and down, hour after hour, with 
 the same intense self-concentration, the same sense that 
 time was flying on the wings of night never to return, the 
 same overwhelming dread of the morrow, which the con- 
 demned criminal must have in his prison-cell when that 
 morrow is to see him die. Her thoughts were deep, con- 
 fused, and overwhelming, recurring ever to the one theme 
 which the preacher had handled with such portentous effect, 
 — the guilt, the awfulness of breaking through the divine 
 order. She had been so confident of her cause ; and it was 
 her cause that had turned against her. To spread the light 
 had ever appeared the only ambition worthy of her heroic 
 soul ; but the light in her was deceptive, a mere marsh- 
 light guiding to ruin. Instead of mounting the heights to 
 which she aspired, she had flung herself into the mire, and 
 she was now become an object of loathing to every honest 
 man and woman. She, Hippolyta Valence, so conscious, 
 so proud of her rectitude, was fallen, polluted, horrible to 
 think upon like the women whom she had styled, in the 
 excess of a self-admiring sympathy, her sisters. The 
 revelation of sin as no phantom, or superstition, or conven- 
 tional metaphor, but a foul and loathsome reality, had come 
 upon her like a whirlwind blackening the sky. Sin, the 
 most unwomanly, the least admitting of excuse or palliation, 
 was it then become a part of her being, a record in the 
 past never to be blotted out ? As in her mind she went 
 over these things again and again, questioning, denying, 
 admitting, shrinking from herself, yet not knowing how to 
 escape into the sweet fresh air that, after she had been 
 breathing it for so many months, had suddenly changed to 
 miasma, her feeling was like that of a trapped wild beast; 
 she could have raged against herself, and in the fury of her 
 disdain rushed upon death as a relief. She turned with the 
 thought of it flaming in her eyes ; but the steady light 
 still showed her the rrunfix, and when her gaze went out
 
 chap, xxviii WRECKED 1 131 
 
 to it, she remembered the words which described it as the 
 image of supreme resignation. To kill herself would 
 not be resignation or victory ; it would be pride and defeat. 
 What though she had fallen, might she not rise again? 
 'Oh never, never,' she cried in her anguish ; 'the snow has 
 been trodden into mud, the ermine is stained.' Tears had 
 been given in the church to ease her overflowing heart ; 
 but now she had no tears. The sweet short dream of 
 delight was over. She might in a few hours go forward to 
 meet Rupert Glanville with a smile on her face, concealing 
 the canker-worm within. Did she choose to follow a 
 desperate course, she might still feed upon the honey of 
 these poisoned flowers and dare retribution. But where 
 was the tranquillity of heart, the peace and loving security, 
 which, as she now perceived, had been the foundation of 
 her previous happiness? Gone, gone, never to return. 
 Conscience had inflicted a deadly wound upon her, and 
 she hung writhing on the spear. The hours fled on. 
 
 But why believe in what she had heard by accident? 
 What was there in common between Hippolyta Valence 
 and this religion that so imperiously divided the light from 
 the darkness ? There was no Satan, and Christ was dead 
 and buried many ages ago. Suppose it a fable, a children's 
 story, an arabesque on the skirt of the eternal night. Alas ! 
 it was impossible. Her sin had found her out ; to lapse 
 into the delusion of innocence was beyond her for ever- 
 more. In this fearful noonday glare she beheld the stain, 
 as though it were the spilt blood of murder, spreading over 
 her soul and soaking into it, deep, deep. When the 
 murderer dipped his hands in water, they were none the 
 less polluted, but the water became crimson, mixed with 
 the blood that fell into it. So, she went on saying to her- 
 self, it would be with marriage following on the loss of 
 innocence ; it could not bring back what was lost, it could 
 only suffer degradation because of it. A woman was either 
 angel or demon ; she must be pure or impure. ' And what 
 am I?' said Hippolyta, shuddering, as in her pacing to and 
 fro she came to a standstill before that silent figure on the 
 Cross. 
 
 Her anguish became unendurable. She threw open the
 
 13a THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt rn 
 
 window and looked out All was dark and wintry. 
 l ; h the stained glass of the lancet nearest her she 
 seemed to distinguish a faint gleam as of a light still burnii 
 somewhere in the church. There were lamps, perhaps, that 
 kept in all night She could not imagine any one was there- 
 at such an hour, past one o'clock. Not a star was to be 
 
 n in the sky. 'How like it is to this life of mine !' 
 she murmured with a sigh, as she closed the window and 
 drew the curtain again. But a voice within seemed to make 
 reply, ' Have you deserved the guidance of a star, when 
 you have been wilful, headstrong, confident in the strength 
 of your own knowledge ? ' and she was compelled to make 
 a confession, as humiliating as it was salutary, that she had 
 dreamt of being a sufficient light to herself. And what, in 
 those arrogant days, had she known of the mighty, mysterious 
 world ? Now the veil was withdrawn, the tragic prospect 
 clear. She had been made to fix her thoughts, her eyes, 
 her memory, on the existences which were governed by 
 passionate, evanescent impulses, whether of love or hate ; 
 the blind world of instinct, she saw, stood in need of a 
 divine reason to overrule its manifold contradictory tenden- 
 cies. Was it not the same with the blind world of man ? 
 And how much blinder had she proved herself than those in 
 whom ignorance was the outcome of incapacity or lack of 
 education ? Hers had been wanton, self-asserting, criminal. 
 Was Annie Dauris not saved ? Whose sin was that but 
 Hippolyta's. Was Rupert, the generous, confiding, devoted 
 Rupert, lowered in his own eyes, turned from the path of 
 happiness and honour, made to share in turpitude of which 
 he had never dreamt? Whose sin, whose unpardonable, 
 damning sin was that but Hippolyta's ? Could the mur- 
 derer, the suicide, have done worse ? 
 
 Thinking these accusing thoughts, seeing these horrible 
 shadows trooping around her, discerning no way of escape, 
 with an impetuous burst of tears Hippolyta cast herself 
 prostrate on the ground before the crucifix, crying aloud 
 again and again, amid the solitude of the dismal winter 
 night, ' Oh thou unknown Christ, have pity on me ! ' 
 
 It was nearly twelve o'clock at noon, and the sun was
 
 chap, xxvm WRECKED ! 133 
 
 shining high and bright in the heavens, when Rupert 
 Glanville, his face radiant with love and happiness, dashed 
 up in a hansom cab to the gates of Forrest House. He 
 sprang out hastily, dismissed the cabman, and ran as if 
 wings were carrying him along the garden path into the hall. 
 When the housekeeper saw him she turned red and pale. 
 ' Where is Mrs. Malcolm ? ' he cried gaily. ' Is she in her 
 room ? ' The housekeeper stood motionless, looked at him 
 compassionately, and made no reply. He was struck with 
 her silence, and his mood altered. 'Answer, woman,' he 
 said sternly. ' Why are you standing there like an idiot ? ' 
 She put up her hand with a pitying gesture, and faltered 
 out, ' Oh, sir, Mrs. Malcolm is gone.' — ' Gone !' he repeated 
 in amaze. ' What do you mean ? Gone where ? ' Then 
 she told him that on sending the maid as usual to wake 
 her mistress that morning, the girl had found the door of 
 her bedroom wide open, the bed not slept in, and Mrs. 
 Malcolm not there. It was seven o'clock when they missed 
 her. They had searched all over the house and in the garden ; 
 they had sent to William Dauris, but all in vain. Not a 
 trace of her was to be discovered. She seemed to have 
 taken nothing with her but her cloak and hat. 
 
 Rupert ran madly upstairs, rushed into Hippolyta's bou- 
 doir, saw that everything was in perfect order as the servants 
 had told him, and looked round like a man bewildered 
 when he found no Hippolyta there. What had become 
 of her ? Was it a dream ? He went by a natural instinct 
 to her writing-table and examined the papers lying on it. 
 They were of no importance ; they yielded no clue. But 
 the blotting-book was wide open, and a sealed envelope with 
 his initials outside caught his eye. As he tore it crosswise, 
 in his eagerness, a plain gold ring fell out which he had 
 induced Hippolyta to wear as Mrs. Malcolm, and round it 
 a slip of paper. Written on the latter, in a trembling hand, 
 were only these words, ' Rupert, Ave must part ; do not 
 seek me.' It was too true. Hippolyta had disappeared
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 T.IKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN 
 
 The blow which had thus been struck at the heart of Rupert 
 Glanville was so unexpected, and its occasion so wrapt in 
 mystery, that the young man, on reading Hippolyta's brief 
 sentence, announcing as it should seem an everlasting fare- 
 well, refused to believe and stood there incapable of realising 
 it. His face was calm as that of a man who has just been 
 shot dead. Hippolyta vanished? But why? he asked himself 
 again. She must have simply been called away by a sudden 
 emergency ; she would return in a few hours ; or she had 
 heard from Colonel Valence and he was in danger, dying 
 perhaps, and in need of his daughter's presence. Surely 
 it was that which, giving her an overwhelming shock, had 
 disturbed her reason ; that or the attack of disease alone 
 could have made her set down those few wild words which 
 he read again and again, vainly striving to make them tell 
 more than their own meaning. He drew a chair to the 
 writing-table, and sat down by it, looking out of the window 
 in a dazed and helpless fashion, not able to think or to act, 
 every faculty benumbed and a weight like ice in his bosom. 
 The entrance of the housekeeper roused him as from a 
 stupor. Ought they to do anything ? Had Mr. Malcolm any 
 orders to give ? Rupert laughed sardonically on hearing 
 the name which had gone with his golden honeymoon. It 
 was nine months, almost to the day, since he brought Hip- 
 polyta from his studio to Forrest House. Nine months ! 
 good heavens, how happy they had been, how swift to come 
 and go, like a broad stream of sunshine losing itself in the 
 smiling ocean ! It was all over. ' A dream, a dream,' he
 
 chap, xxix LIKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN 135 
 
 murmured to himself. Or was he dreaming now ? The 
 housekeeper spoke again ; and he gave a start at the sound 
 of a strange voice in Hippolyta's boudoir. He had forgotten 
 that any one was there. 'What did you say?' he inquired, 
 passing his hand over his forehead. Orders ! No, he had 
 no orders to give ; and he turned over the scrap of paper 
 which he held between his fingers, vaguely imagining there 
 might be some message on the back which he had not seen, 
 to say that it was all a jest, all make-believe, and Hippolyta 
 would come ere the day was spent. There was nothing 
 except the fatal sentences written on the paper ; he knew 
 it before he looked. But this slight action brought him to 
 himself. Hippolyta must have been seen when she went 
 away ; if not by the servants, yet by those who were passing 
 along the street, by the neighbours, the police, by whatever 
 people might be about in the early morning. What if a 
 misfortune to her father had driven her out of her mind, 
 and she were wandering somewhere without any one to take 
 care of her ! The thought was terrible, inciting him to lose 
 no time in seeking her traces, and allowing him, till she 
 should be found, to believe that she had not known what 
 she was doing when she wrote him farewell. Was it not a 
 symptom of madness that people turned against those they 
 loved most dearly, and fled from them ? This appalling 
 comfort that Hippolyta might be out of her mind was a sad 
 testimony to the overthrow of Rupert's happiness. ' Why, 
 oh why,' he cried in despair, ' did I not come on last night 
 instead of lingering in town ? I should have noticed the 
 change and ascertained the cause of it ; a few hours would 
 have made all the difference. We could have called in a 
 physician, set some one to watch over her to see that she 
 did not stray away by herself. But let us do what we can 
 and not delay.' He was eager and active now ; the stupor 
 had passed for a while, because a ray of hope seemed to be 
 dawning again. The more he considered the stronger he 
 found those evidences of Hippolyta's mental aberration 
 which the circumstances of her flight seemed to give. She 
 had not taken anything with her in the shape of money or 
 clothing ; she had made no preparations for a journey, long 
 or short. Her books, correspondence, wardrobe, were all
 
 136 THE NEW /GONE PART in 
 
 in perfect order, as Mrs. Leeming had seen them only the 
 day before. There was no sign of hurry or confusion in 
 the room, nothing out of place, except in that pleasant way 
 
 which betokened that some one had made a home of it. 
 The note she h ved from Rupert and had read in the 
 
 hall when she came in last night was lying on her dressing- 
 table with her keys. Only her hat and cloak were gone. 
 Rupert questioned the servants closely. Had any one found 
 a door or window open that morning ? No, but the house- 
 maid, on going to unbolt the front door, was astonished to 
 observe that it was unfastened. Some one must or might 
 have left the house that way ; all other means of exit were 
 as they had been left the last thing at night. 
 
 Had Mrs. Malcolm appeared in any way strange during 
 the past few days? Had she received letters, or heard 
 agitating news, or done or said anything unusual? In 
 answer to these inquiries the housekeeper mentioned the 
 two letters received last night, told what she knew of the 
 trouble and flight of Annie Dauris, and of Hippolyta's 
 anxiety to discover and bring her back. The girl, she 
 added, was not yet found ; neither did they seem aware at 
 the gardener's cottage of anything peculiar in Mrs. Malcolm's 
 conduct. They were very much attached to her, and she 
 had displayed great kindness towards them. Rupert sent 
 for William Dauris. The gardener came immediately, with 
 an expression of intense sorrow in his countenance, and so 
 deeply grieved on hearing of Hippolyta's disappearance 
 from home that he could hardly reply to the questions 
 which Rupert addressed to him. He was evidently as 
 much in the dark as any one else. He could not think so 
 feeling a lady as Mrs. Malcolm would have set out on a long 
 journey, especially if it was connected with his daughter, 
 and not come to say good-bye, or at least send them word 
 that she had found a clue. She had certainly been much 
 troubled when she heard of Annie's misbehaviour ; he knew 
 that she had made inquiries everywhere, and had even gone 
 into the East End herself to help them on. How did she 
 go, Rupert asked, by what conveyance? William Dauris 
 could not say ; he thought the coachman had driven her. 
 The coachman was sent for, and gave his account, which
 
 chap, xxix LIKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN 137 
 
 was not much. It had been Mrs. Malcolm's custom to 
 have herself driven a couple of miles along the London 
 Road and then dismiss him. He believed that she often 
 engaged a cab to take her much farther, into town, he sup- 
 posed. But he had never driven farther himself except 
 three days ago, when she told him to take her to an address 
 in Grafton Place, Strand, — a Mr. Mardol's, — and after- 
 wards 
 
 Rupert almost leaped out of the chair in which he was 
 sitting. ' What name did you say ? ' he cried. ' Mr. 
 Mardol's ? Grafton Place ? Are you sure ? ' 
 
 The coachman was quite sure. Not only had he asked 
 Mrs. Malcolm the address twice over, but he heard Mr. 
 Mardol's name several times when he drove on to the East 
 End, whither Mrs. Malcolm was accompanied by a gentle- 
 man from Grafton Place. 
 
 ' Oh, I see now,' exclaimed Rupert with a sigh of relief; 
 'it will all come clear. 'Thank you, Thomson, thank you; 
 you have given me the clue . I wanted. Why did you not 
 inform me at once ? ' 
 
 Thomson had not felt certain that it mattered, or he 
 would have spoken. He knew the house in Grafton Place, 
 and the other off Saffron Hill. If Mr. Malcolm wished to 
 see them himself, he could get the brougham ready at once. 
 
 'Right, quite right, Thomson,' said his master; 'be 
 quick about it. I will drive to Grafton Place. Mr. Mardol 
 is a friend of mine. There has been some misunderstand- 
 ing, I suppose ; that is all. It is nothing, nothing. Only 
 look about you. I shall be waiting till you come.' 
 
 The coachman departed on his errand; and William 
 Dauris, who had been standing silently near during this 
 conversation, took heart again on seeing how Rupert's face 
 brightened. He appeared like a changed man. 
 
 ' Then we shall have Mrs. Malcolm back ? ' said the 
 gardener timidly. 
 
 'Oh, never fear,' replied Rupert, shaking him warmly by 
 the hand ; ' back this evening, no doubt. Ladies will give us 
 these frightenings now and then,' he said, smiling as one 
 does to assure friends that one has escaped a great peril. 
 
 'I am very glad,' said William, 'and so will my wife
 
 138 THE NEW ANTIGONE RAW m 
 
 be when I tell her. She has been crying ever since the 
 housekeeper brOU lit US the bad news.' 
 
 He said no more, but went away quietly. Rupert, who 
 had not taken off the travelling wraps in which he had 
 alighted from the hansom, walked from the front door to 
 the gate and bad; again, up and down the garden path, till 
 the brougham came in sight. He at once ran to meet it, 
 leaped in, and told the coachman to use his utmost speed 
 till they reached Grafton Place. He would willingly have 
 galloped with the horses, so great was his excitement. To 
 have done with the journey and clasp Hippolyta in his 
 arms again — he could think of nothing else. He would 
 forgive her at the first word ; but she must never so frighten 
 him again. 
 
 In the midst of these disjointed reflections the thought 
 presented itself, ' But suppose she were not in Grafton 
 Place ? ' Why, he replied at once to himself, he had 
 not fancied she would be there ; at least it could not 
 signify; Ivor would know where she was, what motive 
 had induced her to leave home suddenly, and in what 
 frame of mind she had come to him. The reason of their 
 meeting was plain enough. Ivor, Hippolyta, and Colonel 
 Valence were all mixed up in that mad revolutionary move- 
 ment which appeared to delight in these mysterious vanish- 
 ings and trap-door scenes ; there had been some plan afoot, 
 and Hippolyta was required to take part in it. ' Put,' said 
 Rupert, in a gayer mood now that he was going to see her 
 very soon, ' I shall not allow this doctrine ot blind obedi- 
 ence to come between husband and wife. The next time 
 Hippolyta sets out on a humanitarian expedition she shall 
 take me with her, or I will know the reason why.' 
 
 The drive was horribly long, but it could not last for 
 ever. At a little distance from the house Rupert pulled 
 the check-string and got out. It might be an alarm or a 
 warning to the conspirators, as he termed Ivor and Hip- 
 polyta in his recovered good-humour, if the carriage were 
 to drive up to the door. Bidding Thomson, therefore, 
 wait round the corner, he walked on briskly to his friend's 
 house, with which he was familiar from of old, and rang 
 the bell as quietly as the agitation of his nerves would let
 
 chap, xxix LIKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN 139 
 
 him. The door was not opened at once. ' Ah,' he said 
 under his breath, ' Ivor is cautious ; he perhaps wishes to 
 reconnoitre before parleying with the enemy. I will pay 
 him out for this.' He had hardly got the words out of his 
 mouth when Ivor opened the door. 'What, you, Rupert !' 
 he cried joyously; 'who in the world would have thought 
 it? Come in, my dear boy, and let me look at you. I 
 have been working at high pressure to make up for lost 
 time. That is why I did not come at once ; I was busy.' 
 
 And with delight overspreading his rugged features 
 Ivor, lifting the curtain of stamped leather with one hand, 
 pushed Rupert gently forward with the other into his work- 
 room. A lad, who happened to be assisting him, retired 
 at the sight of a stranger through another exit. Rupert 
 was half-minded to call him back. He dreaded some trick 
 of collusion, he knew not why. Ivor had never deceived 
 him in his life; but in the present excitement suspicion 
 caught at a film of gossamer. The boy disappeared ; and 
 Rupert, who could endure the suspense no longer, turned 
 at once on his friend without preface or introduction, and 
 cried, ' Where is Miss Valence, Ivor ? ' 
 
 Ivor stared at him. ' Miss Valence ? ' he repeated. He 
 seemed quite lost. Rupert thought he was dissembling, 
 and he could not bear it. ' Yes, Miss Valence,' reiterated 
 the artist in an angry voice. ' Come now, tell me what 
 you have done with her.' And he took Ivor by the 
 shoulder. 
 
 The astonishment of the latter increased. 'But, my 
 dear fellow,' he said, looking for an explanation of this 
 strange scene in Rupert's eyes, ' I don't know who Miss 
 Valence is. I never heard her name in my life.' 
 
 Rupert turned white with passion. 'Never heard her 
 name,' he exclaimed, 'and she was with you three days 
 ago, and you went with her to Saffron Hill. Shame on 
 you, Ivor ; how can you tell me so ? ' 
 
 Ivor was bewildered still, but not quite so much. 
 
 ' Indeed !' was his reply, ' so that is the lady's real name. 
 I thought there must be something.' And then, turning 
 to Rupert, ' I give you my word this is the first I ever 
 heard of a Miss Valence. The lady who came here three
 
 i 4 o THE NEW ANTIGONE PAST ill 
 
 days ago announced herself as Mrs. Malcolm. It appears 
 that she gave a false name.' 
 
 Rupert, listening impatiently, was now bewildered in 
 his turn. He said slowly, 'My dear Ivor, you surely 
 knew the name of Miss Valence, Colonel Valence's 
 daughter ?' 
 
 • Neither Miss Valence nor Colonel Valence, as I am 
 an honest engraver,' said his friend ; ' you must be dream- 
 ing, Rupert. What has come over you this morning ? ' 
 He made Glanville sit down, and, in drawing him towards 
 the light, was disconcerted at seeing the ashy paleness of 
 his cheek. 
 
 •What in Heaven's name is it?' he inquired with 
 anxious affection. Rupert kept studying every expression 
 that passed over his friend's features, anticipating, somehow, 
 that the mask would fall and the truth declare itself. But 
 Ivor looked the soul of candour and innocence. The 
 artist was staggered. He sat up, pulled himself together 
 with an effort, and said, with an imploring accent in each 
 of his words : 
 
 ' Do be frank with me. You must know Miss Valence 
 and her father. They are Socialists like yourself; and I 
 believe you have already received communications from 
 them, although I never spoke to you about them. The 
 lady that came here — you knew she was Miss Valence.' 
 
 ' I declare to you solemnly,' said Ivor, ' I knew no such 
 thing. The first time I set eyes on her was three months 
 ago, by mere accident as it seemed, in Denzil Lane, as I 
 was coming out of a house where I had been on business. 
 
 She told me her name was Mrs. Malcolm, and ' he 
 
 hesitated for a moment, but continued deliberately, ' I also 
 learned, though I ought not to tell you so, that she belonged 
 to our society. More than that I neither know nor desired 
 to know. What you say about previous communications is 
 impossible. Who is Miss Valence, then, and why does she 
 go by another name ?' 
 
 Unless Ivor was playing a part with unparalleled sang 
 froid and equal heartlessness, he must be speaking the 
 truth. Still, he was not his own master ; there might be 
 an obligation among Socialists to deceive one's dearest
 
 chap, xxix LIKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN 141 
 
 friends for the good of the society, thought Rupert ; and 
 in that case it would be in vain to persevere with his 
 questions. The fear of losing Hippolyta returned with 
 horrible force. He must try again. 
 
 ' I don't wish to inquire into your secrets, Ivor/ he 
 began mildly; 'I have always respected them. Only tell 
 me where Mrs. Malcolm is, — let us call her Mrs. Malcolm, 
 we need not quarrel over a name, — tell me how I can 
 send her a message, and I will thank you from the bottom 
 of my heart.' 
 
 There was the sound of tears in his voice. 
 
 Ivor, if not sincere, was a consummate villain, who did 
 not need to learn from the greatest how to tear his friend's 
 heart. He stood seemingly in the uttermost bewilderment, 
 incapable of answering a word, and trying to make sense 
 of what had just been spoken by Rupert. When at length 
 he found his voice he did but mutter, 'Miss Valence, 
 Mrs. Malcolm?' as though the two names were a subject 
 of unmixed surprise and perplexity to him. Nay, the sight 
 of Rupert's affliction moved him almost to tears, and he 
 said, forgetting apparently what had been asked by the 
 latter : 
 
 'Is there any reason why you should take this deep 
 interest in the lady? If it is one you can confide to me, 
 I will do all in my power towards discovering her, as I 
 understand from you that she is no longer to be found. I 
 was utterly ignorant that you cared for any woman, Rupert' 
 
 The artist's suspicions were not to be laid by kindness. 
 He knew only too well that Hippolyta had conveyed the 
 message to Ivor Mardol, which compelled him to quit 
 Trelingham on a secret expedition. This questioning 
 about his own interest in Miss Valence was to throw him 
 off the scent. He cursed Socialism and the revolutionary 
 ideas which made a friend like Ivor disloyal, as he 
 answered : 
 
 ' What my reason may be for inquiring about Mrs. 
 Malcolm signifies to no one but myself. I want to know 
 where she is, and I believe you could inform me, if it was 
 not for some oath or other you have taken. Will you do 
 so, or are we to break off our friendship here and now?'
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE part mi 
 
 'Rupert, my dear Rupert, what madness has come 01 
 you?' exclaimed Ivor in unfeigned ' I cannot do 
 
 more than assure you that three month .... > Mr-. Malcolm 
 was a perfect Stranger to me, that I have never known her 
 address, and that I know it now as little as you do.' 
 
 'And Miss Valence brought you no m when you 
 
 were living at Trelingham, in the chalet?' inquired Rupert 
 with intense sternness. 
 
 ' None whatever,' replied Ivor; 'the message I received, 
 and which I remember you saw, came from ' he- 
 paused. 
 
 ' From whom ? ' said Rupert. 
 
 ' I must say no more about it. These things are really 
 secret, and they do not concern you, Rupert, nor yet Miss 
 Valence. I implore you to let the matter drop.' 
 
 ' Very well,' said Glanville sullenly, rising as he spoke. 
 ' Then here we say good-bye, and that is the end of an old 
 song.' 
 
 He went to the door. Ivor followed. ' You are not 
 going for good, are ^ou, old fellow?' he said tremulously, 
 endeavouring to detain him. 
 
 'Yes, I am,' he returned, shaking off the hand that was 
 laid affectionately on his arm. ' This is the last you will 
 see of me.' 
 
 He threw open the front door and walked into the street. 
 Ivor, wounded in his deepest feelings, and more sensitive to 
 the change in Rupert's affection than to the affront he had 
 received, stood on the threshold watching him till he turned 
 the corner. It would be no use calling him back while he 
 was in such a mood. Ivor shut the door, went back to his 
 workroom and took up the plate on which he was engaged. 
 He could not go on with it ; his thoughts were all abroad, 
 and his fingers would not serve him. After nearly a year's 
 absence to meet and part like this ! Rupert was not a 
 good correspondent, resembling in that particular most men 
 ot genius, who find occupation without difficulty, and are- 
 loth to forego present delights for the monotonous work of 
 recording the incidents of the day. But few letters, there- 
 fore, had passed between these friends ; and the nature of 
 Ivor's cosmopolitan interests on the one side, combined
 
 chap, xxix LIKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN 143 
 
 with Rupert's desire to conceal Hippolyta's residence and 
 way of living on the other, had made intimate corre- 
 spondence difficult, if not impossible. Love is the sworn 
 foe of friendship, and puts out lesser lights, as the sun 
 quenches the stars. Nor is cosmopolitan or religious 
 enthusiasm, which you cannot share with a friend, less 
 likely to estrange you from him. In spite of all this, the 
 devotion of Rupert to Ivor was intense and heartfelt ; 
 while Ivor would have sacrificed their friendship to nothing 
 less sacred than a sense of duty. Had he done so now ? 
 His confession or the discovery of Hippolyta alone could 
 decide. 
 
 So Rupert might have argued in cold blood. But his 
 blood was not cold ; it was boiling in his veins as he 
 walked away in search of the brougham, convinced that 
 Ivor had sheltered Hippolyta or was conversant with her 
 design in quitting Forrest House. At that instant he cared 
 not a jot for any man's friendship ; and he flung Ivor's from 
 him as a thing soiled and worthless. He would be his own 
 friend and seek Hippolyta till he found her. Who was the 
 other she had called on? Thomson would know. He 
 stopped the carriage, which was slowly moving up and 
 down, and before he entered it, made the coachman repeat 
 what he had begun to say in the morning about driving 
 Mrs. Malcolm to some place near Saffron Hill. Thom- 
 son had a good local memory, and knew the street near St. 
 Audry's Church. He had seen the clergyman, also, as he 
 was handing Mrs. Malcolm to her carriage. Rupert told 
 him to drive thither. He could not conceive how a clergy- 
 man should come into the story; but it was so mad a world, 
 and the rage of new opinions had spread into such unsus- 
 pected quarters, that his surprise by no means equalled his 
 determination to find out the share which this apparently 
 socialistic preacher had taken in decoying Hippolyta. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon and already dusk when the 
 brougham drew up as near Mr. Regan's as it could be safely 
 taken. Rupert, not venturing to give his card, whether as 
 Mr. Glanville of Clarence Gardens, or Mr. Malcolm of 
 Forrest House, merely said in answer to the servant who 
 answered his knock, that he had urgent business with the
 
 in THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt ill 
 
 clergyman. She had admitted that lie was at home, al 
 though Rupert, not knowing his name, or whether there 
 
 were one or more, had made a randon . in simply 
 
 asking tor him under that general designation. When he- 
 spoke of urgent business, she left him standing in the dark 
 passage and disappeared Returning not long after, she 
 showed him into the sitting-room, which was almost as 
 dark ; and there he waited, considering with himself how 
 he should begin the cross-examination to which he intended 
 to submit the unknown ecclesiastic. Mr. Regan came in, 
 apologised for the want of light, turned on the gas, and 
 made ready to listen. The artist judged it prudent to 
 begin with Ivor MardoFs name. 
 
 ' Excuse me,' said Mr. Regan at once, ' I trust you have 
 not come about the business which brought Mr. Mardol 
 here some days since. I am certainly not my brother's 
 keeper in this instance ; and if you want him, you must go 
 to his chambers.' 
 
 Rupert looked at him. ' I do not know whether it is 
 your brother's business or not,' he said curtly; 'it may 
 be, if your brother, or yourself, for matter of that, be a 
 member of a secret society.' 
 
 'I, my dear sir !' exclaimed the clergyman in accents of 
 dismay • ' for what do you take me ? As for Maurice, I 
 give him up. I cannot deny, how much soever I may de- 
 plore, his connection with plotting and nefarious men.' 
 
 ' I thought so,' said Rupert, his face darkening ; ' and was 
 it about your brother that the lady came who accompanied 
 Mr. Mardol?' The murder was out, he said to himself. 
 These were all meshes of a net in which, by whose fault it 
 did not signify, Hippolyta had been entangled. 
 
 Mr. Regan examined his visitor's looks, and became more 
 cautious. 
 
 ' I know nothing of the lady except that she called her- 
 self Mrs. Malcolm. I told her what I have already repeated 
 to you, that if she wished to hold communication with my 
 brother, the only way was to call at his chambers.' 
 
 ' Cannot you inform me of Mrs. Malcolm's business with 
 your brother?' inquired Rupert, moderating his tone. 'I 
 assure you it may be a matter of great, of vital importance.'
 
 chap, xxix LIKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN 145 
 
 But the clergyman was not to be disarmed. He had a 
 great regard for his brother, worthless though Maurice had 
 proved himself. On many a previous occasion he had 
 thrown the shield of silence over his delinquencies ; and the 
 stern, serious manner of the artist, who gave no name and 
 seemed to have business of an unpleasant sort in hand, 
 determined him to say as little as possible. Instead, there- 
 fore, of disclosing the errand on which Hippolyta had come, 
 he answered deliberately: 
 
 ' If you will let me know whom I have the pleasure of 
 addressing, I may be better able to judge whether you 
 would be interested in Mrs. Malcolm's business. But I must 
 decline discussing it with a stranger.' 
 
 Except in Forrest House and among the acquaintance 
 of his servants, who could not be expected not to talk of 
 their master, Rupert had never assumed the style and title 
 of Malcolm. What name should he give? Would this 
 suspicious clergyman tell him anything he did not know, 
 even when he had run the risk — for a risk it was in either 
 case — of appearing as Malcolm or in his own name ? It did 
 not seem probable. Allowing, as was now evident, that the 
 motive for Hippolyta's leaving home — he still called it 
 home — was connected with the designs of revolutionists, 
 he might be certain that they would guard their secret 
 jealously. He must try another means. 
 
 These thoughts passed through his brain while he was put- 
 ting on his glove. He had remained standing, and Mr. Regan 
 had not come many steps inside the door. He now said : 
 
 ' My name is of no consequence. I will only ask you to 
 inform Mrs. Malcolm, if you should see her again, that her 
 visit here is known by those who seek her, and that she 
 will do well to communicate with them if she desires to 
 prevent the most serious harm.' 
 
 He meant it for a threat of suicide, and Hippolyta, he 
 thought, would so understand it. Mr. Regan answered, with 
 much dignity, that he did not suppose the lady would call 
 again. He was a frigidly -correct, not an inquisitive man ; 
 and although, a few moments after Rupert left the house, 
 he heard the sound of wheels driving away, he would not 
 so much as look through the window to ascertain what 
 
 vol. 11. l
 
 THE NEW ANTJ pabt til 
 
 species of conveyance it was that had brought his anony- 
 mous and unwelcome visitor. Rupert, <>n the other hand, 
 when lie had been driven the length of a street, bethought 
 himself that it would be well to know the clergyman's name. 
 He got out, therefore, and inquired at a little shop hard by 
 who it was that lived at the address he mentioned, for he 
 had learnt that from Thomson. The shopman, not with- 
 out pomposity, answered, 'The Reverend Philip Regan.' 
 A light flashed across Rupert's mind. 'Philip Regan?' he 
 said, ' I remember now. By heaven, it is the very cler. 
 man Hippolyta wanted to see, — how long ago? Before 
 Christmas. Yes, it is months since she spoke of him ; 
 and I, dolt as I was, made a jest of it when she seemed 
 to be telling me why she wished to call. But did she really 
 mean me to know, or was it only a ruse ? The thing 
 must have been going on then, whatever it was. And she 
 seemed so happy ; the cloud had quite passed from her 
 which I noticed at the beginning of our life together.' 
 
 He groaned aloud when he thought of it. Was she 
 the guileless creature he had loved and worshipped, or 
 full of design and treachery ? Oh, it did not matter now, 
 not now ; let her only come back and his heart would 
 be open to her as of old. How could he live without 
 Hippolyta ? The strong man leaned his head upon his 
 hand, crying like a child, as the carriage rolled forward 
 through the interminable London streets, the gas-lamps 
 flaring on each side of it, and the noise of traffic and 
 the roar of vehicles seeming to mock his grief with their 
 soulless reverberations. Where was she now, when the 
 night had drawn on, when every one that had home or 
 shelter made towards it? She was in peril and far from 
 the heart that loved her best in all the world ; he knew no 
 more, but alas, he could not be uncertain of that. She 
 was surely miserable and a wanderer on the face of the 
 earth. Perhaps she was alone ; or, if not, in the power of 
 villains who would make of her, generous, confiding, 
 ardent as she was, the tool of their murderous ambition. 
 Other women, carried away by the frenzy of revolution, 
 had whetted the knife or sharpened the dagger. And 
 Hippolyta, with her wild enthusiasm, might think to
 
 chap, xxix LIKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN 147 
 
 emulate the Charlotte Corclays who had risen up through- 
 out Europe in these anarchic times. When Rupert 
 thought over it all, he cursed Edgar Valence and Ivor 
 Mardol, to whose influence early or late he attributed the 
 evil which had fastened on Hippolyta like a disease. But 
 for Colonel Valence, the love which had innocently sprung 
 up between them would ere now have been crowned with 
 marriage, and Hippolyta be happy as the wife of one whose 
 reputation, at any rate, was not altogether unmatched with 
 her beauty and grace. Or, allowing the first false step, 
 she might still have dwelt in seclusion, surrounded with 
 every homage, her slightest wish anticipated, enjoying 
 happiness and giving it in the way she had chosen. But 
 no. What her father began, this false friend must 
 accomplish. She had sacrificed the world to Rupert ; she 
 had now been prevailed upon to sacrifice him and all his 
 hopes and joys to the Revolution. Glanville was cut to 
 the heart. What should he do to-morrow, when no 
 Hippolyta was near him ? And would to-morrow be only 
 the first of many days to be endured alone, without love, 
 without friendship, all the light gone out of his life ? 
 Surely he must find her or make an end. 
 
 With these sad thoughts weighing on him, Rupert 
 arrived, after his long journey through the lamp-lit streets 
 and the straggling suburban lanes, at Forrest House. He 
 sat alone at table and forced himself to eat, knowing how 
 much was to be done, or attempted, on that morrow which 
 he dreaded to see. It was like a meal at the side of the 
 grave. His food choked him. There was no letter or 
 message from any one. William Dauris had come round 
 at nightfall and inquired whether Mrs. Malcolm were 
 returned, or what news they had. 'Tell him there is 
 none, as yet,' said Rupert wearily. He did not desire to 
 see the man ; he shrank from contact with any one that 
 had known Hippolyta as from everything she had touched. 
 But the latter feeling gave way to overpowering tenderness 
 when, late at night, he entered her boudoir and sat down 
 in her favourite place near the window. There the signs 
 of her recent presence, the trinkets lying in a pretty 
 feminine disorder, the scarf thrown carelessly down, were
 
 i ( s Till-: NEW ANTIGONE paw in 
 
 so many arrows to wound him. How well he remembered 
 their bright caressing love-talk during those long summer 
 evenings, when they watched the stars rising like silent 
 silver fires into the sky and shining down upon them 
 peacefully I How beautiful she looked when, her eyes 
 seeming to kindle under her golden hair, she spoke in 
 tender accents of the charm that love had cast over them 
 both, and of its glamour which was life, and truth, and the 
 heart of existence ! He had been delighted and amazed, 
 during those hours of rapture, at her strange high poetry. 
 Alas, alas, had she not been such a votaress of enthusiastic 
 beliefs, had there been mingled in her some grains of 
 vulgar commonplace, she would be now turning his solitude 
 to heaven. But he rebuked the profane thought. Ilip- 
 polyta might be impulsive, wild, demoniac in her headlong 
 aspirations ; vulgar or commonplace she never could be. 
 It was her unlikeness to other women, her supremacy ot 
 spirit as of outward loveliness, that had brought him to her 
 feet And the deity was vanished, the shrine broken. He 
 sat during the night alone with his sorrow, going over these 
 things till the repetition racked his brain. 
 
 Alone, indeed, he was; singularly, fatally alone, now 
 that he had broken with Ivor Mardol. If Hippolyta was 
 gone the way he supposed, — and what other way could she 
 have gone? — but one man in London could aid in her 
 recovery, and that man's lips were sealed ; or rather, he 
 was the criminal and would be the last to confess his crime. 
 Ivor was daring and resolute , he believed — like Robes- 
 pierre, said Glanville to himself — in his own integrity, and 
 behind him were the resources of a great association, 
 pledged to second its agents in whatever they undertook, 
 and hesitating at no turpitude. What was Rupert against 
 such odds? He might instruct his lawyer, call in the 
 police, offer rewards ; and when he had done all this, the 
 only result would be to publish Hippolyta's disgrace to the 
 light of day and blast his own character. What he did. 
 therefore, must be done warily ; he could not take any 
 one into his confidence. In the neighbourhood of Forrest 
 House it would be incumbent on him to appear as Mr. 
 Malcolm ; but he dared not present himself under a
 
 chap, xxix LIKE MADNESS IN THE BRAIN 149 
 
 feigned name to the police authorities. Mardol and Hip- 
 polyta had doubtless weighed these things, and knew how 
 difficult they made pursuit and discovery. The more he 
 thought of them now, the less he was inclined to his first 
 conjecture, that disaster had turned her brain, and her 
 flight had taken place in an hour of madness. Nothing, 
 it should seem rather, had been wanting to the deliberation 
 of it. What cruel, cold words she had left behind, as her 
 farewell to the man she loved ? They stabbed him again 
 and again with their icy point ; he could bear almost any- 
 thing else, but not to recall that line and a half. ' " Brief," ' 
 he said to himself with the curious aptitude we have for 
 remembering well-known verses or sayings when our 
 nerves are highly strung, — ' " brief as a woman's love, or 
 the poesy of a ring." Oh, true, Hamlet ! ' he cried.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 INTER MORTUOS LIBER 
 
 But something must be done without delay. He would 
 return to his house in Belgravia, to be nearer the scene of 
 action, if action there should be. For it was not imagin 
 able that Hippolyta would show herself in the vicinity of 
 Forrest House, situate in an out-of-the-way, peaceable 
 suburb, not known for its connection with aught more 
 revolutionary than borough politics. Much more likely 
 that she had left England and was travelling to Berlin, or 
 St. Petersburg, or New York, to the centre of the storm- 
 cloud that might be on the point of bursting on the head 
 of Prince or President. What were the newspapers dis- 
 cussing? They sometimes held out storm-warnings of this 
 kind also, and might for once be useful to him. Glanville 
 did not believe in journalism, and seldom read a line in 
 the daily prints. But now he went to his club, and sitting 
 down in the library, which at that time of day was solitary 
 as an African wilderness, turned over the files of the week's 
 intelligence. Pah, how vapid it seemed ! Did the nations 
 put this stale vinegar to their lips every morning, and take 
 it as sent down overnight from the suppers of the gods ? 
 What rinsings of Olympus ! He turned the pages to and 
 fro, travelled down the leading articles, sounded the 
 solemn depths of the Foreign Correspondence. It left 
 him uncertain. There were plots and rumours of plots, 
 meetings of European workmen, strikes at Breslau, at St. 
 Etienne, at Barnsley, on the railroads of New England, and 
 among the cotton-spinners in Italy. Signs of a possible 
 storm he read everywhere, but from what quarter would
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 151 
 
 the lightning flash out ? An infernal machine of the latest 
 invention had been discovered at the Winter Palace, in the 
 Emperor's writing-desk, and several of his confidential 
 aides-de-camp had been arrested on suspicion. The police 
 had dissolved a socialistic gathering of Free Czechs at 
 Prague ; and the guard round the English Prime Minister 
 was to be considerably strengthened in consequence of the 
 last attempt to blow up his country seat. In yesterday's 
 Times Glanville read with a beating heart that two women 
 had been stopped by the Belgian police on their way from 
 London to Brussels, and that compromising documents 
 had been found in their possession which indicated the 
 outbreak of another dynamite enterprise, though whether 
 in Moscow or St Petersburg it was not as yet possible to 
 say. The description given tallied in neither case with 
 Hippolyta, and the news was too recent ; yet Glanville 
 could hardly restrain himself from starting at once for 
 Ostend. When, however, he reflected that his presence 
 and the inquiries he must make would serve, in a foreign 
 country, only to inculpate Hippolyta, if she were one of 
 the women captured, and that more light would be thrown 
 on the affair in the course of the next few days, he judged 
 it prudent not to run after an uncertainty. One thing was 
 clear, that Colonel Valence's daughter, if disposed to 
 thrust herself into peril, might find the occasion wherever 
 she happened to cast her eyes. The battle seemed to be 
 raging along the whole line. 
 
 As he read on, not knowing what else to do, his atten- 
 tion was caught by one of the many advertisements which 
 promise secrecy and success in the investigation of cases 
 like Hippolyta's. He wondered that he had not thought 
 of it before. But Glanville was a man who would hardly 
 stoop to pluck a jewel out of the mire if there was a likeli- 
 hood of soiling his fingers. The idea of a private police 
 was repugnant to him, and was associated in his mind with 
 every form of vice and degradation. Truly, it might be 
 said of this artist-temperament that he was gentlemanly to 
 his very finger-tips. Now, however, when he required a 
 search to be made, and could not turn to the authorities 
 of Scotland Yard, he clutched at the only means which
 
 ■ 53 THE NEW ANTIGONE part ill 
 
 appeared feasible j and taking the man's name and addn 
 went home and despatched thence a carefully worded letter, 
 in which he begged him to come immediately to Clarence 
 Gardens on a matter of the utmost urgency. He might 
 name his own terms, but there must be as little delay as 
 possible. Glanville, after reflection, had resolved to 
 prosecute the search in his own name. 
 
 It was well he did so, for Mr. Bernstein, when he ap- 
 peared in the course of a couple of hours and was introduced 
 into Rupert's study, began the conversation easily with an 
 allusion to the artist's fame, and the pleasure it gave him 
 to recognise the fidelity of the portrait which had created 
 such a sensation in the Academy two years ago. Glan- 
 ville, whose talent for self-mockery had been a good deal 
 cultivated, said in reply, that to be famous was indeed 
 a fine thing, and offered to paint Mr. Bernstein, if that 
 gentleman would sit to him. The answer was a not un- 
 pleasant smile, which served as garnish to the aphorism, 
 pronounced by the detective with a business-like air, that 
 time was money. He preferred to sit on golden eggs 
 rather than in the luxurious but expensive chair to which 
 Glanville invited him. The artist, however, had been 
 really struck with the capacities of Mr. Bernstein as a sub- 
 ject. As his name indicated, he was a German, or more 
 accurately speaking, a Polish Jew. It is possible that in 
 the sacred pages of the Ahnaiiach de Gotha — a volume 
 never to be mentioned without reverence — there may be 
 illustrious and even princely Bernsteins. But this was not 
 one of them. Plebeian, not prince, was stamped on 
 his yellow forehead, his starved and sallow countenance, 
 and his drooping shoulders. He was of unusually small 
 stature, though not a dwarf; and the meagreness of his 
 general appearance denoted either scant opportunities of 
 eating, or a severe control over the grosser appetites. But 
 it was the pear-shaped head, with its flaming coal-black 
 eyes, and long, curling, coal-black hair, that had drawn 
 Glanville's admiration. The vitality in that dried-up 
 organism must have been immense ; it seemed to pour out 
 at the eyes and to overspread the parchment-like features ; 
 it was suggested in the snaky curls which would doubtless,
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 153 
 
 if one touched them, give out electric sparks like the back 
 of a tiger. The man, though no patrician, was full of intel- 
 lect and energy ; there could not have been a drop of 
 Western blood in his veins, nor a fold of Teutonic dulness in 
 his brain. Glanville beheld him with the same mingling of 
 wonder, curiosity, and dislike which he had felt in reading 
 the grimmest pages of the Old Testament. He was a leaf 
 torn out of the Book of Judges. 
 
 When he had taken a seat where he could observe 
 Glanville closely, and the artist was reflecting how he could 
 give sufficient information for the purpose of recovering 
 Hippolyta, yet keep himself in the background of his 
 narrative, Mr. Bernstein, who, with his head slightly bent 
 on the right side, appeared to be looking him through and 
 through, lifted his yellow hand impressively, and with fore- 
 finger held up as if to bespeak earnest attention, began in 
 a strong penetrating voice, where the German accent made 
 itself harshly felt, ' Before you tell me the story which I see 
 you are turning over in your mind, let me sketch the prin- 
 ciples on which I conduct my office. They are simple. On 
 your side you purchase, and no doubt you require absolute 
 secrecy. You shall have it. But on my side, acting 
 under your directions, I can require nothing except what 
 you wish to grant. Are you interested in succeeding ; 
 greatly, deeply interested ? If so, your account of the situa- 
 tion will be absolutely frank and complete. But if you are 
 not, you will either keep something back, or overlook some 
 little detail on which all the rest hangs. I have had large 
 experience, and I have always seen, as your poet Shake- 
 speare says, that "riddling confession finds but riddling 
 shrift." Now, sir, we can proceed when you like, and I am 
 at your service.' He unbent his warning attitude and leaned 
 back in his chair. 
 
 Glanville, though in deep trouble ot mind, could not 
 refrain from smiling at the quotation, so quaintly borrowed 
 for the purposes of private inquiry from Romeo and fitliet, 
 as well as at the straightforward shrewdness of the old man, 
 who spoke with official gravity. But the words came home. 
 What should he disclose, what keep to himself? He took 
 the way that promised the least difficulty.
 
 154 THE NEW ANTIGO ' i m 
 
 'The fa« Is,' he said to Mr. Bernstein, 'on which I should 
 '.ike you ; ise your skill arc as simple as your prin- 
 ciples. A lady ' 
 
 'Of course,' said Mr. Bernstein, taking oul his pocket- 
 book : ' what is her name?' 
 
 'Her name is Hippolyta Valence, but she has been 
 known for the last nine months as Mrs. Malcolm. She- 
 has suddenly disappeared from home, and I am commis- 
 sioned to discover and if possible bring her back.' 
 
 'Commissioned by Mr. Malcolm?' inquired the Jew, 
 scrutinising his every feature. 
 
 Glanville was at a standstill. 
 
 ' I see,' said the other, ' you do not know whether to 
 tell me. Perhaps Mr. Malcolm is of no consequence ; per- 
 haps it all depends on who Mr. Malcolm is. Let me know 
 the rest, and we will come back to this point.' 
 
 ' No,' said Rupert, forcing the words through his teeth, 
 'it will not do. I am Mr. Malcolm.' 
 
 ' Good,' was the answer, ' now the mountain is levelled, 
 and we shall see our way. The lady has left you, and you 
 wish her to return. Very well ; can you say who is the 
 gentleman? Have you any suspicions?' 
 
 'There is no gentleman,' returned the artist, blushing 
 all over ; ' that is what makes the case extraordinary.' 
 
 The Israelite shook his head in sign of doubt. ' Such 
 a case would be extraordinary indeed,' he replied with a 
 philosophic smile, and then shrugging his shoulders as he 
 spoke; 'but it does not happen. You will find there is a 
 gentleman. It may well be that you have never seen him, 
 but that is nothing. Now tell me where Mrs. Malcolm 
 lived, and what society was within her reach during those 
 nine months.' 
 
 Rupert, omitting the scene in the studio, which he 
 despaired of making credible to this hard-headed cynic, as 
 he appeared to be, told all the rest faithfully so far as he 
 knew it. There was so little, however, to tell. The Jew, 
 as if he had been a Queen's Counsel examining a hostile 
 witness, obliged him to discriminate between the facts about 
 which there could be no doubt, and the inferences which 
 Glanville was inclined to draw from them. But he did so
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 155 
 
 with a gentleness that encouraged and did not confuse the 
 mind ; he was astonishingly observant of the artist all 
 through, and seemed to take down his notes with a flash of 
 lightning. When the flight of Annie Dauris was mentioned, 
 followed at three days' interval by that of Hippolyta, he 
 lifted his pencil and said, ' Have you searched out the 
 antecedents of that young woman ? The case grows clearer. 
 I daresay when we come upon the trace of Annie Dauris 
 we shall discover the second gentleman not far off.' 
 
 Rupert again denied vehemently that Hippolyta's motives 
 for quitting Forrest House were of the nature alleged. But 
 it was true that he had not much information about Annie 
 Dauris. However, it could be obtained from her people. 
 And he went on to speak of Hippolyta's frequent visits to 
 the East End, culminating in her appearance, after Annie's 
 flight, at the door of his friend Ivor Mardol. This led him, 
 under impressive silence on Mr. Bernstein's part, to intro- 
 duce the subject of Nihilism. He had no sooner done so 
 than the Jew rose from his chair, saying hurriedly, ' Why 
 did you not begin at the beginning ? There may be two 
 leading motives here. Was Miss Valence a Nihilist before 
 you made her acquaintance?' 
 
 ' She has been educated in revolution,' replied Glanville ; 
 ' it is her own and her father's creed. Colonel Valence has 
 taken a decided share in all the movements of the last 
 thirty years against the social order.' 
 
 Mr. Bernstein, looking very grave, sat down again. 
 ' Let me hear all you know about Colonel Valence,' he said, 
 'especially his aliases.'' 
 
 1 His what ? ' inquired Glanville, not catching the word. 
 
 ' The names under which he has travelled. You do not 
 suppose a conspirator has only one set of visiting-cards in 
 his pocket,' returned the Jew placidly. 
 
 ' I know nothing of all that,' replied Glanville. 
 
 ' Miss Valence never talked to you of her father or of 
 secret societies then ? ' 
 
 ' Never in that way. I did not wish for confidences 
 about them. It was the same with Ivor Mardol. If he 
 had an alias I never learnt it.' 
 
 ' No, that is evident,' said Mr. Bernstein ; l and Mrs.
 
 156 //.' V ANTIGONE tr 111 
 
 olm, you say, took no money with her when she left 
 you ?' 
 
 ' Not a shilling, 1 believe ; not even what was in her 
 purse, which 1 picked up next morning on the lloor by 
 her writing-table.' 
 
 The affair looked darker than at first When nearly two 
 hours had been spent in Rupert's examination, and he had, 
 or seemed to have, nothing to add, the Jew, running his 
 eye down the pages of his pocket-book, said in a judicial 
 tone, ' There are several alternatives, of which the least 
 probable is that Colonel Valence, acting alone, has sent for 
 his daughter. That will be seen into, but for the present 
 may be omitted. The otheis reduce themselves to these: 
 Miss Valence, acting in collusion with Annie Dauris, which 
 we may take for granted, has put herself under the protec- 
 tion either of Maurice Regan or Ivor Mardol, whichever of 
 them she has fallen in love with. Your mistake, my dear sir, 
 lay in your supposing that a lady, brought up in the principles 
 of the Revolution and among revolutionists, would or could 
 remain faithful to a man who did not satisfy that side of 
 her temperament. No doubt her inclination for yourself 
 was very powerful, but it was not rooted in the deepest 
 passion of all, to which it has now yielded. You may be 
 right in supposing that she has been engaged, or will be 
 later on, in carrying out the Nihilist designs; I should 
 think it very likely. But it will always be under the orders 
 of her lover. We have found the gentleman, you see. 
 What makes it slightly embarrassing is that there are two of 
 them.' 
 
 'I cannot believe it,' said Rupert, groaning aloud at the 
 picture of Hippolyta's degradation conjured up before him. 
 ' I had rather see her dead than so shamefully dishonoured. 
 It is impossible.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes,' replied the Jew ; ' you naturally feel so. And 
 yet these impossible things are mostly true. A fropos,' he 
 went on, in a tone of calm inquiry, 'there has been no 
 search made in the dead-houses?' 
 
 ' Where?' cried Rupert, shuddering from head to foot. 
 ' You — you must not say such things to me, or I shall do 
 you or myself a mischief.' The horrible suggestion com-
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 157 
 
 pleted his dismay. Hippolyta dead ! Dead perhaps while 
 he had been lingering at Forrest House and over the files 
 of newspapers ! He almost fainted at the thought. ' Why 
 do you not go at once ? ' he cried to Mr. Bernstein, who sat 
 waiting impassively till he should recover. ' Inquire every- 
 where. Put out a reward. Tell the police to have the 
 canals, the Serpentine dragged.' 
 
 ' Patience, patience, my dear sir,' replied the Jew in 
 soothing accents ; ' everything shall be done as it ought. 
 Is it not a proverb with you, the more haste the worse 
 speed ? We cannot inform the police like that. If they 
 meddle, they will do as they have always done, and throw 
 out the child with the bath-water.' 
 
 'What do you mean?' said Glanville, his mind still con- 
 fused with horror. 
 
 ' I mean that the Nihilists, or Socialists, call them what 
 you will, have friends among the police, or among their 
 acquaintance, and therefore can know when they are com- 
 ing. It is not my way to employ the police. And see you, 
 sir,' he continued, with a ring of decision in his voice, ' I 
 will show you my mind as if you were reading it on paper. 
 I do not feel sure that we shall recover Mrs. Malcolm. If 
 it was only an affair of the heart, I could promise some- 
 thing. For love is very indiscreet and given to talk ; and 
 he does not mind being found out, he is so proud of himself. 
 But there is another passion here, nearly as strong, which 
 desires concealment and knows many hiding-places all over 
 Europe. More than that, I have not any business with 
 secret societies. I am a stranger to politics and revolutions; 
 and the province I have assigned myself is entirely confined 
 to private life. If I was to put my hand into politics I 
 should be putting it into the wolf's throat. One must not 
 lie between the hammer and the anvil or it will go bad 
 with one.' 
 
 'But you will take up this inquiry,' said Rupert, 'if I 
 ask you, and pay whatever you demand. The politics are 
 nothing to me — only bring back Miss Valence; it is all 
 I want. For what I care, the Nihili^s may blow up the 
 Tower of London to-morrow.' 
 
 ' That would not be my sentiment if I were an English
 
 , TR \NTIGOA P ill 
 
 citizen like you/ returned t • But you do not 
 
 understand my position. I have to live and move about 
 in a subterranean region, which is full of mines and — hi 
 
 do you say ? — countermines. Look, it is like a London 
 street. Under the pavement which the carriages of the 
 people roll over, there are the water-pipes, and under 
 them the gas is laid, and beneath that again is the main 
 drainage, and deep down, in the bowels of the earth where 
 all should be still as a mouse, there is the railway with 
 the trains tearing along, — you say tearing ? — and there are 
 
 tions with their lights, and the boys selling journals, and 
 people eating and drinking at buffets, and I know not 
 what. Such is the world to which I also belong. The 
 police do not like me, for I take the bread out of their 
 mouths ; the International does not like me, for it is im- 
 possible that I should not know of their doings one day or 
 another ; and so my people encounter great risks. I tell 
 you, then, that if Mrs. Malcolm has thrown herself under 
 the aegis of the revolution, I may hunt out where she is, 
 but to bring her back I cannot give a pledge. Is it under- 
 stood?' 
 
 When Mr. Bernstein spoke hastily, he fell into the 
 German idioms to which his youth was accustomed, dilut- 
 ing them in a menstruum of French, as is the way with 
 nearly all who have travelled much in their time. 
 
 Rupert answered with the utmost impatience, ' For 
 God's sake, let me have tidings of her, and w r e will decide 
 the rest then. Only lose no more time.' 
 
 He laid on the table a purse of sovereigns, which Mr. 
 Bernstein said he preferred to a cheque as being safer ; and, 
 when arrangements for corresponding had been made on 
 both sides, he saw the Jew off with a sense of alleviation, 
 for the interview had tried him exceedingly. As soon as 
 the door was shut on that venerable figure, he returned to 
 his study, and, throwing himself on the sofa, fell into a 
 troubled ±'.2cp. Mr. Bernstein, meanwhile, bearing an 
 epistle from the artist, drove at his top-speed to Fori 
 House, to inspect, as he said, 'the basis of operations.' 
 1 le had a strong belief that the localities tell half the story 
 when they are examined by a careful eye
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 159 
 
 It was late in the evening when Rupert awoke, not 
 so much refreshed as shaken and unnerved by the night- 
 mare slumbers into which he had fallen. One dread 
 predominated — the horrible fear evoked so calmly by 
 Bernstein, that Hippolyta might have done herself a fatal 
 injury or have met with foul play. To know that she 
 was living, though degraded and estranged from him for 
 ever, would have been consolation, in spite of what he 
 had exclaimed a few hours ago. Hippolyta's death was 
 an evil without a remedy ; he would bear anything, how- 
 ever disgraceful, rather than that. Search the dead- 
 houses, had Bernstein said ? What were the dead-houses 
 of London ? Whither did they take the drowned, and 
 the murdered, and the bodies of suicides in the great 
 Babylon ? There was no Morgue as at Paris. He began 
 to think over what he had seen from time to time in the 
 newspapers on this frightful subject. It seemed to him that 
 he ought to go from one hospital to another, from one 
 workhouse to another, and make inquiries that very night. 
 But the Jew would do all that was necessary, and let him 
 know if anything came of it. Rupert, with many a sigh, 
 had given him the only portrait he possessed of Hippolyta. 
 It was the one precious thing he carried with him wherever 
 he went. You remember it, reader? The sketch made 
 in happier days, soon after their engagement, which repre- 
 sented Hippolyta in her riding-habit, as Rupert beheld her 
 for the first time when, in the Hermitage, she turned round 
 from Ivor MardoPs book-shelves, and faced the intruder. 
 Nothing could be more light or graceful. But Mr. Bern- 
 stein, who had not been shy at expressing his admiration 
 for Rupert's portrayal of himself in the Academy, knew 
 human nature too well to say a word on receiving this of 
 Hippolyta He was sharp of speech and independent ; but 
 that silence was golden naturally occurred to him on observ- 
 ing the look with which Glanville abandoned his treasure. 
 Yes, the private-inquiry office would send what intelligence 
 it might have ; and the artist had implored Bernstein not 
 to delay, be the hour day or night, in despatching his 
 messenger to Clarence Gardens. But an unrest drove him 
 forth, and once he was in the streets, he might as well, it
 
 i THE NEW ANTIGOA \-\k\- tn 
 
 seemed to him, do that which lay nearest his heart and gain 
 assurance, if possible, that Hippolyta was yet living. 
 
 For the second time, then, he found himself wandering 
 about London alone, possessed with the thought of her, as 
 on that night which had seen the commencement of their 
 guilty happiness. Guilty, did he call it? Yes, he acknow- 
 
 .d his sin. He would not pretend that he was blame- 
 less, or had been coerced by a stronger will. He ought 
 to have resisted. The doom might have fallen upon Hip- 
 polyta which had now overtaken them both; it was fear 
 of it that had swayed him then ; but he saw now with 
 fatal clearness that what would have been at the worst his 
 misfortune was become his unpardonable crime. The night, 
 which was wild and stormy with chequered moonlight, re- 
 minded him of the flying clouds and cold brilliancy of that 
 former scene, when he had spent hour after hour meditating 
 on the temptation instead of resisting it. Again his thoughts 
 reverted to the solitude of that night, the silent ghostly 
 bridge, and the flood of waters hurrying between its arches 
 to the sea. Was Hippolyta floating along the river now, or 
 hidden in its depths amid the unutterable pollutions that 
 had revealed themselves to his vision where he stood, gazing 
 into it ? He dared not go near it yet. He would inquire 
 at a police station, at one or two of the workhouses which 
 he supposed must be in the neighbourhood, whether the 
 dead body of a woman had been found that day or the day 
 before. It was late, and suspicions might be aroused ; but 
 he could not go home, and, while he was abroad, this spirit 
 of unsatisfied longing drove him on. 
 
 He did inquire, at first with no result. There had been 
 accidents within the last forty-eight, within the last sixty, 
 hours of all kinds — drowning, burning, fatal collisions in 
 crowded streets, children run over, the bodies of new-born 
 babes found on the public highway, — casualties in the 
 battle of life which is ever going forward under the cloud 
 of civilisation that hides it and yet heightens its horror. 
 But on the list of the dead was no woman such as Glanville, 
 who dared not use too particular a description, inquired 
 after. Was he sure, they asked, that it was a case of 
 drowning? Other kinds of accidents were taken to the
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 161 
 
 hospitals, — indeed these were, too, when there seemed 
 hope of restoring animation. Rupert said in a low voice, 
 ' Thank you,' and went on his way. What was it he thanked 
 them for? The little courtesies which soften and adorn 
 our commonplace life have in them something hideous, 
 grotesque, sardonic, when they are repeated amid the 
 horrors of death. He turned to the first great hospital of 
 which the name was ringing with monotonous iteration in 
 his brain. He entered the hall, which at that hour, with 
 the lights half-turned down, looked vast and solemn. There 
 was some one keeping vigil, who rose when he appeared 
 on the threshold and came towards him. In a whisper he 
 asked whether any one had been brought there lately from 
 the river or elsewhere, any accident, — a woman, young, 
 fair-haired, — and he described Hippolyta. The night-porter 
 could not say; he would make inquiry, and he went in 
 search of a nurse. Soon they both came back, whispering. 
 The nurse looked at Glanville, saw he was a person of dis- 
 tinction, and replied that such a young woman, but poor, 
 in ragged garments, had been brought in early that morn- 
 ing, not from the river, but from a common lodging-house. 
 She had poisoned herself in a fit of despair, of shame, it 
 appeared. They had brought her round a little, but she 
 could not live. They did not know her name or history. 
 Would the gentleman see her? He followed the nurse at 
 once, stepping noiselessly upstairs, and was shown into a 
 great ward, full of beds, in almost every one of which lay 
 a sleeping patient. On his right, near a window, he was 
 bidden to look close and say whether he recognised the 
 young woman that lay there staring at him with eyes wide 
 open. She was not asleep, nor yet fully awake, but dazed 
 and speechless. Oh no, it was not Hippolyta. How could 
 they speak of that as fair hair ? They had never seen the 
 golden locks which had wounded his heart. The features 
 were pretty but wasted; he knew what sort of woman it 
 was ; and while he said so to himself in a low whisper, the 
 staring eyes seemed to gather consciousness and to look 
 at him more fixedly. No, no, not Hippolyta. Again he 
 thanked them and went out. 
 
 The clouds were drifting still, and the moon high. He 
 
 VOL. II. m
 
 Tli PAET m 
 
 rambled aimlessly, foiling into a slow walk, until, as he 
 moved past some huge building, his memory tapped him 
 
 on tin.- shoulder, as if to say, 'Ask the question here ; il 
 a workhouse which you pass when you are driving to the 
 station for Trelingham.' He rang the night-bell, inquin 
 
 was told that others had been there already on a like errand, 
 and that only th se of a boy, whom his mother had 
 
 stabbed the day previously, lay in the mortuary awaiting 
 an inquest. ' Bernstein, then,' he said to himself, ' is 
 taking pains, as he promised. Why do I not go home?' 
 But his limbs were possessed with the spirit he had called 
 up. On he went, uncertain of the ways, now hither, now 
 thither, sometimes inquiring when he found himself, he 
 knew not how, at the door of a police-station, sometimes 
 when his hand was on the bell turning as from a fruitless 
 search and passing by. Still, the instinct that led him 
 seemed to unlock these grim repositories ; and he remem- 
 bered years after the vision of the dead and drowned which 
 in that long night was opened to him. He saw more than 
 one woman, young or old, lying in her shroud prepared for 
 burial, or in the clothes she had worn when casting herself 
 into the river ; and the wan features and startled eyes 
 remained with him as a memory which he could never blot 
 out. What a terror clung to the withered, gray tresses, 
 stained with mud from the Thames, which he noticed, and 
 that instant stereotyped on his brain, when casting a hurried 
 glance into the dead-house, — at Kensington was it, or in 
 what other place? He did not know, but he remembered 
 the long gray tresses, which were not Hippolyta's, yet 
 moved him to compassion as though there could be a like- 
 ness between them and her sunny curls. Enough, enough. 
 He would not follow the spectre that held him so fast by the 
 hand, but return to his miserable couch and wait. The 
 morning brings good dreams, he said, and his eyes filled 
 with womanish, helpless tears. If but in a dream he might 
 see her for a moment, only once, only for so long as would 
 let him fix again in memory the features whose outline was 
 already growing dim. It was so little to ask. But his 
 prayer was vain ; and though he slept, not even in his 
 dreams would the lady of his heart appear tohim.
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 163 
 
 Ten days and nights passed in bootless wanderings 
 through the immeasurable forest of London, in sighs and 
 tears, and all the sad accompaniments of a downfallen love 
 which seem so bitter to him that undergoes them, so trivial 
 and unnecessary to others that only look on. It is strange 
 how the bleeding of a man to death, which has happened 
 sometimes on the ruin or loss of a beloved person, should 
 tend to excite mockery ; and yet it does. Glanville, with 
 this arrow in his heart, would not have dared to face his 
 friends ; he hid away from the intimates who would have 
 thronged round him had they known he was in town ; 
 and his feet strayed involuntarily towards the places 
 where he thought Hippolyta might be concealed, in the 
 dens of East London, which, as he had gathered from 
 William Dauris, she had been visiting while he was at 
 Trelingham. 
 
 On the tenth day Mr. Bernstein, who had sent him 
 short messages of no very definite import during this time, 
 appeared once more in his studio. He looked calm and 
 collected — a contrast to Rupert, whose eyes were begin- 
 ning to show that fatigued expression which follows upon 
 anxiety continued over sleepless nights. The Jew, how- 
 ever, had not been idle. Warranted by the artist's letter 
 to Mrs. Leeming, at Forrest House, he had searched into 
 every corner of the old mansion, and, though discover- 
 ing no clue to Hippolyta's disappearance, had been re- 
 warded by finding Annie Dauris's letter, brought by the 
 little boy on the morning of her flight, and locked up 
 in one of Mrs. Malcolm's jewel-boxes. At the same 
 time he had appropriated certain scraps of paper which 
 enabled him to compare Hippolyta's former handwriting 
 with that which she adopted in corresponding with Rupert. 
 All that the gardener or his wife had to tell of their 
 daughter, and of the lady's interest in her and attempts to 
 bring the girl to a sense of her duties, he likewise knew, 
 although he did not go near the cottage in Church Lane. 
 He had even come upon the trace of Annie, who, it now 
 appeared, had gone, as Hippolyta surmised, to Charlotte 
 Fraser's, stayed with her a day and a night, and afterwards 
 plunged into the obscure regions of London rascaldom,
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAM in 
 
 either, as he supposed, in search of Maurice ; . or to 
 meet him by a preconcerted arrangement 
 
 Rupert paid little attention to all this. What did it 
 matter where Annie I'auris went? She was not Hippolyta. 
 The details of private inquiry, however interesting to Mr. 
 Bernstein, were to him ignoble and disgusting. But he 
 woke from his lethargy when the Jew went on, in the same 
 unimpassioned voice, to say, ' We have likewise examined 
 Mr. .Mardol's connection with this strange affair. When 
 I heard the story from you last time I could not satisfy 
 myself as to which of the two gentlemen, Mr. Mardol or 
 Mr. Regan, was principal, and which was accessory — to use 
 the terms of the law. I am now confident that Mr. Mardol 
 has directed the game all through, while Mr. Regan may 
 have held the cards. I do not say otherwise as to that,' 
 he concluded. 
 
 'I was sure of it,' said Rupert in a low voice; 'but 
 could I think that Ivor was a villain ? ' 
 
 'I did not say so,' replied the Jew; 'it is not for me 
 to make a moral appreciation of his acts. But, first of all, 
 did he not say that he was unacquainted with Mrs. Malcolm 
 until he saw her in Denzil Lane ?' 
 
 ' Certainly,' answered Rupert ; ' he gave me his word 
 of honour that it was so.' 
 
 ' Vers' well ; and perhaps it was clever of him to persist 
 in a system of complete denial, for he may have dreamt 
 to himself that you could not reach the evidence. But 
 one has found in his desk a number of papers, written in 
 cypher indeed, to which we have not the key — that can 
 wait — but in the known characters of Miss Hippolyta 
 Valence. I will show you one morsel. See' — and be- 
 laid on the table a long thin strip of foreign note-paper 
 covered with writing, which Rupert instantly recognised ;is 
 Hippolyta's. He covered his fare with his hands. She 
 was lost to him for ever. Good heavens ! how had he 
 been deceived ? 
 
 ' Much,' said the Jew continuing, ' would depend on 
 the date of this correspondence ; but some of the envelopes 
 found with it retain their postmarks, which are of two and 
 even three years back. It is to be concluded, then, that
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 165 
 
 your friend was not speaking the truth when he denied to 
 know Miss Valence. And as the girl Annie Dauris will 
 account for the intrusion of Regan, we may assume in our 
 future investigations that Mr. Mardol is the person to watch 
 and convict.' 
 
 ' But what has he done with Hippolyta ? ' exclaimed 
 Rupert ; ' you should have watched him already.' 
 
 'We have done that, to be sure,' said Bernstein; 'he 
 does not leave home, however, except to go among the 
 working men whom he is in the habit of visiting, and they 
 appear to know nothing. Neither does he send letters by 
 post. There was one he posted two days since. It was 
 to you. Did you receive it ? ' 
 
 Rupert was fairly startled on hearing this slight but 
 extraordinary proof of the completeness with which Mr. 
 Bernstein conducted his investigations. He opened a 
 drawer behind him and took out the letter. The Jew's 
 eyes glittered for a moment like those of a gamester sweep- 
 ing the stakes into his pocket. 
 
 ' You have not answered it yet,' said he, looking attent- 
 ively at the artist ; ' what will you say to your friend ? ' 
 
 ' Don't call him my friend, or you will drive me mad,' 
 cried Rupert. ' No, I have not answered, though how you 
 know that is a mystery. Are you also acquainted with 
 the contents of this letter ? ' holding it out as he spoke. 
 
 Bernstein quietly waved it back with a motion of his hand. 
 ' I have seen them,' he said ; ' Mr. Mardol repeats the 
 asseveration that he is innocent of Miss Valence's disap- 
 pearance, and offers to help you in whatever steps you may 
 undertake for her recovery. Not true ? Is that not it ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' answered Rupert, more astonished than he chose 
 to say. The Jew waited for him to continue, but as he 
 seemed lost in thought, Mr. Bernstein himself resumed the 
 thread of the conversation. 
 
 ' If I might offer you an advice,' he said, ' I would 
 accept Mr. Mardol's proposition.' 
 
 ' What ! ' exclaimed the artist ; ' take his hand again, after 
 all these things ; after breaking with him as I have done ? 
 Never ! Our friendship is at an end. He has murdered it.' 
 
 ' Ta, ta, ta,' said the Jew contemptuously ; ' that is the
 
 166 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-aiit m 
 
 reason itself of my counsel to you. The proverb says, "To 
 nie, a rogue and a half." Mr. Mardol is a false friend, 
 you say. Good — then you must be more false friend.' 
 
 ' I could not do that,' said Rupert slowly. Mr. Bern- 
 stein got up and came to within a foot of where he was 
 seated. The artist in surprise eyed him, not without 
 curiosity. 
 
 I My dear sir,' began the private detective in his horta- 
 tory voice, ' Mr. Mardol is, you say, a villain, a taugenichts, 
 or what worse ; but when he wrote to you he was doing 
 you one service and me another. We will succeed by his 
 means. But, Mr. Glanville,' he went on sternly, ' how will 
 we succeed if you do not keep your share of the bargain ? ' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? ' said Rupert, rising in his 
 astonishment. 
 
 I I mean,' said the Jew, ' that it was understood between 
 us that I should conduct this search, not you. And you 
 are crossing our path at every turn, and asking imprudent 
 and unnecessary questions, and raising the dust of suspicion 
 where it is not easy to bring water and lay it. Why should 
 you go to the dead-houses and the hospitals? If there 
 was anything I would have informed you. But it is like 
 two packs of hounds running down the same hare. They 
 do only run into one another, and the hare escapes to her 
 form. So is it with hunting in these fields. With one 
 word, it cannot go on.' 
 
 Rupert felt the justice of his remarks and endeavoured 
 to apologise. But it was a bitter draught, explaining the 
 restlessness of a great sorrow to this vulgar Jew. ' Oh, 
 Hippolyta,' he thought to himself, 'how are we fallen ! 
 Must you be dragged in the mire, and our love be desecrated 
 like this ? ' Mr. Bernstein was not unacquainted with the 
 outward fashion of intense grief. He listened to the 
 apology and seemed satisfied. 
 
 ' There are attenuating circumstances, I know,' he said ; 
 'it is not my purpose to forsake this investigation, which 
 promises to be curious. But now Mr. Ivor Mardol comes 
 to our aid. You desire something to watch. Watch him. 
 For, I must tell you,' he went on as if to anticipate Rupert's 
 objections, 'you did not right, eleven days since, when you
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 167 
 
 threw away the opportunity of seeing all he would do. It 
 was the very time when you should have clung to him like 
 a leech. Ah yes, like a leech. But there is no loss, because 
 he -has laid his plans cunningly; and in what place Mrs. 
 Malcolm may be, she will stay there until the storm has 
 blown over. It was done at a stroke, cleverly, when you 
 could not be there. Accordingly, it is now required to 
 lay by hurry and passion, to persuade Mr. Mardol that 
 you take him at his word, and to constitute yourself his 
 gaoler, which you may do, if you please, from henceforth. 
 And you will do it, if you are truly attached to Miss 
 Valence. On the other foot, you will lose her once for all.' 
 
 The last words told. It was quite true. Granting that 
 Ivor Mardol was the agent who had put all this machinery 
 in motion, there could be no method of gaining control 
 over it so effectual as to be ever by his side on terms of 
 close friendship. Treachery was it ? But who had been 
 traitor first ? And if, as he pretended, Ivor was innocent, 
 there could be no harm in accepting a proposal he had made 
 himself. When the letter came containing his attempted 
 exculpation, Rupert had been minded to fling it in the fire 
 without opening it. He was now glad he had restrained his 
 passion. There were signs of relenting in his attitude as 
 he sat down once more and motioned Bernstein to his seat. 
 
 ' What do you advise ? ' he asked, without looking up. 
 
 ' I shall advise,' answered Bernstein, ' something which 
 is full of hazard, especially for a celebrated man like yourself. 
 If you wish to pry into all Mr. Mardol's doings, you must be- 
 come a member of his world — in other words, a Nihilist.' 
 
 ' I become a Nihilist ! ' cried Rupert, with a mocking 
 laugh. ' The suggestion is piquant. Why don't you bid 
 me sell myself to the devil, eh Mephistopheles ? ' 
 
 ' Because I am not Mephistopheles,' replied the Jew, 
 as calmly as before, 'and because it would not advance 
 matters, unless that potentate could tell us where Miss 
 Valence is now. Come, Mr. Glanville, think it over, and 
 you will confess it is the only way. I can watch Mr. 
 Mardol so long as he keeps on this side of the curtain ; 
 but when he goes through it into the secret chambers of his 
 fellow-revolutionists I cannot, or at any rate I do not
 
 168 TR ANTIGONE CAST in 
 
 desire to follow him. I have told jrou it is not my depart- 
 ment. But you, who do not (arc if the anarchists blow up 
 the Tower of London to-morrow, need not be scrupulous 
 in joining them. You can then keep an eye on Mr. 
 Mardol during every one of the twenty-four hours. He did 
 not foreshadow this move when he wrote to you his letter. 
 It will give him the checkmate. He will be in your hands 
 like a child or a teetotum, to spin round.' 
 
 All this appeared plausible enough ; and to a desperate 
 man, whose prospect in life without Hippolyta seemed like 
 a long unbroken winter, the reasons which Bernstein urged 
 with force and conviction might well prove decisive. They 
 did so, in fact, although not until the Jew had presented 
 them in the strongest light, adding that in the alternative of 
 ( Danville's refusing, he would throw up the game and sweep 
 the pieces from the board. ' When you have become one 
 of the society,' he continued, ' the match will be in your 
 favour. I suppose Mrs. Malcolm cherished a real affection 
 for you. In that case she may be persuaded to return, 
 since in you she will find the realisation of her ideal, who 
 should undoubtedly be a hero of the new order. Besides 
 that, you will acquire friends whose co-operation may be 
 indispensable, but of whom the very existence is not as yet 
 known to you. Acknowledge Mr. Mardol's letter, appoint 
 him a meeting here, and tell him frankly that you believe 
 his defence, and only wish now to discover Colonel Valence. 
 For that purpose you entreat him to make you an entrance 
 into the society. He will at first refuse on the score of 
 principle. But, tell me, you have never posed as a friend 
 of absolute power? You are known as a free-thinker, and 
 have nothing to unsay ? If I had not ascertained that 
 such was your reputation I would not have presented 
 myself with this proposition in my hand.' 
 
 Rupert could not help admiring the combination of 
 frankness and guile in Bernstein's proposal. To make an 
 anarchist of a free-thinking artist was by no means difficult ; 
 and were example sufficient to justify that course it might 
 be had for the asking. More than one well-known poet 
 and painter had been enrolled in the Nihilist ranks. Nay, 
 was it not the consummate litterateur, Turgenieff, who had
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 169 
 
 invented the name ? But it might be too late. Would 
 not Ivor suspect this instantaneous conversion ? 
 
 ' No,' answered the Jew, ' not if you are as unreserved as 
 I -advise you to be. Make the prime motive your desire to 
 meet Colonel Valence. The rest, considering your pre- 
 vious history and opinions, will seem perfectly reasonable. 
 I should tell you that, while we know Mr. Maurice Regan 
 left England last Friday on his way to Brussels, we cannot 
 discover Colonel Valence or any one that has heard his 
 name out of the neighbourhood of Falside, where inquiries 
 were instituted immediately. 
 
 'And the women arrested at Brussels?' asked Rupert, 
 ' is anything further known of them ? In the English 
 newspapers it is only said that they have undergone a fresh 
 examination.' 
 
 ' Here are their photographs, with the accompanying 
 description by the Belgian police,' replied Bernstein, taking 
 a packet out of the valise he had brought with him into 
 the room. 'I do not think either of them can be Miss 
 Hippolyta Valence.' 
 
 Neither did the artist, when he had seen the portraits 
 and studied the accounts sent with them. One of the 
 faces was too old, the other too young ; and it was impossible 
 that Hippolyta, however skilful in disguising herself, should 
 have altered the very contour of her features. What was 
 known of the women's antecedents, though needing con- 
 firmation, made the non-identity yet more certain. He 
 gave back the parcel to the Jew, promised he would send 
 for Ivor that afternoon, and arranged the plan upon which, 
 in the alternatives of success or failure, they were to pro- 
 ceed. 
 
 When Bernstein was gone Rupert hastily scribbled the 
 words, ' Come and see me at once,' and sent them by 
 a messenger to Grafton Place. In a short time the sound 
 of wheels was heard at the door, and Glanville, watching 
 from the dining-room window, saw Ivor Mardol alight and 
 run up the steps. Determined to act his part thoroughly 
 now he had taken it up, Rupert came out into the hall, 
 shook Ivor by the hand — a pressure which his old friend 
 warmly returned — and led him into the study, where Bern-
 
 170 THE NEW ANT1 PAW in 
 
 stein's chair, standing in the middle of the room, testified 
 that a visitor had not long departed. The sudden chan 
 in Rupert's behaviour, which he had been far from expect- 
 ing — or was it anything else? — occasioned such uncon- 
 trollable emotion in Ivor that for some minutes lie was 
 unable to speak. 
 
 I have said that Rupert had almost in excess the artistic 
 quality which seizes upon the present with a passion and 
 firmness of grasp, which are utterly beyond the reach of 
 those in whom reason and memory are stronger than imagi- 
 nation. It is the endowment which makes a consummate 
 actor. And another crift he had which does not so often 
 accompany it, due rather to the melancholy underlying his 
 everyday character, — I mean that of keeping a secret from 
 friends who, in other respects, were admitted to the fullest 
 confidence. He could be frank enough to win implicit 
 trust for what he said, while he was giving in return only 
 so much as he deemed expedient. These were dangerous 
 powers, and he knew it ; but the time seemed to have 
 arrived when he must stake or lose all, and he resolved 
 to play the game boldly. It roused an excitement within 
 him which, like one fever driving out another, made his 
 grief for Hippolyta, though not less real, in some degree 
 less poignant. Towards Ivor Mardol, who had lied to him 
 deliberately, who had for years been carrying on relations 
 with Colonel Valence's daughter which must have continued 
 during her stay at Forrest House, Rupert's feeling was that of 
 the Red Indian who treads noiselessly in every footstep his 
 intended victim has made, always seeing his murdered man 
 — to quote Keats's fine expression — a little ahead of him, 
 and following with uplifted tomahawk until the moment is 
 come to strike him dead. Treachery for treachery ! Be it 
 so. What other way was there of recovering Hippolyta or 
 avenging her loss? 
 
 With the caressing eloquence, therefore, which he knew 
 so well how to practise, Rupert, waving aside his old friend's 
 attempt at exculpation as needless, and ing the harsh 
 
 words that had sundered them during these days on the 
 ground of sudden, irresponsible passion, went straight to the 
 point he intended. He might count on Ivor's devotion,
 
 chap, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 171 
 
 might he not ? On his help in the calamity which had be- 
 fallen him ? Yes, he knew it. That was the reason he had 
 sent for him. Rupert confessed, in terms of affection and 
 self-rebuke, that he had been punished for keeping a secret 
 from his dearest friend. That secret was the love which 
 had sprung up, how, where, and when it mattered not, be- 
 tween himself and Hippolyta Valence. He watched for a 
 change in Ivor's countenance, but no, the dissembling was 
 perfect. Well and good. Hippolyta, who had had her own 
 motives for living under the name of Mrs. Malcolm, had 
 disappeared and could no longer be found. She had not 
 returned to Falside; in London, what hope was there of 
 coming upon her traces ? The speaker's voice faltered as 
 he went on to declare that he did not believe she was dead, 
 or had met with a violent end. In the first outbreak of 
 distress and fear he had charged Ivor with abducting her. 
 It was, of course, absurd. He would not dwell upon the 
 painful exhibition he had made of himself that morning. 
 But, surely, some one had induced her to quit the house in 
 which she had been residing and, without a moment's 
 notice, to abandon those to whom she was dearer than life. 
 Who could it be ? After long meditation he had arrived 
 at the belief that it was her father, Colonel Valence. What 
 did Ivor think ? 
 
 Ivor, who sat listening with his eyes fixed on Rupert, 
 had not asked, and did not ask now, under what circum- 
 stances a young lady like Miss Valence was living away 
 from home. It would have been an unpleasant query, 
 though put by a friend. Rupert supposed that he was 
 aware and did not require telling. Nor was he surprised 
 when Ivor, instead of assenting to his theory about Colonel 
 Valence, replied simply that he knew not what to think. 
 He was evidently unwilling that Rupert should tear down the 
 shelter afforded him by Hippolyta's father, — a thing which 
 might speedily have happened were the Colonel sought after 
 and proved innocent. Rupert returned to the charge ; and 
 Ivor, after making protestation that he did not wish to think 
 evil of a man he had never seen (Rupert almost ground his 
 teeth on hearing him repeat the falsehood), at last yielded 
 and said, ' Suppose it were he, then ? '
 
 i 7 j JE NEW ANTIGONE pabt in 
 
 'Then,' cried Rupert, feigning more passion than he felt, 
 'I must discover him wherever he is,' and he straightway 
 
 proceeded with the second half of the scheme. When lie- 
 spoke of joining the anarchists his friend smiled ; but, as 
 he went on to assert with growing vehemence that he should 
 certainly do it, cost what it might, Ivor turned pale. Did 
 he see his plans checkmated ? But he merely said, ' If you 
 had resolved on it, Rupert, why did you not join our 
 society before telling me ? I need not have known ; where- 
 as, hereafter, you will be putting me in a dilemma where I 
 must either denounce my friend or break my pledged word 
 to my associates. Are you not aware that it is incompatible 
 with the existence of a secret society to allow men like 
 yourself to enter it, or not to denounce them if by any 
 means they have got in ? ' 
 
 'Men like myself!' repeated his friend. 'Ah, to be 
 sure, you mean traitors and disbelievers in the principles 
 of revolution. But I shall be no traitor. I am as ready- 
 as yourself to subscribe and to propagate the creed you 
 maintain.' 
 
 ' Readier, perhaps,' said Ivor, with a melancholy smile ; 
 'but that will hardly save you, should your motives for 
 joining us be revealed, as they might be.' He spoke with 
 much deliberation. 
 
 Rupert looked at him. Was it a veiled threat ? ' Yes,' 
 he said to himself, ' I dare be sworn they would be revealed 
 when it suited this fellow's convenience ; but that is part of 
 the risk.' And then aloud, ' No, Ivor ; they would be 
 quite safe so long as you were the sole confident of them, 
 which is what I have in view. I want you, in short, to 
 introduce me — to be my sponsor and the guarantee for my 
 orthodoxy.' 
 
 ' Me, my dear fellow,' exclaimed Ivor with agitation in 
 his bearing and accent. ' Could there be anything more 
 unfortunate ? It is impossible. In the first place, knowing 
 your motives, I should be acting a disloyal part to the asso- 
 ciation ; and, in the second, I am myself under a cloud and 
 what you may call excommunicate from the brethren.' 
 
 Glanville heard him with increasing hatred and admira- 
 tion. He was an abominable liar and scoundrel, but how
 
 uhap. xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 173 
 
 ready, how fertile in device ! It had not cost him a moment 
 to strike out a double line of fortification between himself 
 and the enemy. But it should not avail him. The artist 
 affected not to take his words seriously. 
 
 1 Bah, my dear Ivor,' he said, ' do you mean to tell me 
 there is a single lodge in Great Britain that you could not 
 enter this evening, and bring a friend in your train, if you 
 chose ? ' 
 
 Ivor seemed to feel embarrassed. ' No,' he replied, 
 though with evident reluctance ; ' I do not say that. The 
 matter is not one I can explain to a stranger, since all are 
 strangers,' he added, as if to preclude offence, ' who have 
 not taken our engagements. But I may tell you that I have 
 been deprived of the offices I held, and am looked on by 
 the most influential leaders with extreme distrust and dislike. 
 I have attended no meeting for months. I do not know 
 when I shall.' 
 
 ' Here is an opportunity,' returned Glanville, who did not 
 believe a syllable of what Ivor had just trumped up, as he 
 scornfully whispered to himself. 'You could not have a 
 better. You are a strayed sheep returning to the fold of 
 your own accord, and bringing another to prove your sin- 
 cerity. It is the very thing.' 
 
 Mardol shook his head. 'No, it is not,' he said. 'I 
 mind my own risk as lightly as any man. But I will not 
 encourage my friend to thrust himself, unarmed, into the 
 lion's den. Do be persuaded, Rupert. Leave it to me 
 to find Colonel Valence and his daughter, since you are 
 sure they belong to us. I will make search in all direc- 
 tions.' 
 
 ' Leave it to him, ay, that is what he would like,' was the 
 mental commentary with which Glanville heard these words. 
 He must strike the decisive blow. He stood up, walked 
 across the study, and put his hand on Ivor's shoulder. 
 Ivor turned his head towards the face which was bent down 
 over him. 
 
 ' Look here, Mardol,' said Rupert in clear metallic tones. 
 It was so seldom that he called his friend anything but Ivor, 
 that the young man put his hand to his heart with a sudden 
 pang on hearing the colder designation. Rupert, who knew
 
 in THE NEW NE past in 
 
 how sensitive bis affection was, or had b iticed the 
 
 gesture with satisfai don, Was he still capable of being 
 wounded? So much the better. 
 
 Glanville, hardly pausing, continued what he had intended 
 to say. 'Things between you and me' — such were his 
 words — 'have come to a pass where friendship must sh< 
 itself heroic or must cease altogether to exist. There is no 
 method by which I can hope to recover .Miss Valence, or 
 even to learn whether she still breathes, but this of entering 
 your association. You, and you alone, can open the door 
 to me. Do so, and you shall have your fitting reward, if 
 you require any beyond that of helping a friend. Refuse, 
 and we part, not now in passion as we did ten days ago, 
 but with our eyes open, and for ever.' 
 
 He went back to his chair and sat down. Ivor's pale- 
 ness became ghastly and his breath was like that of a man 
 labouring under the greatest agitation. At last he said, 
 ' Rupert, it is a hard battle. Will you give me your solemn 
 promise not to betray the secrets, whether political or non- 
 political, of the society ? ' 
 
 ' With pleasure,' answered Glanville, who perceived that 
 he was relenting. ' I will keep all the ordinances with the 
 same fidelity which you would exact from the meanest 
 member.' 
 
 ' There are no mean members,' said Ivor; ' we are all 
 equal once we have taken the oath.' 
 
 ' Very well ; then count me as your equal in this respect. 
 1 want to see Colonel Valence, and I am prepared to pay 
 the price. Can I say fairer ? Come, decide.' 
 
 ' It shall be as you wish,' said Ivor, his voice sinking. 
 ' What would life be without your friendship?' 
 
 'What, indeed?' returned the artist in the bantering 
 tone with which he was accustomed to receive Ivor Mardol's 
 idolatries when they were at school together. The light 
 mockery seemed to exhilarate the heart to which it was 
 addressed. Ivor, too, rose from his seat, and stretching 
 out his arms and shaking himself, as though to get quit of 
 a burden, he said in a lighter tone to Rupert, ' And to 
 which party among us do you suppose Colonel Valence to 
 belong? Is he a Spartan or an Athenian?'
 
 CHAP, xxx INTER MORTUOS LIBER 175 
 
 'I am sure I cannot tell,' said Rupert; 'explain your 
 meaning, my philosopher.' 
 
 ' Not now,' answered his friend ; ' this conversation has 
 fatigued me horribly. By and by. I will take you first, 
 however, to see the Athenians. Hold yourself free from 
 engagements till you hear from me.'
 
 CHAPTER XXX] 
 
 ANARCHY IN PURPLE 
 
 RUPERT sent a faithful account of the conversation between 
 himself and Ivor that same night to Mr. Bernstein. It was 
 like acting the spy and the traitor, but he said, while en- 
 gaged upon it, 'The curtain has drawn up, I have come 
 before the footlights, and, so long as the play lasts, I must 
 be true to the character I have assumed, not to Rupert 
 Glanville, who lies in a magic sleep.' He could not unravel 
 the threads of Mardol's discourse when reflecting on it, 
 nor had he dreamt that so calm and metaphysical a mind 
 could thus develop the gifts of an arch-intriguer. When 
 would the imposture burst ? And how long should he be 
 compelled to wait until the re-appearance of Hippolyta ? 
 However, he gave up rambling through the ways of the 
 metropolis, dizzied himself with occupation, and, as in the 
 days when he was longing for the one who had now aban- 
 doned him, rode from morn till dusk, and came in half- 
 dead with fatigue. 
 
 It was an inexpressible relief to him when Ivor ran 
 hastily in on a mild and spring-like evening, soon after he 
 had taken off his riding-things — for he had only just come 
 in from a long expedition out of town — and said to him, 
 ' You are to meet the Athenians this evening ; how long 
 will it take you to get ready?' 
 
 ' Must I dress ?' inquired Rupert ; ' what do the Athenians 
 wear — a chlamys or a chiton ? I haven't got either in the 
 house; we shall have to adjourn to my studio.' 
 
 'I am sorry to say there is no need,' returned Ivor; 
 ' they wear the ordinary evening-dress of European gentle-
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 177 
 
 men. But the distance is considerable. Do you know the 
 
 Duke of Adullam's house at ?' He mentioned an 
 
 outskirt of London. On hearing the Duke's name Rupert 
 turned round and laughed. 
 
 'Are you acquainted with him?' inquired the artist. 
 ' I thought you never entered the society of Dukes.' 
 
 'I have entered his,' was the reply, 'and must do so 
 again. He invites you to dinner ; but I may as well warn 
 you that after dinner, when the uninitiated have taken 
 their leave, we shall hold open lodge for your benefit. I 
 am keeping my ill -given promise to introduce you as a 
 candidate. The rest you will look to yourself. A wrong 
 answer, a slightly too conservative opinion, may ruin you.' 
 
 ' Then you must coach me before we start,' said Rupert. 
 ' I am quick at catching the sense, or nonsense, of a brief. 
 Tell me what is expected, and I will mouth faithfully what 
 madness would gambol from, — how do the verses run?' 
 
 ' Be serious,' his friend said. He was afraid of these 
 high spirits, which prompted Rupert sometimes to dangerous 
 frivolity. 'What is expected of you is to show that you 
 understand and sympathise with the Revolution. If you 
 have the principles sound within you, the words will come 
 of themselves. But let me tell you that you will meet men 
 of quick discernment' 
 
 'And is the Duke a Socialist?' laughed Rupert, going 
 off to dress. 
 
 ' You shall know when you have passed your examina- 
 tion,' said Ivor. 
 
 Rupert quickly finished his transformation, and when he 
 came down, the two apparently devoted friends, in whose 
 hearts such different feelings were ascendant, drove at a 
 rapid pace along the western road, and found themselves, 
 towards -eight o'clock, traversing the country lanes under 
 the dim radiance of the stars. Glanville, though like the 
 rest of civilised men he knew by repute the house to which 
 they were going, had never seen the outside of the park in 
 which it stood ; nor had he met the Duke of Adullam. 
 
 This Scriptural name, which conceals an illustrious and 
 very ancient title, had been given to the Duke by his 
 intimate friends, as well as by his inveterate enemies, for 
 
 VOL. 11. n
 
 178 THE NEW ANTIGOh past in 
 
 much the same reasons which made it a political weapon 
 of ofience on a memorable occasion. Before his father's 
 decease the J Hike had figured in the House of Commons 
 as a leader of opposition, whose reckless and daring elo- 
 quence, combined with a personal (harm which few could 
 resist, had threatened to sweep away a Ministry and to 
 break up a party. That the party happened to be his own, 
 and the Ministry that of their opponents, seemed not to 
 trouble him at all, and added a bizarre interest to the man 
 whose pleasure evidently lay in making mischief and leaving 
 others to pay for it. 
 
 But at the opportune moment, when both sides of the 
 House were trembling with dismay, a god appeared out 
 of the machine and the country was saved. It was no 
 other than Hermes, who conducts the shades to Charon's 
 ferry. The Duke, the old Duke, our present Duke's 
 father, was struck with apoplexy, whether on seeing his 
 son's disregard of the sacred obligations of party, or in 
 the natural course, was not apparent But he did the 
 one thing asked of him — he died, — and his son was rapt 
 in a golden cloud to the House of Lords. The party was 
 not dissolved, and the Ministry did not resign. These 
 latter gentlemen, in the fulness of their hearts, would 
 have offered the dead Duke a public vote of thanks and 
 his remains a resting-place in Westminster Abbey, could 
 they have discovered any other service he had done the 
 nation save that of dying at the right conjuncture. As it 
 was, they found some relief to their joyous feelings in con- 
 doling with the House of Commons on the loss it had sus- 
 tained by the Marquis of 's translation to another 
 
 place. The new Duke was not vindictive, but he felt the 
 wound. Henceforth, although he did not openly proclaim 
 war against the social order, he patronised all those that 
 did. In becoming a Duke he felt that he had ceased to 
 be a leader of men. 
 
 He set about showing his resentment, however, in a 
 way of his own. The late member of the House of 
 Commons and leader of a democratic section therein, 
 became at one stroke its severest critic and, as the 
 unthinking public supposed, a High Tor)'. He had some-
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 179 
 
 times affected the magnificent style of Edmund Burke, — 
 he was clever at adopting any style for the nonce, — and 
 had termed the Commons' House the august depositary of 
 the rights and liberties of Englishmen. He now turned 
 completely round. In many a winged speech, barbed with 
 truth and polished like the edge of a razor, he showed that 
 if Parliament was the acme of respectabilities, it was, for 
 that very reason, a bundle of vested interests bound round 
 the axe of the tax-gatherer, as the rods were tied about the 
 Roman lictor's. His picturesque words and bold delivery 
 drew cheers and laughter from the crowd, whom he was 
 careful not to identify with a vulgar House of Commons. 
 His epigrams, witty as they were cynical, made a stir in the 
 languid air of society, and were relished by those who 
 despised not only the degenerate Parliament of England, 
 but all Parliaments and all peoples. His reputation rose 
 higher than ever, and prophets were not wanting who 
 spoke of the coming Tory Prime Minister as one that 
 would bring, back the days of Pitt and Chatham. They 
 were in the wrong. After making a brilliant debut in the 
 House of Lords, — which, however, though he charmed 
 never so wisely, could not be persuaded to sit over the 
 dinner-hour, — and when he might have spent his days 
 in receiving informal deputations from all the interests at 
 which he gibed, the Duke suddenly abandoned politics, 
 and was seen no more on platforms. He had found, or 
 was endeavouring, like Tiberius, to invent, a new excitement. 
 When he was tired of attacking respectability he outraged 
 it. Hitherto a man of average, if not of irreproachable con- 
 duct, he shocked every one by publicly professing, in modern 
 London, the principles of the Regent Orleans. That he 
 chose to practise them was, in comparison with this parade 
 of belief in them, venial and trifling. Society has never 
 thought it right to interfere with a man's private pleasures, 
 least of all with those of a great Duke. But it does insist, 
 on this side of the English Channel, that vice shall pay 
 due homage to virtue, whether in the shape of hypocrisy, 
 or in that of reserve and a decent reticence. The Duke 
 was not married ; and it would have contributed to the 
 happiness of others in his own rank with whom he was on
 
 1S0 THE NRW ANTIGONE taut in 
 
 intimate terms, had they not been married either. It h 
 been said, with some truth, that no woman could resist 
 him. They did not always make the attempt He w 
 perfectly unscrupulous, foolhardy, and unblusluY His 
 
 reputation among decent people was that of a man who 
 had shamed his pedigree, his order, his relations, his 
 acquaintance. He would have sought admittance in vain 
 at doors which would be gladly thrown open, a deux 
 battants, as the French say, to visitors that brought with 
 them only the shadow of his strawberry leaves. But he 
 did not seek admittance at such. He went into circles 
 which gave him an affectionate welcome, and he sounded 
 the almost unfathomable depths of refined and cultured 
 vice. He was still in the prime of manhood. At twenty- 
 five he had achieved fame in the House of Commons ; 
 he was not seven and twenty when a malignant fate 
 decreed that he should sink into inglorious ease among the 
 peers of the realm. And he was now enjoying an evil 
 reputation of some ten years' standing. All this was matter 
 of extreme notoriety ; it might be known to the dogs in 
 the street, and it could not escape the ears of Glanville, 
 who, though not mixing in the society haunted by the 
 Duke, had often heard his character discussed, and was 
 aware that he sheltered under his roof every kind of 
 doubtful person, foreign and domestic, making himself still 
 a leader in those private coteries which influence the rise 
 and fall of Governments, the success of opera-singers, and 
 the fortunes of a play. It was from the universal access 
 which distressed persons had to the Duke, especially if 
 their character was at a discount, or the police took an 
 interest in them, that he had acquired the title of Adullam, 
 and his villa, to which Rupert and Ivor were now drawing 
 near, that of the ' Cave.' 
 
 In spite of the disenchantment which Glanville had 
 experienced during the last few days in regard to Ivor, he 
 could not refrain from feeling, and expressing, his surprise 
 that so austere a personage should endure the acquaintance 
 of the Duke of Adullam. Ivor answered very little. He 
 warned Rupert that until his initiation should be complete, 
 and his loyalty to the brethren tested, there were matters
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 181 
 
 of consequence which he must take as he found them, for 
 no explanation would be forthcoming. If he dreamt of 
 purchasing secrets to-morrow by taking an oath this 
 evening, he would be grievously disappointed. The artist 
 bit his lips and kept silent. Evidently there was a struggle 
 impending in the future that would call out all his energies. 
 He must be wary and not impulsive, or his defeat was 
 certain. 
 
 Buried in these reflections, which did not tend to raise 
 his spirits, Glanville hardly noticed that they were passing 
 through the gates of a lodge and entering a long avenue 
 which was formed by great trees, the outline of whose 
 stems and foliage, dimly visible under the stars, was no 
 less grand than sombre. It might be some half-mile to the 
 house ; and, as they approached it, they saw the front door 
 open, several other carriages standing before it as if just 
 drawn up, and the windows right and left blazing with lights. 
 They got out, and, passing up the wide steps to a terrace 
 bordered with flowers, which were all dark and asleep in 
 the night-time, entered a splendid hall hung round with 
 paintings. Ivor, the shy and philosophic Ivor, appeared 
 to be at home in the midst of these grandeurs ; the 
 servants likewise seemed to know him well, and for the 
 first time in his life Rupert felt that he was under the 
 protection of a man from whom, however great his affection 
 might have been for him, he had never anticipated that 
 particular kind of service. 
 
 They were shown into a smaller room, fitted up as a 
 salon in the style of Louis XV., where they found the 
 Duke awaiting his guests. It was, Ivor said in the carriage, 
 to be a bachelors' party. Rupert was introduced by his 
 engraver friend, whom the Duke lightly rallied for having 
 deserted the Cave so many months together. Ivor Mardol 
 replied that business had taken him abroad for one thing, 
 and that principle had kept him at home for another. 
 His Grace of Adullam smiled. He was a singularly pre- 
 possessing man, though not exactly handsome. But Rupert 
 liked a human being to show some individual traits of 
 character, even at the cost of a little beauty, and not to be 
 eternally reminding one of that sad, unsatisfying Antinous.
 
 [8a 7I/E XEU ANTIGONE past in 
 
 The Duke's figure was well proportioned and he seemed 
 neither tall nor short, though he stood six feet in actual 
 measurement His motions were gra< eful as a panther's, 
 his voice lingered in the memory; and the large dark eyes, 
 flaming like a basilisk's, told, no less than the melancholy 
 passionate mouth, of a spirit that suffered the reverse of 
 the pain of Tantalus, — not the longing before satiety, but 
 the despair which comes after it. Ivor, when the Duke 
 moved away, turned to his friend and said, ' What do you 
 think of him? I have invented a Shakes] icarian compound 
 name for the kind; I call it "restless-drooping."' The 
 artist assented, but thought he should like to hear more of 
 the voice that corresponded to the countenance and figure. 
 He was not to be baulked. When the number of guests 
 was full they went rather silently into the dining-room, 
 which was long and narrow, not unlike the picture-gallery 
 at Trelingham, fitted up with a panelling of dark polished 
 wood against which shone marble statues of exquisite 
 loveliness. The lights were low and soft, except where 
 they threw a blaze from above on the dinner-table; and 
 somewhere in the distance might be heard the sound of 
 running water, a subdued ripple which seemed uncon- 
 sciously to tone the conversation that ensued and fill up 
 its pauses. Rupert was charmed and, he could not but 
 allow, surprised. Not that he had imagined he was invited 
 to a noisy rout ; the Duke was well known for his ex- 
 treme refinement, and had never mixed with the rabble 
 which stands on the outskirts of the highest society as on 
 those of the low r est. But he had looked for something 
 different. Were the guests around him anarchists? He 
 examined them one by one. There were sixteen at table 
 counting the Duke, who, as Rupert was again astonished 
 to observe, had seated Ivor in the place of distinction at 
 his right hand, where he talked to him earnestly. The 
 young man took his honours with unruffled mien and 
 seemed entirely at his ease. There was now no shade of 
 anxiety on his brow. Again Glanville marvelled that he 
 should be so thorough an adept in dissimulation. Ivor, 
 he said to himself, knew that he had taken Hippolyta from 
 his friend, and that his friend knew it. And he was sitting
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 1S3 
 
 with that friend at the same table as completely unmoved, 
 as entirely master of himself, as though his loyalty had been 
 unimpeached and unimpeachable. What a vile masquerade 
 was life and friendship ! 
 
 His thoughts reverted to the others. Were they indeed 
 patrons or partisans of anarchy ? The table at which they 
 were met was a Duke's ; the wines, the viands, the flowers 
 that bloomed around them, were each in their kind rare and 
 exquisite. Life in these climates had nothing more perfect 
 to show on its material side ; the senses were gratified to 
 their highest, and every crumpled rose-leaf that could trouble 
 their enjoyment was swept away. He noted the conversa- 
 tion. It was clever and ingenious, but at times something 
 too searched-out, — he found himself saying with Holofernes, 
 ' too peregrinate,' — to bear the stamp of unpremeditated 
 gaiety. Nor was it exactly gay. It was high-pitched and 
 then languorous, abounding in prose which apparently ex- 
 hausted the resources of impassioned verse, yet could not 
 express its meaning to the speaker's satisfaction. Some of 
 the guests were gentle almost to effeminacy, and their out-of- 
 the-way learning contrasted singularly with the mincing, 
 tender tones in which they gave utterance to it. Two or 
 three past the first years of old age were, on the other 
 hand, grave, sententious, and majestic. Wearing the Floren- 
 tine lucco instead of the black dress-coat and waistcoat, 
 they might have come straight from the Purgatorio of Dante, 
 with their earnest gestures and slow sonorous voices. These 
 were not all English, like the young, wild-haired — and per- 
 haps, in spite of their seriousness, hare-brained — dilettanti 
 whom Rupert recognised as of the class which is perpetually 
 discoursing of poems and pictures, though incapable of 
 creating either. What struck him in all the talk was its 
 chaotic nature. Not only did every man appear to have 
 different patterns of heaven, earth, and hell from those 
 which his neighbour carried, but the number of discordant 
 patterns in each sample -book was without end. These 
 strange guests, who did not mention or call each other by 
 their names, had read everything, seen everything, and 
 travelled everywhere. They had opened Pandora's box 
 and rifled it of its contents, but not one of them had found
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt tn 
 
 Hope at the bottom. He could not hut allow that they 
 were erudite, refined, polished to excess, but the refini 
 
 merit seemed to have undone the work of travel and ex- 
 perience ; it hail taken the life out of these men and extin- 
 guished in them the last spark of spontaneity. Art had 
 overcome Nature ; the fine-spun inner clothing had com- 
 pletely wrapped up and overlaid that fine-spun inner flesh 
 that we call temperament and genius. There could be no 
 passion where there was no fire; but the curious fact re- 
 mained that in every sentence enough passion was breathed 
 forth to outdo Cleopatra and Sappho. Rupert laughed in 
 wardly when he perceived that he could remember only the 
 names of women to match these simulacra of men. 
 
 Yes, they were anarchists surely. They denied, doubted, 
 disparaged ; they had nothing but refined scorn for all that 
 makes life worth living. They called nothing into existence ; 
 they satirised everything that was not sensuous feeling, that 
 did not feed delightful moments. Glanville had long 
 detested morbidezza in painting ; he saw it here and hated 
 it in literature and life. The deity worshipped by this 
 company was "Epws cur-repos, — the wingless, earthly love which 
 turns life into a frenzied lyrical chant, and steeps the senses 
 in earth-born perfumes. In like manner the high thoughts 
 which for him made the literature of the world an inspired, 
 heroic Bible, sank down here to the wine-crowned parables 
 of Hafiz. Had he come by mistake into a Paradise of 
 sensuous delights instead of the ambrosial supper for which 
 Ivor had prepared him ? Was the Duke of Adullam no 
 better than this ? He had supposed that transcendent 
 disdain of conventionalities lay at the root of his daring 
 conduct. If he was only a treble-distilled Sybarite, a nature 
 all softness and attar of roses, how came Ivor Mardol to 
 be intimate with him ? Rupert, who had said very little 
 hitherto, looked at them both and wondered. 
 
 The Uuke caught his eye. ' I cannot thank you 
 enough,' he said to Glanville in a most winning voice, 'for 
 bringing our John the Baptist back again.' 
 
 'Do you mean my friend?' said the artist. 'I was not 
 aware that he had been preaching in the wilderness. I 
 thought he was always sure of a good audience among '
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 185 
 
 ' Hush,' said the Duke, with a well-feigned expression ol 
 dismay, 'it matters not among whom. But look at the 
 glasses standing by him ; you will see that he deserves his 
 name.' 
 
 Rupert glanced across the table, and perceived that Ivor 
 had taken no wine. The array of glasses stood empty and 
 dishonoured. 
 
 'You see,' said the Duke, 'such is the defiance held out 
 by our friend on the first night of our restored amity. He 
 will not touch wine or strong drink. Like another Baptist — 
 though I may have my doubts whether he is heralding a fresh 
 Gospel — he symbolically rebukes the New Paganism, of which 
 wine is the emblem and Dionysus the father. You, I know, 
 will be on our side. Your paintings have nothing of John 
 the Baptist in them.' 
 
 'Truly not much,' returned the artist, smiling; ' but I have 
 long since given up the thought of persuading my friend to 
 enjoy life. Lately,' he went on, with a bitter meaning in 
 the words, ' he may have come to view things in a more 
 joyous mood, and to find nectar in the rosebud.' 
 
 'Indeed?' cried the Duke eagerly. 'What, the Spartan 
 turned Epicurean ! Pray take off his pallium and show us 
 the man of pleasure beneath it.' 
 
 'I may some day,' was Rupert's grave answer. 'At 
 present I am not sure that he has not kept a second pallium 
 in reserve.' 
 
 Ivor looked at him uneasily. Was Rupert jesting or in 
 earnest ? It would serve no good purpose to let the Duke 
 misunderstand. 
 
 ' His Grace knows,' said Ivor, ' that I was brought up a 
 water-drinker and vegetarian. I admit that I have not kept 
 my creed entire. I eat the flesh of bird and beast, as you 
 see ; but I cannot become a complete renegade, so I abstain 
 from wine.' 
 
 'And you still condemn luxury?' asked the Duke. 
 
 'Not among Athenians,' said Ivor, smiling. 'I wait 
 till I get to Sparta.' 
 
 'You catch the allusion?' the Duke inquired, addressing 
 the artist, who replied that he did in a measure. 
 
 'Let me endeavour to fill up the measure,' said the
 
 ■/■///■ NEW ANTIGONE pam in 
 
 1 > u k c pleasantly, at the same time keeping his fingers 
 
 twined about the stem of his champagne glass, which an 
 attendant was replenishing. 'What we have to consider — 
 we, I mean, to whom the future outweighs the present — is 
 what sort of republic, shall succeed the monarchies now- 
 going to pieces all over Kurope before our eyes. Shall it 
 be a republic of all the virtues, or a republic of all the 
 pleasures ? ' 
 
 ' Why not combine both?' said Rupert. 
 
 'There spoke the artist,' exclaimed his Grace of Adullam, 
 — ' the artist to whom pleasure is only a form of virtue, or 
 virtue a form of pleasure. But it cannot be, I fear. You 
 know there are bourgeois virtues which it is not fit for a 
 gentleman, and much less a lady, to practise. And there 
 are gentlemanly vices the absence of which in our republic 
 would make it, what I sometimes dread it is going to be, 
 excessively dull.' 
 
 'That was for a long while my objection to Socialism,' 
 said Rupert ; ' it might be justice personified, if you please ; 
 but how distressingly ugly the ancient dame appeared !' 
 
 ' Oh quite, quite,' said one of the guests with gentle 
 horror ; ' a state of things in which one would be forbidden 
 to scent one's self with sandal-wood because it was of no 
 service to draymen !' 
 
 ' And where, as there were no poor, there could be no 
 rich,' said another. 'Think what would become of you 
 and me if we happened not to be rich. We should expire 
 in agony within twenty-four hours.' 
 
 'It is just as well, then,' interposed Ivor, with a doubtful 
 smile on his features, ' that you decided not to be born at 
 Sparta. You remember the law of Lycurgus about those 
 who were deformed from their birth, and Taygetus?' 
 
 ' What, then, are the rich, and the artists, and the culti- 
 vated minority in general, to do when the good time comes?' 
 demanded Rupert ; 'Taygetus will not be large enough to 
 hold them, any more than the valley of Jehoshaphat will 
 hold everybody at the Last Day.' 
 
 'You have stated the problem,' said the Duke, 'and it 
 behoves those whom it chiefly concerns, that minority of 
 which the existence would be imperilled, — and all we at this
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 187 
 
 table belong to it, — to discover the solution. Sparta will 
 clearly be fatal to us. I have been saying, therefore, to 
 such as I could influence — they are not many — why not try 
 Athens? One or the other we shall surely come to.' 
 
 ' But neither of them,' said one of the grave old men 
 that had not yet spoken, 'was a republic. You don't sup- 
 pose all that dwelt in Athens were free citizens. And at 
 Sparta, besides the ordinary slaves, there were the Helots.' 
 
 'I grant you,' said the Duke, 'as much ancient history 
 as you can require. But I am still anxious to know what 
 will become of us, who are not dead and illustrious, 
 when there is a universal Republic and no guillotine for 
 aristocrats.' 
 
 'These are mere questions of the day,' replied the old 
 man. ' Why trouble ourselves with what is in all the news- 
 papers ? Art and literature — surely these are a realm of 
 serene tranquillity in which we may live. The rest is like a 
 far-off storm at sea.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Rupert ; ' we may escape into the Ideal until 
 the floods invade it and swallow artist and poet alike. The 
 waves are mounting, and who will build us an ark ? ' 
 
 ' Just so ; I like your way of putting it,' said the Duke. 
 ' There will be hardly terra fir ma left on which to build an 
 ark, even as small as Noah's, if we do not begin at once. 
 But suppose we could teach the many-headed monster that 
 he need not be afraid of us, that our existence enlarges the 
 possibilities of his, that even luxury will provide bread for 
 his table ?' 
 
 ' He will want your luxury, too,' said Ivor, ' as soon as 
 he can lay hands on it.' 
 
 'Well, let him,' answered the Duke, 'and then he may 
 come to me. I will show him that luxury, though indis- 
 pensable to dukes and the like unhappy creatures, would 
 only take away his chance of happiness if he gave himself 
 to it. However, what we want is Athens. The barbarous 
 interlude, the sort of medieval mystery which we know as 
 the Christian religion, has come and is nearly gone. We 
 shall see it out. What remains but the only genuine 
 civilisation which has made man human, — made him 
 free, scientific, artistic, passionately poetical? That is all
 
 TB NE i ni 
 
 summed up in the name of Athens. There is no other. 
 1 orinth, Rome, are provincial towns in the republic 
 
 of the Ideal. And. therefore, we < id/ens of the future must 
 call ourselves Athenians and resusi itate that humanisu 
 
 polity.' 
 
 ' Do you propose to make an Athens of London?' in- 
 quired Rupert, whose mind went back to the days and 
 nights he had been spending among its hospitals, work- 
 houses, back lanes, and mortuaries. ' I fancy you had 
 better burn it down first, by way of a beginning.' 
 
 ' Will your friend Ivor Mardol,' inquired the Duke in his 
 turn, ' transform it to a Sparta where there shall be neither 
 slaves, Helots, nor black soup ? and he addressed himself 
 to the morsel of woodcock on his plate while waiting for 
 an answer. 
 
 But Ivor interposed. 'I never said I was a Spartan,' he 
 replied calmly, 'but that is no reason why I should allow 
 that Athens and luxury are synonymous. I think a time 
 may come — it will come, as I hope — when nothing will be 
 deemed worthy of men except what gives them clearer brains 
 and more generous feelings. The art of living stands in as 
 urgent need of revision, nay of revolution, as the art of 
 governing. "Who is there that knows much of either ? ' 
 
 'Ay,' said the Duke, laughing, ' I told you so. We have 
 come round to the Baptist, with his locusts and wild honey.' 
 
 Coffee was served, and they adjourned to the salon in 
 which the Duke had received his guests on arriving. In 
 no long while about half of those present took their leave. 
 Rupert, who could not tell whether his ' examination,' as 
 Ivor called it, had begun or was already over, kept his eye 
 on that suspicious friend, whose reserve had hitherto con- 
 cealed from him this extraordinary acquaintance with the 
 Duke of Adullam. All reticence between intimates — 
 though some must be unavoidable — has this inconvenience : 
 when one secret has come to light a hundred may be 
 suspected, and, like a casket in which a false bottom 
 has been discovered, the friendship will seem to be lined 
 with reserves innumerable. If Mardol could be on such 
 terms with the Duke, yet his nearest friend not know it, 
 why should he not have been acting throughout on prin-
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 189 
 
 ciples which would make his loyalty a pretence and his 
 affection a snare ? But while Glanville was chewing the 
 cud of this bitter fancy, the Duke approached and invited 
 him to the smoking-room. Ivor, who was standing at no 
 great distance and saw the motion, nodded approval and 
 prepared to follow. The way led up a flight of marble 
 steps, along a closed verandah, and into a room illuminated 
 from above with a mellow radiance. It was the electric 
 light glowing through yellow and crimson roses which 
 seemed to hang from the trellis of an arbour, while mats of 
 gorgeous colours strewed the floor, Indian shawls of dead 
 golden hue fell over the entrance and the windows, and a 
 divan of softest texture, covered with pale yellow satin, ran 
 round the walls. As in the dining-chamber, so here was 
 audible the sound of rippling water mingled with the plash 
 of a fountain. The air was not heavy with perfume, but 
 there hung about it the faint, yet pungent, fragrance of 
 Eastern tobacco, in which a whole world of reminiscences 
 — Cairo and the Golden Horn, and far-off Hindustan — 
 seemed to dose and dream. 
 
 ' Is this your Nihilist conclave ?' whispered Rupert to his 
 companion, as they passed the enchanted gateway, and the 
 crimson and golden light came streaming over them. 
 
 ' Why not ? ' returned Ivor ; ' do you think the Indian 
 shawls will make a difference ? It is the men, not the room, 
 that constitute a meeting.' They flung themselves on the 
 silken divan. 
 
 ' Ah,' said Rupert under his breath, ' this is perfect.' 
 He meant the apparition of a brown-skinned Nubian boy, 
 of exquisitely regular features, and in Oriental costume of 
 crimson, with a yellow turban round his head, who advanced 
 towards them silently when they sat down, and offered them 
 in turn a bowl of meerschaum with twisted tube and tobacco 
 of their choice. Ivor looked at the boy and laughed, at the 
 same time putting the narghileh away with his hand. The 
 Nubian, if such he was, laughed back to him, and in doing 
 so displayed a range of pearly teeth between his beautiful 
 lips. He, too, must be familiar with Ivor's ways, said Rupert 
 to himself. At that moment the Duke, turning round, caught 
 sight of the pantomime, and shook his head mournfully.
 
 i9o THE NEW ANTIGONE PAlil tn 
 
 ' You smoke, I am sure,' he said to Rupert ' I can 
 that you believe in the sacred fire. This frost-bound philo- 
 sopher,' indicating Ivor, ' is an infidel and deserves to be 
 immolated on a pyre of cigarettes. Yes,' he went on, 
 'happy is the man that has learned to smoke from his 
 youth up. It is the one consolation that can never fail 
 him. But now, Mr. Glanville, nerve yourself for the ordeal. 
 You are not ignorant of what is before you.' 
 
 • Well, I am rather,' answered Glanville. ' I understand 
 that dinner was what Freemasons call "open lodge.'' But 
 what may be coming next I certainly cannot say.' 
 
 ' Dinner,' replied the Duke, ' never can be anything but 
 open lodge. It is merely the vestibule of truth. But the 
 smoking-room is her sanctum. Amid these clouds — the 
 only incense left us — she reveals her lineaments, as you will 
 speedily perceive.' Then changing his tone and becoming 
 all at once serious, ' My dear artist, I presume you are 
 aware that you have thrust yourself into considerable danger 
 in coming hither? ' 
 
 ' Very likely I have,' said Rupert, taking the narghileh 
 from his lips. ' What then ? ' 
 
 ' Why then,' answered the Duke, ' everything depends, 
 not on your courage, — I should be the last to call it in 
 question, — but on the degree of earnestness with which you 
 have come to us.' 
 
 At this juncture Rupert's friend rose from the divan, and 
 went over to a group of guests who were smoking at a little 
 distance. Glanville and the Duke were in some sense 
 alone, but if either raised his voice the conversation would 
 reach listening ears. At present the Duke's subdued tones 
 were a hint that he desired the colloquy to be carried on 
 between himself and Rupert only. 
 
 The latter, with an inquiring look in his eyes, faced the 
 Duke, who sat sideways on the divan and smoked very 
 placidly. ' Well ? ' said his Grace. 
 
 ' I do not know what the earnestness means of which you 
 speak,' said Glanville, 'or what guarantee will satisfy you.' 
 
 4 There is only one condition, and it is guarantee suffi- 
 cient,' replied the Duke. 'What have you lost to put you 
 at enmity with the social order ? '
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 191 
 
 Rupert gave a short, bitter laugh. ' Is that all ? ' he said. 
 ' I might, if I were overbold, ask your Grace that question. 
 What have you lost ? ' 
 
 ' Everything,' replied the Duke simply. And when 
 Glanville stared, ' Come,' he said, raising his voice, ' this 
 gentleman will not believe that a duke can be a Nihilist. 
 How shall I convince him ? ' 
 
 Four or five of the others, including Ivor, came at these 
 words, and, in the language of the theatre, grouped them- 
 selves, dramatically, round the Duke and the artist. The 
 rest seemed to take no notice and went on with their 
 smoking. The Duke waited, as if for some one to counsel 
 him. 
 
 'Tell him your life and adventures,' said one. 
 
 1 Too long,' put in another, as he turned to light a fresh 
 cheroot. 
 
 'Tell him mine, then,' retorted the first. 
 
 'Yours is too singular to have a moral,' said the second. 
 ' It is horrible besides, and one must not begin with a 
 nightmare.' 
 
 'The rest are little better,' said the man whose story, 
 apparently with his consent, was declared to be a night- 
 mare. And there was a pause. 
 
 'But,' said the Duke, 'we cannot stay here all night. 
 What is to be done?' 
 
 He reflected for a moment, amid the perfect silence 
 which followed his words. The fragrant ascending clouds 
 veiled with prismatic vapours the yellow and crimson light 
 of the flower-like lamps. Existence, so curtained about 
 with webs of divers colours from the Indian loom, so 
 penetrated with aromatic drugs, so wrapped in dreamy 
 lawns of smoke, and illuminated with the charmed rays 
 that fell softly from above, seemed to the artist a drowsy, 
 delicious, trance-like state wherein was neither pain nor 
 pleasure, but only luxurious repose. Why not go on 
 dreaming thus for ever? thought Rupert. There would 
 come no visions of an arduous ideal through those silken 
 folds, not even the sound of poetry or music, to suggest the 
 painful sweet reminiscences which might stir a man to 
 action. The existence which was all love, and passion,
 
 io: THE NEW ANTIGONE PAST m 
 
 and loss, had vanished into the dark night outside. Why 
 should it return and \vx him any more? 
 
 The Duke touched his hand. ' You arc falling asl< 
 with your eyes open,' he said ; ' look up and listen.' Rupert 
 turned slowly towards him with such an expression as we 
 may fancy they had who dwelt in the Lotosland, where it 
 was always afternoon. 
 
 ' All right,' he said, ' I am listening.' 
 
 1 Look round you also,' the Duke insisted sharply, 
 and his voice became very stern. 
 
 ' You wish to be one of us. Here, then, are seven men 
 who have joined the party of despair. Can you tell why?' 
 He paused, and Rupert, gathering his faculties together, 
 replied : 
 
 ' How should I know ? I never saw one of them before 
 except Ivor.' 
 
 'And he,' said the Duke slowly, 'like the rest of this 
 company, has a shattered existence.' 
 
 'It is a lie,' exclaimed Rupert, springing up ; 'he has 
 shattered mine ; he has broken my heart.' Ivor looked at 
 him, long and sorrowfully, but said nothing. 
 
 'Right, right,' said the Duke with amazing tranquillity; 
 'at last I hear the cry of a wounded spirit. Why, man,' he 
 went on, addressing Rupert, whose dreams had fled like a 
 troop of frightened deer, 'do you suppose we are playing 
 for amusement ? If your friend had not assured me that 
 a great grief had smitten you through, these doors had 
 never opened to you.' 
 
 Rupert, dumbfounded at so novel an experience, knew 
 not how to answer. It was clear that, be the game jest or 
 earnest, he was playing with men vastly superior to himself 
 in resource and cunning. The Duke seemed to perceive 
 what was passing through his mind. With a gentle but de- 
 cisive grasp he drew Rupert to his seat again, and while the 
 others stood about in their careless attitudes, he went on : 
 
 ' You have perhaps, my dear friend, confounded us 
 with the ornamental mysteries of the last century. I do 
 not mind being taken for a Rosicrucian, or Mesmerist, or 
 what not, by the crowd standing and staring about the 
 doors. It is as well they should think we are not much
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 193 
 
 in earnest. But with you it is different. If you enter, 
 you belong to us. And you ought to know what binds us 
 together. It is not the flimsy threads of sentiment, or 
 philosophy learned by rote, or political clap-trap. Every 
 man here brings a ruined life in his hand. The rank and 
 file of our societies, which number hundreds of thousands, 
 are made up of those who by hunger, want, misery — and by 
 reflection on all that — have been driven to join us. We, I 
 do not say the elite, but the few, have suffered neither 
 hunger, nor thirst, nor nakedness. But we have suffered 
 worse. We have lost, one in this way, another in that, the 
 good of life. We, too, are stricken so deeply that only 
 in the destruction of society, if at all, can we hope for a 
 glimpse of happiness.' 
 
 Was he listening to a madman ? Rupert gazed right 
 and left in search of the answer to this enigma. The Duke, 
 watching him, smiled. 
 
 'I see that you cannot believe me,' he said. 'You 
 want ocular demonstration. You shall have it in good time. 
 Now I will only say this. I am acquainted with the story 
 of every one here, though not every one here knows his own.' 
 
 ' Do you know Ivor's parentage, then ?' inquired Rupert 
 eagerly. 
 
 'I knew it long ago,' replied the Duke, 'before I had 
 set eyes on him. But I have not informed him, nor shall, 
 until it is likely to do him good. Ivor has other things 
 now to trouble about besides his parentage.' 
 
 The artist could not believe that his friend, who ap- 
 peared so subdued and patient, would be standing by in 
 silence had he given credit to these words. Yet the Duke 
 spoke with authority, and the rest seemed to take it as a 
 matter of course. 
 
 ' You perhaps thought,' resumed this tamer of men, who 
 saw the deep impression his words were making on Rupert, 
 ' that by taking a few oaths and professing general principles 
 you might be free of the brotherhood. You must now 
 realise that our bond is not so easily put on, and that it 
 never can be taken off. There is, or has been, in the life 
 of each one here — and of those outside who belong to us 
 — a personal reason why he should despair of the society 
 
 vol. 11. o
 
 194 THE NEW ANTIGi - . PAST m 
 
 that has made him what he is. Those only give up the 
 past who have nothing more to hope from it. Tell me, 
 
 then, what injury has society inflicted (HI you ?' 
 
 The artist thought of I lippolyta. and was beside him- 
 self with rage. What but the stupid, immoral, mercenary, 
 polluting conventions of the world had first made their 
 marriage impossible, and now flung her out into danger 
 and loneliness, far from his love and care? That pure and 
 lofty spirit had been immolated to the crying social sin 
 which makes of wedlock the worst prostitution. From first 
 to last she had been a victim whose innocence did but 
 make her the easier prey. What had he lost? 
 
 'You need not ask me whether I am a wrecked and 
 miserable man,' he replied, with a firmness equal to the 
 Duke's. 'Society has done me a harm it can never repair; 
 and I am yours, soul and body, heart, hands, and brain, if 
 you will undertake to restore that which has been reft from 
 me. I will not publish the history in this room, to men 
 who are doubtless worthy of all confidence, but whose 
 names I do not even know. If you care to receive it as a 
 secret, I am willing to inform you whenever and wherever 
 you choose. Provided only,' he concluded with a glance 
 towards Ivor, 'that my friend is spared the trouble of being 
 present.' 
 
 ' Your friend,' said Ivor quietly, ' has never asked to 
 know any man's secrets. He will respect yours so far as 
 to decline knowing them.' 
 
 'Be more considerate, Ivor,' said the Duke, laying a 
 hand on his shoulder. ' Can you not see that it is passion, 
 not your friend Mr. Glanville, that speaks ? Were he not 
 thrown off his balance by that loss, which must yet be 
 recent, I might be slow to credit his sincerity. Whereas I 
 believe and honour it.' 
 
 Ivor hung down his head. He was ashamed of his 
 resentment. After a few moments he came forward to 
 where Rupert was seated and took his hand, which the 
 artist, overcome by conflicting emotions, did not refuse. 
 The Duke smiled, 'You have not lost everything, Mr. 
 Glanville,' he said, ' while you can count on the friendship 
 of Ivor Mardol.'
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 195 
 
 ' But come,' he exclaimed after a pause, in the lighter 
 tone which he had affected during dinner ; ' you want to 
 hear what has made me, the Duke of — of Adullam,' he 
 said, smiling maliciously, ' a Nihilist. Can you not see for 
 yourself?' 
 
 Rupert shook his head. He wanted the Duke to go 
 on. Then said his Grace, ' Look at me. The one suffi- 
 cient reason why I should detest the present order of 
 things is that I not only was born great, but have had 
 greatness thrust upon me. You ask what society has taken 
 from me. I answer, a motive for exertion, an interest 
 in life.' 
 
 ' But you have enormous interests,' said Rupert. 
 
 ' True ; but no interest. I cannot go to seek my for- 
 tune as young heroes do in the story-books. I have more 
 already than I know how to manage. If I were capable of 
 earning a name in science or literature I must not attempt 
 it. A Duke that writes verses or volumes on chemistry is 
 always slightly ridiculous. Besides, I could do neither. 
 One thing lay within my reach. As Leader of the House 
 of Commons, as a democratic Prime Minister, I might 
 have governed the nation and put into effect the true prin- 
 ciples of social order. But,' he concluded, laughing, ' when 
 I was on the point of beginning, and had nearly broken up 
 the party lines which have made injustice and oppression 
 secure for the last two centuries, fate stepped in and in- 
 sisted on my becoming a Duke and a nonentity.' 
 
 ' That was hard,' observed Glanville, smiling gravely. 
 ' No wonder you wish to pull down the House of Lords.' 
 
 ' Yes,' replied his host ; ' a state of things in which a 
 man must become a Duke, whether he likes it or no, is 
 simply unreasonable. In the world of the future those 
 only shall have prizes that are capable of enjoying them.' 
 
 When he had reached this point in his half-serious, half- 
 satirical remarks, the Duke rose and, taking one of the 
 guests with him, went away. Another who had been 
 standing near in silence addressed Rupert, as he seemed 
 hesitating whether to follow them or remain. 
 
 ' The Duke will come back presently,' he said. And 
 then, after a while, ' Our host finds pleasure in making his
 
 196 111 ■ ANTIGONE PAST m 
 
 earnest appear like jest Bui you may take for granted 
 that no man living has had a more melancholy experience. 1 
 
 'How so, if it is not a secret?' inquired Rupert 
 
 'Oh, there are sc< ivts and The history of the 
 
 I ) uke of Adullam would he frightfully strange in your ears 
 were you told merely what I know, and some others in this 
 room. But as ne remarked, you have only to look at him 
 and you can imagine what kind of secrets have made up 
 his life and taken the glamour from it. He is the victim 
 of nature as of society. The trial has been too much for 
 a mere man. Consider his fascination, grace, and accom- 
 plishments. They would make him miserable in any 
 station, high or low. They have given him every pleasure- 
 without stint ; they have filled his cup to overflowing with 
 the enjoyment of which others crave a single drop to 
 intoxicate them. He has drained the goblet, and for him 
 the intoxication is past. He cannot be deluded any more. 
 Were he a great genius he might go on forging delusions 
 for himself and living upon them, as we lesser mortals 
 accept delusions ready made, with docility and gratitude, 
 never asking how they came to be. The Duke, for his 
 misfortune, is neither a fool nor a poet. He is clear- 
 headed, self-controlled, accustomed to the childlike devices 
 of men who come to him enamoured of his influence, and 
 of women that have fallen under the spell of his enchant- 
 ments. He understands the human animal whose governing 
 motive is self-interest. I do not say he cannot love, but 
 he cannot believe in love, and hardly in friendship. He 
 is, therefore, very exquisite, — and very corrupt And he 
 knows it, and wonders whether in the boundless universe 
 there may not be something which would cure him of 
 his disease of realism, — an ideal the possession of which 
 should not be fatuity, disappointment, and sickness of 
 spirit' 
 
 1 You describe an old complaint,' said Rupert ; ' I 
 suppose that his private ennui has been endeavouring to 
 transform itself into the pain of the world. It is a pity 
 he has not something to cry for.' 
 
 ' A great pity,' replied the other ; ' but I do not see 
 how he can be wounded. His most dreadful quality is
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 197 
 
 to be invulnerable. Who was the man at the stake that 
 shrieked out to the bystanders, " I cannot burn ; for God's 
 sake, help me to burn " ? ' 
 
 ' Ridley or Latimer, I forget which,' answered the artist ; 
 adding, ' now I understand the Duke a little better. Ennui 
 is, I daresay, the torment of the damned ; and in those 
 who have never felt it not likely to excite compassion.' 
 
 1 1 do not believe,' said Ivor, who had been sitting by all 
 this while without a word, ' that the Duke was ever in love, 
 though he may have fancied he was. He has been too 
 much adored — a god enshrined above the multitude for 
 their worship.' 
 
 'And now,' said the stranger, taking him up, 'he has 
 got tired of them and their worship, and has leaped down 
 from the altar and begun demolishing the temple.' 
 
 ' It is the story of the French noblesse repeating itself,' 
 said Rupert ; ' first, Louis Quinze and Voltaire, then the 
 Fourth of August.' 
 
 While they were talking, the subject of their conversa- 
 tion returned. He took Ivor affectionately by the arm 
 and, whispering some words in his ear, seemed to be sending 
 him away. Ivor left the room ; and the Duke, approaching 
 Rupert, said graciously, ' Will you come to my study for a 
 moment ? ' 
 
 The artist bowed and followed him as he led the way 
 through the verandah. They traversed several rooms, 
 which were brilliantly lighted, and only looked the more 
 solitary for the air of expectation that seemed to hang 
 over them. Glanville as he passed could not forbear the 
 tribute of an admiring glance at the paintings, statuary, 
 and curious furniture with which they were adorned. The 
 Duke's study, in comparison, was plain and simple, con- 
 taining all the requisites, daintily mounted, of that extensive 
 correspondence, much of it in cypher, which his Grace of 
 Adullam carried on. At no time had he been indolent ; 
 perhaps the secret of his unhappiness lay, as he said, in 
 the excess of energy for which he could find neither scope 
 nor occasion. He motioned the artist to a chair, took one 
 himself, and while the fire sparkled in front of them, turned 
 down the lamp till only a ruddy twilight reigned in the room.
 
 THE NEW AN / . iai.i in 
 
 'Now,' he said, 'we arc alone, as you desired. I 
 Mardol is not hidden behind the arras: and what you 
 tell me shall sink into silence on the instant. 1 have 
 ived many a confession here, but none has gone over 
 the threshold.' 
 
 While he had been following the I Hike, Rupert's mind 
 had not ceased to busy itself with the question whether he 
 should still try to fence, or surrender, and throw himself on 
 his opponent's generosity. The figure of the Jew, Bernstein, 
 seemed to rise and mock his hesitation. Confide in the 
 Duke ? But that would be the same thing as confessing 
 to Ivor. How could he possibly tell that they were not in 
 collusion ? Nay. the horrible thought crossed his mind 
 that Hippolyta might be in that very house, hidden where 
 he was least likely to seek her out. His blood turned cold 
 as he dwelt on it. However, he was sick of dissembling. 
 He did not doubt that if he chose he could go on playing 
 his part as hitherto, but the recoil when the play was at 
 an end would be terrible. Why should he not speak and 
 have done with it ? Were these men guilty of the abduc- 
 tion? Had Hippolyta consented to be taken away? In 
 that case they would know already as much as he could 
 tell them. He resolved to fling his cards on the table, and 
 let them decide the contest as they fell. The Duke waited, 
 without a sign of impatience. He was mild and calm, and 
 imperturbable. 
 
 ' If I am to say anything,' Rupert at last began, ' it must 
 be everything. And the history is strange — incredible, in fact.' 
 
 ' I shall not find it incredible if you tell it me,' replied 
 the Duke. 
 
 ' Well, then,' said Glanville, ' I must go back to the 
 Hermitage at Trelingham. 
 
 ' A picturesque locale] said the Duke of Adullam, 'as I 
 remember it when I stayed with the Karl some years ago, 
 in my Tory days. Something quaintly conceived, with the 
 water and the hills round it.' 
 
 ' And do you know Colonel Valence as well as the 
 Hermitage ?' inquired Rupert. 
 
 ' He was not at Trelingham,' the Duke answered quietly; 
 'however, yes, I know him.'
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 199 
 
 'Good,' said Rupert to himself; 'now we are coming 
 on the track. I will give him every bit of the chronicle, 
 from the Madonna of San Lucar onward.' And he did 
 so, condensing the narrative where he could, but leaving 
 out nothing that he deemed of consequence, except the 
 affection that Lady May had indulged for him, and the 
 immediate motives connected with it which had induced 
 Hippolyta to quit Falside and seek him in London. He 
 found an admirable listener. When Rupert grew excited 
 the Duke said not a word, but allowed him to recover him- 
 self at leisure ; and when the sudden remembrance of his 
 great loss choked his utterance and would not suffer him 
 to proceed, a gentle whisper, the expression of profound 
 and delicate sympathy, restored his spirits and animated 
 him to complete the recital. Experienced as the Duke 
 was in all possible combinations of passion, at certain 
 points he displayed a keen interest, and even amazement. 
 Once or twice he seemed about to interrupt the narrative ; 
 but, checking himself, bade Rupert, by a gesture, continue. 
 When at length, after describing his return to Forrest 
 House, the indications of Hippolyta's flight which he there 
 came upon, and, in general terms, his fruitless efforts to find 
 her, he paused and looked down, the Duke of Adullam 
 only said, ' Have you Miss Valence's portrait ? ' 
 
 The artist gave a half smile, which was not pleasant to 
 see, as he thought of the person to whom he had confided 
 that portrait and the man who now asked him about it. 
 He preferred Bernstein to have it before any Duke. But 
 that it should be in the hands of either ! 
 
 ' No,' he replied shortly ; ' your Grace will have to 
 draw on your memory if you desire to know what she is 
 like.' 
 
 ' I have hardly any memory,' answered the Duke, who 
 was as quick at discovering other people's thoughts about 
 him as they were in thinking them. ' I never saw her 
 but once,' he continued, ' and that was some years ago, 
 when she was a mere child. But she knows I am her 
 father's sincere friend.' 
 
 For some time he sat lost in reflection, after which, turn- 
 ing up the lamp and looking full at Glanville, he said :
 
 2oo THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt in 
 
 • Your suspicions of Ivor Mardol are absurd and unjust. 
 [ am sure that he knows nothing of Mi e. Tocon 
 
 jecture, as you did in the first instance, that she had gone 
 under his directions on a revolutionary errand was ingenious; 
 hut you should have accepted his denial. You have been 
 very near losing your other self, who will he true when all 
 the women you have ever cared for have turned out 
 false.' 
 
 'But, except Ivor, she saw nobody,' returned the artist 
 ' What reason, unconnected with the movement, as he calls 
 it, can she have had for flying in a moment from Forrest 
 House?' 
 
 ' It is idle to talk of reasons,' said the Duke, ' where a 
 woman is concerned. Find me a passion, and I will un- 
 ravel the knot, which at present, I confess, is insoluble. 
 Enthusiasm — we want some infusion of enthusiasm to 
 acccount for the madness.' 
 
 ' Ah, good heavens ! ' groaned Rupert, ' there was no 
 lack of enthusiasm. Hippolyta was capable of going the 
 length of England to discover Annie Dauris, or of joining 
 her father in Siberia. Do you think,' he said, with a 
 sudden gesture, 'that she has done it? Where is Colonel 
 Valence ? ' 
 
 ' Not in Siberia yet,' returned the Duke, with a peculiar 
 smile. ' I believe I can find him for you. But oh, young 
 man,' he continued, between jest and earnest, ' how happy 
 are you to feel such a human, such a natural grief and ex- 
 citement ! Do not be in a hurry to extinguish them. You 
 are living through the most delectable chapters of your 
 rom tnce. You have come to the thrilling part where one- 
 third is love, and another third anguish, and the last third 
 uncertain hope and longing mixed in about equal propor- 
 tions. Believe me, you will never live it through a second 
 time. What would I not give for the despair, the active, 
 poignant despair, no mere dull and chronic feeling, which I 
 underwent in the days of my first abandonment, — not where 
 I forsook, that w r ould have been tame — but where I was 
 forsaken ? The throbbing of exquisite pain, the life in all its 
 fiery ebullition, the changing dread and sudden palpitations 
 of joy as the heavens above me closed or opened ! That
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 201 
 
 was a divine anguish. And will you hasten to bring in the 
 heavy father from a side-scene, where the old man is wait- 
 ing in hat and cloak, leaning on his absurd staff, merely 
 that you and Miss Hippolyta may go down on your knees 
 before him for his blessing, and live happy — that is to say, 
 bored to death — ever after ? Foolish, foolish young 
 man !' 
 
 The Duke in his fervour rose and paced the room, 
 while Glanville, provoked and miserable, did not know 
 whether to laugh, to storm, or to take himself out of the 
 house. It was not long, however, before the eccentric peer 
 sat down again, and resumed a little more seriously, 
 ' But I perceive what I suspected to be true ; you are not 
 miserable enough to join us at this stage of your experience. 
 The evil done to you may be repaired, Miss Valence may 
 come back, and your discontent with social institutions will 
 give place to an ardent desire for the delights of a fashion- 
 able wedding. St. George's, Hanover Square, will quite 
 satisfy your aspirations towards the Ideal, and serve as your 
 Rome and Mecca. "Journeys end in lovers' meetings, 
 every wise man's son doth know." Is it not so? But he 
 that would join us must have seen through the veil, and 
 become convinced that the most solid-looking and utterly 
 venerable institutions, from matrimony to the House of 
 Lords, are cobwebs to hide the nakedness of existence. 
 When you have got so far — five years, say, after your union 
 with Miss Valence — you may knock at the door of our 
 smoking-room again. Meanwhile, we will allow you to be 
 an honorary member, and to see anything in which you feel 
 an interest. As regards pains and penalties, why, you are 
 a gentleman, and will keep your word to be secret about 
 these mysteries of the nineteenth century. I will not even 
 say, Vons en serez qititte pour la peur. You are not the sort 
 of man to be frightened.' 
 
 Glanville heard, but he was scarcely attending. When 
 the Duke stopped in his talk he seemed to wake from a 
 reverie in which he had been plunged during the last few 
 moments, and he said with decision, ' I must mention that 
 I have seen your Grace, and I will not promise anything 
 as regards Colonel Valence. Not all the fathers in the
 
 202 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAST ill 
 
 world, nor nil the societies, shall come between mc and 
 Hippolyta.' 
 
 • Beautiful enthusiasm!' sighed the Duke; 'would that 
 
 I could share in it. Were I in your place, knowing the 
 disenchantments that must come by and by, I should try 
 to believe that Hippolyta was divided between love for 
 me and some other love equally strong, which made her 
 existence a flame of fire like my own. Oh, you need have- 
 no scruple in mentioning your visit here. And it may be 
 some time before you meet Colonel Valence. He resembles 
 your friend Ivor in being as much at home with the Spartans 
 as with the Athenians. However, I will send you word 
 should he come this way.' 
 
 The conference was at an end. Returning to the sa/<>n 
 which he had first entered, Rupert, after bidding farewell to 
 the Duke, who accompanied him so far, was joined by Ivor 
 Mardol. The other guests had vanished. It was brilliant 
 starlight as they drove to the artist's abode, where Ivor was 
 to take up his quarters that night. The Duke's conversa- 
 tion, sarcastic and odd though it had been, did not fail to 
 do Rupert one good service. It almost persuaded him 
 that, in suspecting Ivor, he had committed an injustice. 
 His heart was not so heavy. On the other hand, his 
 friend made no inquiries, did not appear to feel resentment, 
 and spoke at intervals in his usual affectionate tone, remark- 
 ing, with some degree of malice, on the unexpected nature 
 of the initiation which Rupert had gone through. ' You 
 were wondering when the daggers and death's-head would 
 be brought in, I could see,' observed Mardol, 'and were 
 much disappointed when the dusky page offered you mere 
 pipes and tobacco.' 
 
 ' I am still inclined to think it was mostly make-believe,' 
 said Rupert. ' Nihilism is the fashion, and your Duke of 
 Adullam likes playing at it.' 
 
 'Hush !' exclaimed Ivor. They were driving along the 
 Knightsbridge Road, and the sound of belated newsboys 
 crying out an extraordinary edition of the evening journals 
 came through the open carriage-window. ' Tell the coach- 
 man to stop ; there is news.' The coachman stopped. 
 They heard the word ' assassination ' repeated many times.
 
 chap, xxxi ANARCHY IN PURPLE 203 
 
 Ivor got out, caught hold of a newsboy, and held up the 
 paper under the street lamp. He came running back. 
 
 'What is it?' inquired Rupert languidly. His friend 
 sprang in, pulled up the window, and said in a low voice, 
 'They have done it at last.' 
 
 'Done what?' said the artist. 
 
 At that moment he caught the announcement distinctly 
 which was filling the air, and he heard the words, again and 
 again, ' Assassination of the Emperor of Russia.' 
 
 He started in his seat, and tried in the gloom to make 
 out his companion's face, but could not. 
 
 ' Ivor, Ivor,' he cried, ' did you know this was going to 
 happen ? Tell me, for God's sake.' 
 
 ' Don't ask me what I knew,' returned Ivor ; 'it is 
 unspeakable, appalling.' 
 
 There was silence in the carriage till they came within 
 sight of Rupert's door. A ray of light penetrated the 
 gloom and showed Ivor, with his face buried in his hands. 
 He looked up, and said after some deliberation, ' Rupert, 
 I am not in any way acquainted with your Colonel Valence. 
 But I heard to-night that he was in Russia. If he is 
 mixed up in this, there will shortly be news of him. He 
 may escape, and he will come, as they all do, to London. 
 If, on the contrary, he is captured, we shall have the 
 photographs, of the prisoners sent over to us, and you will 
 be allowed to see them and discover his features, should 
 he be among them.' 
 
 ' Do you think,' said Rupert, his voice sinking to a 
 hoarse whisper, 'that he would have exposed Hippolyta, 
 his own child, to a danger like this ? ' 
 
 ' A Nihilist has no children where the society is con- 
 cerned,' replied Ivor. ' I fear from your description of 
 Miss Valence that her daring and enthusiasm would have 
 pointed her out as the very one to be selected for the post 
 of danger. Anyhow, if her father is not dead or in the 
 hands of the Russian police, you will soon be in the way 
 of meeting him. I must say good-night here,' he went on, 
 as the carriage stopped at the door, and they alighted on 
 the pavement. 
 
 'Why,' said Rupert, 'you promised to sleep here.'
 
 204 THE NEW ANTIGONE pari hi 
 
 • Yes, but ' — he paused and looked round — 'I may be 
 wanted at home. There will be letters,— visitors, — early 
 ID the morning. Oh, you need tlOt take alarm,' he con- 
 tinued, seeing Rupert's countenance growing troubled. 
 •This was none of my doing. I am only an ambulance 
 officer, one of the Geneva Red Cross, on the battlefield. 
 But I ought to be at my post. Good-night, Rupert Do 
 not distrust me again. I could not bear it.' 
 
 And he hurried away. His friend took the journal 
 which he had left, went into his study, and sat down to 
 read it. The account was brief, as might be supposed, 
 and he saw only that women, as well as men, were impli- 
 cated. He watched and thought into the small hours of 
 the morning; his mind was busy reckoning the times, 
 possibilities, probabilities, which would throw light on 
 Ilippolyta's connection with the plot. He could make 
 nothing of it all. She might have been there, such was 
 his conclusion. 
 
 When the murky light of day came into the room he 
 was watching still.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 LIGHT OR LIGHTNING? 
 
 The torment of the next few days in Rupert's soul no 
 words can express. He seemed to be lying on the rack, 
 waiting, palpitating, suffering new anguish every moment, 
 while the hours drew on and on, and would not finish. 
 There was excitement all over Europe, of which the daily 
 papers gave a vivid reflection, — excitement among the 
 adherents of governments and aristocracies, which had 
 received a deadly shock in the assassination of the Tsar ; 
 excitement as great, but felt like a subterranean earthquake, 
 among the revolutionists that had dealt it. Rupert's one 
 anxiety was to catch in the welter of confused voices the 
 name of Hippolyta. He scanned the journals eagerly, and 
 went every morning and evening to Grafton Place, in the 
 hope of hearing through Ivor Mardol that some one had 
 brought information from St. Petersburg. And as refugee 
 after refugee appeared in London, but Colonel Valence 
 did not return, and nothing was said of his daughter, the 
 artist's despair became uncontrollable. His suspicions of 
 Mardol woke from the slumber into which they had been 
 cast by that evening at the Duke of Adullam's. He began 
 to devise wild schemes of penetrating into the Russian 
 prisons and seeing with his own eyes whether they held 
 Hippolyta. Wandering restless and uncertain, he forgot to 
 eat or drink, he could not sleep, his studio was abandoned, 
 his whole existence seemed to be falling into confusion. 
 Ivor was all kindness and brotherly love ; but he could not 
 enlighten Rupert, for he was still in the dark himself. He 
 did not dare to hint what he surmised.
 
 206 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabt m 
 
 Things were in this condition, and Rupert was looking 
 the picture of fatigue and disappointment, when Bernstein 
 
 the Jew presented himself one afternoon to complain that 
 
 for several days ( llanville had sent him no report, not even 
 that of his first meeting with the anan hists, which, he said, 
 must have taken place. The artist looked at him wearily. 
 
 'What is the use of my telling you?' he said; 'you 
 will not find out anything. You have failed utterly up to 
 this.' 
 
 ' Yes,' answered Bernstein composedly, ' I have failed. 
 Did I not warn you that so it might he, when I heard of 
 the twofold motive ? I said, " To find Mrs. Malcolm I 
 cannot promise." But, we say in German, no thread so 
 fine is spun that it comes not to the sun. And thus it will 
 prove. I have caused to be inserted your advertisements 
 in the Times. There is no answer yet. Perhaps the true 
 answer was the news from Russia. We must wait. But,' 
 continued he, ' two things I have found. One is that there 
 is search going on for Miss Valence by the side of ours. 
 My people have met other people below, in the under- 
 world of which I did speak to you when first I came. 
 And the second, I can tell you what has happened to the 
 young woman, Annie Dauris.' 
 
 ' What ? ' inquired Rupert. He did not care much. 
 Annie Dauris was nothing to him. 
 
 1 She is dead,' said the Jew calmly. 
 
 1 Dead ? ' echoed the artist in his absent voice ; ' it was 
 soon over then. How do you know ? ' 
 
 ' Because I saw her lying dead in Hospital,' was 
 
 the answer. 
 
 Rupert became interested. ' Ah,' he said, ' it was the 
 first hospital I went into that night. Stay,' he continued, 
 turning to the Jew, 'was Annie Dauris fair, light-haired, 
 rather pretty, but with a careworn expression ? Can it 
 have been the patient I saw that could not speak and 
 looked at me attentively ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' said Bernstein, 'yes, it is the same. She was 
 brought from the lodging-house poisoned, and was, in a 
 manner, restored to life. But she was never able to speak. 
 While she had the fever her child was born. The mother
 
 chap, xxxn LIGHT OR LIGHTNING ? 207 
 
 and the child are dead. The inquest was yesterday. Her 
 father and her companion, Charlotte Fraser, identified the 
 body. It was Annie Dauris, and I think she knew too 
 much and was murdered.' 
 
 ' By whom ? ' asked Rupert. 
 
 The Jew shrugged his shoulders. ' You would not be- 
 lieve me,' he said, 'therefore I hold my tongue. You are 
 not a strong character, Mr. Glanville. Your friend Mr. 
 Mardol is the strong character. He can and will turn you 
 round his finger, and lead you about by the nose. Pardon 
 me, but is it not so ? You go to him twice daily ; you sit 
 long with him. You do not send me a memorandum. 
 It is clear that you believe him your friend again.' 
 
 ' What if I do ? ' exclaimed Rupert ; ' you can go on 
 searching, all the same. Who else, I wonder, is looking 
 for Hippolyta ? ' he said to himself thoughtfully ; ' it must 
 be the Duke of Adullam.' 
 
 Bernstein caught the words and frowned till his black 
 eyebrows met. An expression of alarm passed over his 
 countenance. 'I know that name,' he said; 'it is a mock- 
 name of a great noble who does much in my world. You 
 and Mr. Mardol went to his house and stayed there many 
 hours such a night. Why went you ? ' 
 
 ' That is my business,' answered Rupert ; ' and now, Mr. 
 Bernstein, understand that I give you full permission to go 
 on with your search, but I have no longer the assurance 
 that my friend Mardol has done me an injury.' 
 
 ' Your friend Mardol, I say, is the clever man,' repeated 
 Bernstein. ' I will search, for it is a strange case. But if 
 I make clear to myself that Mrs. Malcolm was in Peters- 
 burg, and is taken, or ,' he stopped ; then after a 
 
 pause went on, ' shall I bring you the news, whatever it 
 may happen to be ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' answered Rupert in a low but steady tone ; ' let 
 me know the worst.' He perceived that Bernstein's con- 
 jectures were taking the same direction as his own. It 
 shook him violently. When the Jew left and he was sitting 
 alone, with his head bowed, thinking, always thinking, as 
 the day went on, the most terrible imaginations came 
 flocking round him ; and one, which recurred like a mono-
 
 THE NEW ANTlGi I I til 
 
 mania, drove him from the house. He saw himself lying 
 nil the Boor of his dressing room, shot through the heart, a 
 pistol lying at his right hand. There v. loomy fascina- 
 
 tion in imagining the look of deadly calm on his fa< 
 the attitude of his limbs as he lay where he had fallen, the 
 disorder in the room, and the silence brooding 0V< C it A 
 little more and he would have begun to mount the stairs 
 which led to his bedchamber. It must not be. 'Not yet, 
 not yet," he murmured, as though soothing a child. II 
 would go to Ivor. He would stay under his roof to-night 
 and to-morrow, in the neighbourhood of his schoolboy 
 friend. lie felt (hill and heartsick beyond all he had 
 experienced. But he did not venture to sleep in his own 
 house. 
 
 Ivor was waiting, not to give him news, — there was 
 none, — but to say that an old friend had requested him to 
 be that evening at the Spartans', in Denzil Lane. He pro- 
 posed to take Rupert. ' It will be a stormy meeting,' Ivor 
 continued, ' for I have not attended a lodge, except one, 
 since you called me to Trelingham, and that ended in my 
 banishment. But there is always some comfort. The 
 friend I am going to meet has more acquaintance with the 
 inner circles of our society than any man living. He is 
 sure to know Colonel Valence under some name or other. 
 I wish you could tell me all that you have learnt about that 
 mysterious personage. But the Duke of Adullam has 
 warned me not to ask.' 
 
 The low fever that had taken possession of Rupert grew 
 upon him every hour. He did not talk ; and when dinner 
 came, eating was impossible. His friend began to think 
 he had better go to Denzil Lane by himself and bring 
 back what news there might be. But he no sooner pro- 
 posed it than the artist, rising up, said in a melancholy 
 tone, 'For God's sake, Ivor, do not leave me to-night 
 I have lost all control of my imagination. My thoughts, 
 my fancies are suicidal. Find Hippolyta I must, or go 
 mad.' 
 
 They left the house late, in silence, walking along the 
 crowded streets without exchanging an observation. Ivor 
 had his own sad thoughts, apart from the anguish of his
 
 chap, xxxii LIGHT OR LIGHTNING ? 209 
 
 friend, He did not know whose fate trembled in the 
 balance that evening, his or Rupert's. The strange ac- 
 quaintance between himself and the Duke of Adullam had 
 made it comparatively easy to face the so-called Athenians, 
 with whom he had never entirely broken. The Spartans, 
 as their name denoted, were much less tolerant of private 
 opinion, and ready to inflict the severest penalties on dis- 
 sentients or renegades. Ivor was walking up to the cannon's 
 mouth. He knew his men, and did not promise himself 
 a speedy reconciliation with them or an untroubled lease 
 of life. And the reception he met on entering would have 
 discouraged a bolder man. 
 
 It was the large, bare committee-room, which we remem- 
 ber, in the decayed house at Denzil Lane, where Hippolyta 
 and Ivor held their first conversation. The passage was 
 not lighted, and Ivor, leading Rupert in the dark, had to 
 knock twice ere he gained admission. A species of warder, 
 wearing a red sash across his breast, stood inside, jealously 
 guarding the entrance. On opening he recognised the 
 engraver, drew back, and seemed uncertain whether he 
 should be allowed to pass. But at the sight of Rupert 
 closely following on the heels of his friend the warder put 
 out his hand, laying it rather heavily on the artist's shoulder, 
 and said in a quick, rough undertone, ' What do you want 
 here?' Rupert stood perfectly still. Ivor, just looking at 
 the doorkeeper, said two or three words and held out a 
 scrap of paper. The effect was instantaneous. The grim 
 warder drew aside ; Rupert passed in ; and the two friends, 
 making their way up the room, seated themselves, by Ivor's 
 choice, where they could see all that was going forward and 
 keep an eye on the door. 
 
 Rupert, somewhat roused from his lethargy, looked round 
 and thought he had never been in such a place before. 
 The scene resembled a night-school rather than a Socialist 
 meeting. The great windows at either end were closed with 
 wooden shutters and iron bars ; three jets of gas hanging 
 from the plastered ceiling threw a crude light on the benches 
 occupied by some thirty or forty men, who seemed, by their 
 dress and general appearance, to belong to the steadier sort 
 of mechanics. There was a tribune, or master's pulpit, 
 
 vol. 11. p
 
 210 THE NEW ANTIGONE pa»t in 
 
 at the upper end away from the door, which was at present 
 empty. Near it was the table, covered with green baize, 
 at which Hippolvta had seated herself while Ivor uttered 
 his thouj to her the first morning they met. But 
 
 Rupert did not know that Hippolvta had ever been in 
 the room. He felt almost as much surprise here as at 
 the Duke of Adullam's. He had expected a larger meet- 
 ing, and not this kind of people. In his mind there 
 went with Socialism something squalid, frowsy, unkempt, 
 and forlorn. But these men seemed to be in receipt of 
 wages enabling them to dress decently ; they had an edu- 
 cated ' >ok j and many of them were turning over the 
 journals or reading written documents. Among them were 
 evidently a certain number of foreigners. They all looked 
 up on the entrance of Ivor Mardol. Seeing Rupert, they 
 looked inquiringly at one another; and a second officer, 
 in red sash like the doorkeeper, came up and asked 
 him who he was. Rupert pointed to Ivor ; again the 
 scrap of paper was shown, again the magic working fol- 
 lowed. The men bent over their journals and documents. 
 There was apparently no business going on, or it had not 
 begun. 
 
 In the midst of die silence a slight young man went 
 from his place at the side of the hall into the pulpit, carry- 
 ing with him a bundle of papers. The rest laid down what 
 they were reading, and threw themselves into listening 
 attitudes. The secretary, if such he was, began to run over 
 what seemed an interminable list of meetings, resolutions, 
 and subscriptions — a recital which, tedious though it proved 
 to Rupert, had clearly a deep interest for the assembly, 
 Ivor himself appearing to follow it point by point. More 
 than once the reader was interrupted, now by low earnest 
 murmurs of approbation, and now by marks of the reverse. 
 A bystander would have said that in 1 1 lis committee of 
 anarchists the old sections of the Revolution had renewed 
 themselves. Rut the artist, weary of these monotonous 
 proceedings, and attending but little to the hum of conversa- 
 tion, which by degrees grew louder, could hardly have told 
 when the secretary ended, or what shape of man took his 
 place in the pulpit. He did not suppose Colonel Valence
 
 chap, xxxn LIGHT OR LIGHTNING 1 211 
 
 would haunt assemblies of this species ; and Ivor's friend 
 apparently was yet to arrive. 
 
 From such stupor, consequent partly on the illness he 
 was feeling, Rupert awakened at the sound of Ivor's voice. 
 He opened his eyes and looked about. His friend had 
 arisen in his place, and the speaker in the pulpit had come 
 to a pause. The rest were dead silent. 
 
 ' Ay,' said Ivor, with a fine ring of scorn in his accents, 
 ' things are going the way I foretold. But they shall not 
 without one more protest from me. After that, you may 
 do with me as you like. I suppose there must be martyrs 
 of the new Gospel as there were of the old. You,' he con- 
 tinued, facing the man in the pulpit, ' are preaching assassi- 
 nation. You tell us it is an article in the creed of anarchy. 
 And I tell you, here, not for the first time, that it is no 
 article in the creed of humanity.' 
 
 'Sit down, can't you ?' shouted one of the men across the 
 room j ' your turn '11 come by and by. Why can't you let 
 the man speak ? ' 
 
 'By all means,' said Ivor. 'It is out of order, I suppose, to 
 protest that our society is not a company of assassins.' And 
 he sat down, flushed and excited. Rupert pressed his hand. 
 
 The other took up his interrupted speech ; and the artist 
 for the first time heard a sermon, in well-chosen language 
 and with apposite illustrations, on the text of dynamite. A 
 stern gospel, which the fanatic standing before them clearly 
 believed in. He was a thoughtful, mild-looking man, young, 
 well educated, and fluent in address, a foreigner, or of 
 foreign descent. He was much applauded, though not by 
 all ; and he knew when to leave off. The impression made 
 was deep and solemn, like that which a High Calvinist 
 might have produced in his epoch by proclaiming that 
 hardly any one present would be saved, and by adding that 
 the more of them were lost the greater would be God's 
 glory. As soon as he turned to come down from the pulpit, 
 Ivor stood up again. Voices cried, 'To the front, to the 
 front ; ' but he did not stir. The noise died away. Look- 
 ing very steadily at the brethren who crowded nearer to 
 him, he said, ' I doubt that I belong to you, and I will not 
 go into your tribune.'
 
 *ia THE NEW ANTIGONE part hi 
 
 There was a strong murmur of disapproval, \\hi< h seemed 
 
 to loosen his tongue 
 
 • I h.w should 1 belong to you,' he cried, ' when you will 
 
 take warning neither by the Revolution nor by the Govern- 
 ments, when you are mad enough to dream of creating a 
 new world by the methods which have ruined the old? 
 You disown your greatest teachers. You — I say you — are 
 ling absolute government, the Council of Ten, the 
 Inquisition, and the Committee of Public Safety. You, as 
 much as any king, or priest, or aristocrat, stand in the way 
 of progress.' 
 
 There was a great outcry. 'Proof, proof,' exclaimed 
 some ; 'renegade,' 'reactionary,' 'traitor,' came hurled from 
 the lips of others, while Ivor stood unmoved amid the com- 
 motion he had excited. He smiled disdainfully, and lifted 
 his hand to command silence, but for a time it seemed as 
 if the meeting would break up in confusion. There were 
 two or three, however, bent on restoring order and hearing 
 what he had to say. The tumult grew less, and Ivor, as 
 soon as he could make himself audible, exclaimed, ' Do 
 you want proof? It is waiting for you. I will prove myself 
 no renegade by showing who is. I say that this lodge was 
 founded on our faith in humanity. Its creed, when I joined 
 it, condemned regicide, assassination, and private war. It 
 would have condemned dynamite, had that hellish weapon 
 been invented. I say again that I am a son of the Revo- 
 lution, which has made freedom possible and will make it 
 a universal fact, if we and the like of us do not throw 
 it back a thousand years. What are my proofs ? you ask. 
 They are illustrious and decisive parallels ; they are the 
 principles on which alone a scientific and progressive 
 reconstruction of society can be attempted Do you be- 
 lieve that Voltaire or Goethe would have countenanced 
 regicide while the printing-press remained? Would 
 Rousseau have taught £mile the Gospel of dynamite ? Is 
 Victor Hugo a mere and sheer anarchist ?' 
 
 ' Bah,' said a thickset, deep-toned German, interrupting 
 him. ' Why quote men of letters ? ' 
 
 ' Because they are the priests and prophets without 
 whom no revolution could have existed,' returned Ivor :
 
 chap, xxxn LIGHT OR LIGHTNING ? 213 
 
 ' because they see the scope, and measure the path, of our 
 endeavouring ; because it is by their methods, and not by 
 yours, that we shall win.' 
 
 ' Slow methods,' retorted another, ' while the people are 
 starving.' 
 
 ' Dynamite will not help them to live,' said Ivor. ' You 
 may blow up Winter Palaces and kill Emperors with it. You 
 will not gain the intelligent, or the men of science, or the 
 good anywhere, by the sound of its explosion.' 
 
 ' We want a mental and spiritual democracy as well as 
 the rest,' interrupted a third ; ' we care not a jot for aristo- 
 cracies of intelligence or benevolence. That is why we 
 call ourselves Sparta.' 
 
 'I know,' said Ivor, his face kindling; 'but your new 
 Sparta is worse than the old. You aim at a democracy ! 
 Yes, at one which seen from behind is despotism. You will 
 not tolerate differences of opinion ; they must be abolished 
 with the dagger. That is your Inquisition. You make a 
 slave of every man that joins you, and punish his so-called 
 infractions of the rule with death. That is your Council of 
 Ten. You decree the destruction of the innocent, the 
 blowing-up of cities, the plunder of the poor by your howl- 
 ing rabble. That is Saint Bartholomew and the Committee 
 of Public Safety. Oh, my friends, you need not lose 
 patience,' he went on, as the interruptions began again. 
 ' When I have spoken to the end there will be time enough 
 to kill me. But this, in the face of your threatenings, I 
 repeat, that you have forgotten the very purpose of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 ' Have we ? ' was the cry. ' Let us hear it, then.' 
 
 ' Read it in Victor Hugo,' he replied, ' if nowhere else. 
 The Revolution means liberty and light. It means equality 
 in the best things, the only things worth having — love and 
 justice and truth. It means reason, not dynamite. Ah, 
 my brothers,' said Ivor, his voice softening, ' how comes it 
 that we have lost faith in the heart, the mind, the brain of 
 Humanity? Why must we turn, like wild beasts, to our 
 fangs and our claws, to the poison of the rattle-snake and 
 the teeth of the tiger ? ' 
 
 ' Why ? ' exclaimed one who had not yet spoken ; ' be-
 
 j i4 77// NEW AN r: paw in 
 
 cause we are fighting with ind rattle-snakes. How 
 
 t Ise are we to conquer? ' 
 
 1 Your conception of humanity, I id [vor, 'does not 
 
 include the governing classes. I lave all revolutionists been 
 ignorant ? have all sprung from the people ? You invert 
 the pyramid; but your anarchy is only aristocracy turned 
 upside down. You want the guillotine, the infernal machine, 
 the flask of nitroglycerine, as the Governments want their 
 hangman and their headsman. Oh, worthy successor of 
 Robespierre, I congratulate you.' 
 
 ' Robespierre was the greatest and holiest of revolu- 
 tionists, always excepting Marat.' answered the other 
 sullenly. 
 
 Ivor was not to be daunted. He went on with his 
 theme. ' How did Robespierre differ from Torquemada ? ' 
 he inquired. 'Their views of the next world might not be 
 the same, but they were pretty much of a mind in dealing 
 with this. If the Jesuits were regicides on principle, were 
 the Jacobins any better? A fine revolution,' he exclaimed, 
 ' when you change the men, but carry out the measures more 
 obstinately than before ; when you snatch the people from 
 the lion's mouth to fling them to jackals and hyenas 1 You 
 tell me that force alone will conquer force. It was not by 
 force that Christianity won its way to Empire. When it 
 took up the sword it struck, indeed, a deadly blow, but into 
 its own heart. Are we going to repeat the mistake, and 
 abolish the principles of '89 by the guillotine of '93 ? 
 Conquer force by force ? Not in this battle, be you sure 
 of that. It is a battle against darkness, and only light will 
 scatter it. Therefore I conclude,' he said, raising his voice 
 and speaking with impassioned earnestness, ' that the resolu- 
 tion which would commit our lodge to a policy of dynamite 
 is nothing short of apostasy from the principles on which it 
 was founded ; and I, for one, will dare or endure the utmost 
 rather than assent to it.' 
 
 ' What will you put in its stead ? ' The question rang 
 out clear through the room, drawing every eye towards the 
 speaker, who had come in while Ivor was replying to the 
 interruptions of his opponents. He was a tall man, wrapped 
 in a cloak with which until now he had covered his face
 
 chap, xxxii LIGHT OR LIGHTNING? 215 
 
 where he sat by the door. At the sound of his voice Ivor 
 gave a start. Rupert, looking that way, saw the man rise from 
 his seat and press towards the tribune. He let his cloak fall, 
 and from that moment the artist's eyes were rivetted on his 
 pale and haughty countenance. Again, as at the beginning 
 of Ivor's speech, there was complete silence, and the men 
 present looked at one another in expectation of something 
 unusual. Ivor, standing up while the stranger passed, made 
 no attempt to resume. The stillness became intense. 
 
 ' You are debating a question to-night,' said the stranger, 
 as he looked at them from the tribune he had mounted, 
 1 on which the future of the world hangs. Let me help 
 you to solve it. All the lodges in Europe have been 
 debating it too, since a certain afternoon when the tele- 
 graph brought news from Petersburg. The French Revo- 
 lution has become cosmopolitan ; the nations are on the 
 march, and they must have their '93. Anarchy first, then 
 order. When France challenged the kings to battle, it flung 
 them the head of a king. We have done more ; we are 
 going to pull down the Europe of the kings, with all its 
 wealth, feudalism, ranks, and classes, till we have swept the 
 place clean. And,' he paused, ' our gage of battle is the 
 shattered body of the Tsar.' 
 
 There could be no mistaking how the applause went 
 now. It was violent and vociferous. The stranger hardly 
 seemed to notice it. When silence was restored he went on 
 in a musing voice, low but exceedingly distinct, as if speak- 
 ing to himself. ' When I was a boy I too had my dreams,' 
 he said, and he glanced towards Ivor. ' I believed in 
 Goethe and Voltaire, in Victor Hugo and the sentimentalists. 
 I thought the struggle was for light. I see it is for bread. 
 Look out in the streets to-night and consider the faces that 
 pass. Beyond these walls,' his voice sank lower, but it was 
 wonderfully clear throughout, ' lies the anarchy of London. 
 Rags, hunger, nakedness, tears, filth, incest, squalor, decay, 
 disease, the human lazar-house, the black death eating its 
 victims piecemeal, — that is three-fourths of the London 
 lying at these doors. Whose care is it ? Nay, who cares 
 for it ? The piles of the royal nalace are laid deep in 
 a lake of blood. And you will leave it standing ? You
 
 THE NE W ANTIGONE tm 
 
 talk of lighl ; you pr< f< r sentiment to dynamite and assassi- 
 nation ! What a meek Christian you an 
 
 'No,' returned Ivor, with heightened colour in his t. 
 'I am neither meek nor a Christian. The lake of blood is 
 
 a terror tome as to you. That is not the question. You 
 know me too well to imagine it,' he said almost fiercely. 
 • The question is whether a second anarchy will cure a first. 
 I say no. I prefer sentiment to assassination? Very well, 
 why should I not? But I prefer reason and right even to 
 sentiment. I appeal to what is deepest in the heart of man.' 
 
 The stranger laughed unpleasantly and resumed, as 
 though dismissing the argument. ' I have seen battles,' he 
 said, 'in which there were heroism, and madness, and the 
 rush of armies together, and the thunder of cannon, and 
 wild, raging cries in the artillery gloom, enough to intoxicate a 
 man with the bloody splendours of war. But I never beheld 
 anything more heroic or glorious ' — he smiled, his voice fell, 
 and he gave a long, peculiar glance down the hall — • than 
 the overture to our great enterprise. It cost many days to 
 think it out ; it was accomplished in a moment.' Then, in 
 the strange, musing tone of one that has a vision before him, 
 ' I saw him stagger, lean his arm against the parapet, and fall, 
 shattered as with a thunderbolt. It was not the death of a 
 man ; it was the annihilation of a tyranny.' 
 
 ' And the springing up of a fresh tyranny from his blood,' 
 cried Ivor, unable, amid the cheering of the others, to con- 
 tain himself. 
 
 ' Ah, it was a fine sight,' continued the speaker, as 
 though he had not been interrupted, 'and new in its kind. 
 The great White Tsar has often been murdered — by his wife, 
 his son, his brother ; Nicholas committed suicide, and so 
 did Alexander the First. But never until now have the 
 people done justice on their executioner.' 
 
 Then in the same quiet voice, where passion w r as so 
 concentrated that it gave only a dull red intensity of ex- 
 ] >ression, but none of those lyric cries that lift up the soul, 
 he recited, without naming person or place, the tragedy of 
 which he had been a witness and one of the prime movers. 
 No sound of protest came while lie was speaking. The 
 audience hung spellbound on his words ; and the sombre,
 
 chap, xxxii LIGHT OR LIGHTNING? 217 
 
 sanguinary picture unrolled itselt in all its dreadfulness 
 before their vision. Like a tragic messenger, he told the 
 tale graphically, yet as though he had no part in it ; but the 
 conviction, unanimous in that meeting, of the share he had 
 taken added a covert fear, a wonder not unmixed with 
 something almost loathsome, as the man stood there, his 
 hands clean, but the scent of blood clinging to his raiment. 
 Ivor listened, his head bowed down, motionless. Rupert 
 never once turned his eyes from the stranger, who moved 
 along the lines of the story swiftly, quietly, painting with 
 lurid tints, and not pausing till he had shown the mangled 
 remains of the victim wrapped in his bloody shroud. 
 
 ' That was not all the blood spilt in the tragedy,' he 
 concluded. 'We, too, lost our soldiers, but they were 
 willing to die. And now that you have seen the deed 
 through my eyes, judge whether it was rightly done.' 
 
 ' Stay,' said Ivor, rising again, and in his agitation leaning 
 heavily upon Rupert's shoulder, ' before you judge let me 
 ask on what principles your verdict is to be founded. Will 
 you take those of the Revolution, or return to those of 
 Absolutism ?' 
 
 ' The Revolution, the Revolution,' cried many voices. 
 
 ' One of them,' returned the young man, ' is fraternity. 
 Where did his murderers show pity to the Tsar ? Another 
 is humanity, to employ the arms of reason, to enlighten 
 blindness, not strike it with the sword. Must war be per- 
 petual, or where is retaliation to cease? I have always 
 thought that pardon, light, and love were the watchwords 
 of our cause ; and I looked forward to the day when men 
 should live in peace with one another. To be a man, I 
 understood, was to bear a charmed life, on which no other 
 man should lay a daring hand. Murder, I was told, is 
 sacrilege. Am I now to unlearn all these truths, and join 
 the crusade of dynamite-throwers instead of the crusade of 
 reason? That is the counter-revolution indeed. I, for 
 one, will have nothing to do with it. Take my vote, which 
 condemns anarchy, whether in the heights or in the depths, 
 and let me go.' 
 
 He moved out of his seat towards the door, pulling 
 Rupert after him. In an instant the way was barred. Some
 
 3l8 THE NEW NE PAW in 
 
 few, whose secret thoughts had been expressed in Ivor's 
 indignant Language, held aloof; the rest were all speaking 
 i » itedly, and reiterating the words 'traitor' and 'infor; 
 which had been previously hurled at the head of the dissen- 
 tient. Ivor, unable to reach the entrance and surrounded 
 on every side by angry fares and uplifted arms, was in no 
 slight ]>eril. But he did not seem to notice; he was < 
 and silent. Once he looked towards the stranger, and their 
 eyes met. It is impossible to say what would have hap- 
 pened next, for more than one foreigner had drawn a knife 
 from his pocket and there was a gleam of steel in the air, 
 when, striding down from the tribune and pushing his way 
 through the crowd, Ivor's antagonist arrived in front of him. 
 The others fell back. To Rupert it appeared that they 
 obeyed this man as a chief. 
 
 'Where are you going, Ivor Mardol?' he said in his 
 distinct accents. ' Are you proposing to denounce your 
 friends?' 
 
 ' Denounce ? What do you take me for ? ' replied Ivor. 
 ' I shall never enter this committee-room again. I give up 
 the society, and you may inflict on me any punishment you 
 please, but I am neither a spy nor an informer. You know 
 where to find me. I have not been hiding for the last six 
 months. In spite of your threatenings I have walked the 
 streets of London. These men know, for some of them 
 have seen me.' 
 
 'And this friend of yours, who has not spoken a word 
 all the evening?' inquired the other; 'is he, like yourself, 
 a partisan of light or a spy?' 
 
 ' It matters not what he is,' replied Ivor; 'he has authority 
 for coming hither which even you will not dispute.' And 
 for the third time he held out the scrap of paper. 
 
 The stranger looked at it closely, gave it back, and said, 
 turning round to the brotherhood, ' We must let them go. 
 It would be dangerous to have any quarrelling in this pla< e. 
 Public opinion is roused, and what has been done is com- 
 promising enough to the whole order. I will be responsible, 
 and will watch over their movements myself.' 
 
 Amid confusion a strong character maintains its ascend- 
 ency. The stranger was determined and cool; Ivor had
 
 chap, xxxn LIGHT OR LIGHTNING ? 219 
 
 shown no timidity ; and Rupert's silence implied that self- 
 possession of the Englishman which appears so formidable 
 a thing to the average foreigner. It would seem as though 
 the three men settled the business among them, while the 
 meeting looked on. ' Wait till I join you,' said the stranger, 
 leading the friends through the lane which was made for them 
 to the entrance. Ivor bowed silently, and refused his prof- 
 fered hand. The door closed behind them, there was still 
 no light in the passage ; and not a word was spoken till 
 the young men were in the street. Then Rupert, grasping 
 Ivor's arm and pulling him towards the gas -lamp which 
 shed a dull, flickering light in front of the great doorway, 
 said with the utmost vehemence, ' Why did you tell me a 
 falsehood ? You said you did not know him. That, Ivor, 
 that is Colonel Valence.' 
 
 Ivor staggered back. 'What, Rupert?' he exclaimed. 
 
 ' Colonel Valence, I tell you,' replied his friend. ' I knew 
 him the moment I set eyes on him.' 
 
 The engraver was bewildered still. 'Is it possible?' 
 he said to himself. ' Ah, was that the resemblance I 
 fancied, but could not account for, in Mrs. Malcolm?' He 
 fell into a deep silence. 
 
 Rupert shook his arm impatiently. 'When are you 
 going to explain ?' he said. ' You knew them both, and you 
 would never have told me. Oh, what a false friend you 
 have been, Ivor !' 
 
 'No,' said the other, rousing himself; 'spare me your 
 reproaches. I do not deserve them. I know that man, 
 have known him these sixteen years ; but he is Mr. Felton, 
 not Colonel Valence.' 
 
 ' I tell you,' returned the other with emphasis, ' it is 
 Colonel Valence. Voice, and manner, and appearance, — I 
 recognise them all. I met and talked with him in Treling- 
 ham churchyard the day after I went there.' 
 
 Ivor made him recount the incident, while they walked 
 up and down in front of the house, waiting till the lodge 
 broke up. But the artist was impatient, and said hardly a 
 word of Lady Alice. His thoughts were set on Hippolyta. 
 The old man — Colonel Valence looked older than ever — 
 must surely know what had become of her. But would he
 
 220 THE NEW ANTIGONE past m 
 
 tell Rupert? He was rigid and unfeeling, capable of lead- 
 ing his child into the thick of battle and with dry i 
 
 olding her perish, so long as the cause triumphed. 
 Glanville, when he had ended the short recital, turned again 
 to cross-examine his friend. What did Ivor know of Mi. 
 >n ? Not much, or more truly nothing, apart from the 
 Socialist designs wherein both of them had been engaged. 
 He still persisted in declaring that he had never communi- 
 cated with Miss Valence, nor set eyes on her till she came 
 to the spot where they were now standing. There was 
 something in her face that vaguely recalled, he could not 
 have said whose features, but he now saw they were Mr. 
 Felton's. The artist thought of the documents which Bern- 
 stein had seen in Ivor's desk, in the writing of Hippolyta ; 
 but he felt ashamed to mention them. How did he know 
 they were there ? 
 
 Jt was a bitterly cold night, and Rupert shivered as they 
 went to. and fro in the windy street, not speaking while 
 there was any one near, and having occasionally to pause 
 lest the throng that at moments swept by should carry them 
 away from the house, and Colonel Valence should escape 
 them. For the artist was sure that he had been recognised 
 by the old man as he came towards them from the tribune. 
 Nothing but Ivor's perilous situation had kept him from 
 challenging him there and then. The feeling of suspense 
 was horrible ; and Ivor, overwhelmed at the discovery that 
 his guardian, his stern and pitiless friend, was Mrs. Mal- 
 colm's father, walked by Glanville's side, voiceless, trying to 
 piece together the details of this strange story. In what 
 way had his own solitary life come to be entangled with 
 that of the woman who had disappeared, and with her 
 father's? Was she alive or dead? His affection for Mr. 
 Felton had never been strong ; it was now annihilated by 
 the exultant cynicism with which that prophet of evil had 
 depicted the Tsar's tragedy. It had almost turned to 
 loathing. 
 
 The men were coming out. Rupert, standing under the 
 street lamp, scanned their features as they passed ; and 
 when the stream slackened made a sign to Ivor, and 
 pushed into the hall, where a tallow candle was burning at
 
 chap, xxxn LIGHT OR LIGHTNING? 221 
 
 the head of the stairs. The man he sought was on the 
 threshold of the committee room. Its door, wide open, 
 showed the gas flaring within. When the last man had 
 issued forth, Ivor, darting in front of Rupert, said eagerly, 
 ' Mr. Felton, come this way,' and went in, followed by 
 Rupert and the old man. No sooner was the door shut, 
 and the three by themselves, than Ivor, in a trembling 
 voice, cried out, 'Rupert says you are Colonel Valence. 
 Is it true?' 
 
 His guardian looked at them in turn. ' It must have 
 come,' he said under his breath. 'Yes, Ivor,' he went on 
 in a louder tone, ' I am Colonel Valence. Do you know 
 anything about me?' 
 
 Rupert, who could wait no longer, struck in. 'What 
 has become of Hippolyta?' he asked, his face growing pale. 
 The name would hardly pass his lips. Colonel Valence, 
 forgetting Ivor, wheeled round, and gave an astonished 
 glance at the artist. 
 
 'Is not she at Falside?' he demanded in turn. 
 
 'The Jew said there was no one there but the servants,' 
 answered Rupert confusedly. 
 
 ' The Jew ? What Jew ? Have you gone out of your 
 mind?' exclaimed the Colonel, more and more perplexed. 
 ' Has my daughter left home since I went away ? I thought 
 by this time you would have arranged everything.' 
 
 ' She is lost,' said Rupert gloomily. He did not know 
 what to think. He saw that Colonel Valence was troubled, 
 but not like a man who had seen his child die, or left her 
 in prison with the surviving assassins at Petersburg. He 
 asked for explanations. Question and answer succeeded 
 each other rapidly. Her father appeared to learn for the 
 first time that Hippolyta had come to London, had taken a 
 false name, had met Ivor Mardol. Rupert, in the presence 
 of his friend, and to her father's face, could not describe 
 how she had given herself to him. He kept back what he 
 could ; but Colonel Valence did not press him, did not 
 seem to think of dishonour in connection with Hippolyta. 
 He inquired only how many days she had been missing, 
 what she had taken as provision for her journey, and 
 whether she had received any letters. Rupert told all he
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE paet til 
 
 knew, and mentioned the second letter, be id( s his own, 
 
 which Mis. Leeming had handed to lier the last evening 
 she spent at Forrest Hou 
 
 'That was from me,' said the Colonel, 'announcing that 
 I should probably return to Falside in the course of three 
 
 weeks. I allowed a margin for accidents, and the time is out. 
 1 told her where I was. It is conceivable that she went 
 abroad in the hope of meeting me, or of helping me in 
 Petersburg. Hippolyta was always a creature of impulse. 
 She must be at Falside. Lost ! No, my dear Cilanville, 
 do not think it. We will all three go down to the We ;l 
 to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Not I,' said Ivor, turning away. 
 
 'Why not?' inquired his guardian. 
 
 He answered firmly, ' Because I have done with you, 
 Mr. Felton. I said so to myself a hundred times while you 
 were speaking, and I mean it. You are ' he stopped. 
 
 ' What am I ? ' asked the other quietly, with a severe 
 light in his eyes. 
 
 ' You are worse than a murderer, that is what you 
 are,' cried Ivor Mardol with great passion. ' Others com- 
 mit bloody deeds, but you make a religion of them.' 
 
 Colonel Valence frowned. ' Boy, boy, you must not 
 talk to me in that fashion,' he said. 'What I have advo- 
 cated is justice, not murder. Have done with your tender- 
 ness for crowned criminals, and come with me to Falside.' 
 
 ' I shall do no such thing,' replied Ivor. ' Good-night, 
 Rupert. When you have found Mrs. Malcolm, let me 
 know.' 
 
 He was going. Rupert caught hold of him. ' Dear 
 Ivor,' he said, ' be a friend to me. If I do not come 
 
 upon Hippolyta soon, I shall I don't know what I 
 
 shall do — something desperate. Never mind Colonel Val- 
 ence. Come and help in the search.' 
 
 But Ivor was not to be shaken. He kept his eyes care- 
 fully averted from the spot where his guardian was standing, 
 in a strange attitude of grief and scorn. The Colonel did 
 not speak, and Rupert went on entreating, but to no 
 purpose. At last Ivor said, ' I will never come under 
 the same roof again with Mr. Felton ' — the old man winced
 
 OHAr. xxxii LIGHT OR LIGHTNING ? 223 
 
 slightly, but was silent as before ; ' never,' continued Ivor, 
 1 while I live. If you want me, Rupert, I can go down to 
 Trelingham and stay at the Hermitage, while you are search- 
 ing for Miss Valence. I doubt, I doubt,' he concluded, 
 shaking his head mournfully, ' that you will find her.' 
 
 ' What makes you doubt?' asked Glanville. 
 
 ' The way she seems to have left you,' replied his friend. 
 'She had a strong will, and she must have meant, — oh, 
 my dear fellow, I know it is hard, — but she intended her 
 flight to be a separation for ever, or she would not have left 
 you without a sign.' 
 
 'She must be at Falside,' repeated Colonel Valence in 
 a low voice. 
 
 ' Come, Ivor,' said Rupert entreatingly. 
 
 ' To Trelingham, if you please,' answered his friend. ' I 
 know the Earl is kind and will understand that you want 
 me. But never to that — that other house.' 
 
 Colonel Valence, in a gentler way than he had hitherto 
 shown, said, ' Ivor, I am an old man. My principles are 
 a part of my experience, which all the discussion in the 
 world cannot alter. Come and stay with me at Falside 
 with your friend, with Hippolyta. Let us enjoy a few days 
 of happiness together.' 
 
 Such language from the stern Mr. Felton surprised 
 Ivor. It was unlike him, not in his character. But this 
 night had made him odious. The scent of murder hung 
 about him yet. It was impossible that any change in his 
 bearing could take away the guilt of what he had said 
 and done. As a final answer, Mardol turned to the artist 
 and said with decision, 'When you return from Falside, 
 you will find me at the chalet. I will write at once to 
 Lord Trelingham, if you can give me his address.' 
 
 And so saying he went out of the room, without look- 
 ing round. He supposed Rupert would stay, to make 
 arrangements for the journey of to-morrow. When he 
 gained the street he paused, considered for a moment, and 
 walked hastily towards Grafton Place. His thoughts were 
 in a tumult ; he scarcely knew which way he was going. 
 In the midst of his painful and distracted musings he 
 heard steps behind him, as of some one coming rapidly on.
 
 TB ■ V ANTIGONE part in 
 
 A moment after Rupert was by his side. ' Why did you 
 not wait?' he >aid, out of breath. 'Colonel Valence is 
 gone We arc to travel together by the fast train at ten 
 o'clock. Here is Lord Trelingham's address. What shall 
 you do ? ' 
 
 ' I will follow in the afternoon,' replied Ivor. ' I!ut, 
 Rupert, prepare yourself for disappointment. 1 am almost 
 certain Miss Valence is not there.' 
 
 ' You cannot tell me where she is, all the same ? ' in- 
 quired the artist, half angrily. 
 
 ' I can tell you nothing, because I know nothing. I 
 have searched where I could. Miss Desmond has not seen 
 her. The Duke of Adullam thinks — but it matters not 
 what he thinks. It is mere conjecture. The best thing 
 we can do is to go back to Trelingham Court, — you to finish 
 the Great Hall, and I to bear you company. If Miss 
 Valence is living, she either cannot or will not inform you 
 of her existence. You may as well wait for news at the 
 Court as any where. You will have work to distract you.' 
 
 Rupert accompanied Ivor in silence to his own door, 
 and went home.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE VALLEY OF PERPETUAL DREAM 
 
 The journey from London, which Rupert and Colonel 
 Valence undertook next day, was melancholy. In spite 
 of his indomitable vigour and iron frame, the Colonel 
 looked tired, said but little, and appeared to be sunk in his 
 own reflections, which could hardly be of a cheerful cast. 
 There were moments when he seemed dispirited. A curi- 
 ous experience, which he knew not whether to call pain or 
 pleasure, was that of Rupert, as he sat opposite the gray- 
 haired man and traced in the lines of his weather-beaten 
 countenance the far-off likeness of Hippolyta. At a word, 
 sometimes, the mask would seem to change, the whole ex- 
 pression would be soft and gentle, like that of his daughter 
 when a pleasant thought came into her mind ; but again, it 
 vanished and the stern lines were fixed as ever. The 
 Colonel asked no questions ; he had gathered the story 
 last night from Rupert's confused narrative, all except 
 the motive which could have brought to so sudden a con- 
 clusion the idyll they seemed to have begun. On the other 
 hand, he spoke without prompting of Ivor Mardol, whose 
 resolution to break their long friendship seemed to afflict 
 rather than to anger him. ' Strange,' he said, ' that the 
 old man should be so much more advanced than the 
 young ! Ivor is sentimental ; he talked of Victor Hugo. I 
 daresay he writes verses. While I have gone forward 
 with the age, he is turning back to Utopia and the idealists. 
 He does not see that the question between Governments 
 and people is which shall make an end of the other. But 
 he is very noble.' 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE pabi hi 
 
 The artist replied at random. He felt the old affection 
 for ln's Bchoolboy friend reviving ; but <>i the argumi 
 last night he remembered nothing distinctly. IK- was 
 suffering almost as on the morning when Hippolyta left 
 him, when he sat, a ruined man, in her boudoir. The 
 mind was torturing the body. < >ne tear hung upon him 
 and hum time to time shook him with a passionate thrill; 
 what if she were not at l'alside, or had never been there? 
 The journey was a forlorn hope. All he could say was 
 that she must, in any case, have written to her father. The 
 old man was not dissembling, he thought; had Hippolyta 
 gone from Forrest House with his approval, he would not be 
 taking all these pains to convince Rupert that she was lost 
 to him. He would be following her to the Continent. 
 She had, then, lied of her own accord. But why? It was 
 an impenetrable mystery. 
 
 They passed through the scenery which his frequent 
 expeditions to and from Trelingham had made familiar ; at 
 a certain junction they changed for Toxenden, which was 
 the station nearest l'alside. They saw nobody of their 
 acquaintance. When they alighted at the small country 
 station, looking pretty even in the lap of winter, Colonel 
 Valence ordered a vehicle, remarking, as they entered it, 
 ' A fortunate thing that we are not obliged to go round 
 by Trelingham ! Although, during the last seven years, I 
 have travelled constantly on this line, never once have I 
 encountered the Earl or any of his people. They knew 
 when I came or went ; for it was idle to disguise my name 
 in a place where everybody remembered it Else I have 
 not borne the name of Valence for thirty years and more.' 
 
 ' The Duke of Adullam is acquainted with it,' said 
 Rupert. 
 
 'Ah, has he told you so ?' returned the other; 'but the 
 Duke knows everything.' 
 
 ' Even the parentage of Ivor Mardol,' observed the artist. 
 
 ' 1 daresay.' was the careless reply, as Colonel Valence 
 settled down in the carriage. 
 
 The evening was dark and cold. The way seemed long, 
 although Glanville knew it from his frequent riding over 
 the country in those happy days when he was learning
 
 chai>. xxxin THE VALLEY OF PERPETUAL DREAM 22? 
 
 more and more the worth of Hippolyta, to be, in fact, but 
 a couple of miles. It went uphill towards the moor, then 
 turned again rather abruptly, and kept on the bare hill- 
 side. And now the sky seemed a huge cloud resting on 
 another, which was the dark sullen waste, heavy and dismal 
 in the gloom. They turned in at the steep gate of Falside. 
 The evergreens would have hidden the lights had any been 
 shining in the library windows. But there were none. 
 That side of the house was quite dark. When they reached 
 the second gate they dismounted, and Rupert stood there 
 all impatient while the Colonel paid and dismissed the 
 driver. No one came at their approach, although the 
 sounds of their wheels must surely, said Rupert to himself, 
 have been audible on the gravel-path. He followed Colonel 
 Valence round the cottage, where all seemed deadly still, 
 to the housekeeper's room at the back. There was a light 
 in the window. The Colonel tapped in a peculiar way; 
 and Dolores, the aged nurse of Hippolyta, came at once 
 to the door. On seeing her master she began to explain 
 that Andres had gone to the village. 
 
 ' Where is my daughter ? ' inquired the Colonel. She 
 looked at Glanville, whom she had not before noticed, and 
 seeing the expression on his face, screamed out some 
 words in her own language. Colonel Valence, answering 
 apparently in the same — for Rupert, though he could read 
 Spanish, had no practice in hearing it — turned to the artist, 
 and said, ' She has not been here. There must be a letter 
 in my study.' And he took the light which Dolores offered. 
 The two men ran down the steps, through the covered 
 way, and into the house, each disquieted, but neither stop- 
 ping to utter his thought. The library was in perfect order, 
 but had that woebegone appearance which comes over a 
 room where no one has dwelt for some time. Colonel 
 Valence, setting down the light, began, with uneasy looks, 
 to turn over the pile of miscellaneous correspondence that 
 lay undisturbed on the table. There were many letters, 
 which he tore open and flung from him, when he saw they 
 had not the enclosure he was expecting. He came to the 
 end of them, turned back, shook them out carefully again, 
 and sat down, fixing his eyes on the floor and not uttering
 
 TUP. NEW ANTIi ?i WE part ni 
 
 a word. Glanville was equally .silent. At last Colonel 
 Valence looked up, d, with the deep veins on his 
 
 forehead swollen. 'Mr. Gl nville,' he said, with curious 
 formality, ' 1 can find nothing. My daughter must Lave 
 been murdered' 
 
 Under that dreadful shock the artist reeled and had 
 almost fallen, hut recovering himself he went to the table ; 
 and, for the third time, the correspondence was turned and 
 examined, in the vain hope of finding a trace of Hippolyta. 
 She had not written; there was nothing there. The two 
 men, when Rupert laid down the last of the papers, sank 
 into a stillness that resembled apathy. Neither stirred 
 nor spoke. The Colonel sat with his eyes on the ground ; 
 Rupert, grasping the table with one hand, stood like a 
 man in a dream. The candle burnt to the socket, flickered, 
 and went out. There was darkness in the room, and far 
 down the valley a star or two seemed to twinkle. The sound 
 of Andres returning on horseback struck upon their ears and 
 woke Colonel Valence from his overwhelming grief. He 
 rose and went to the door, calling out to Andres in Spanish. 
 The old servant stopped. There was brief colloquy between 
 them ; the Colonel did not return ; and by and by lights 
 were brought into the room, and Dolores set down a tray 
 with supper on it by the side of Glanville. Her husband, 
 who brought the lights, said that Colonel Valence would 
 not appear again that night, but the stranger's room would 
 be made ready as soon as possible. Both the old servants 
 were in great consternation and shedding tears ; but Glan- 
 ville hardly noticed them, and the supper remained untasted 
 where it had been laid. He heard the sound of Colonel 
 Valence's footstep as he paced up and down outside on 
 the terrace. It was a slight thing, but intolerable. Seizing 
 his hat he ran up the steps once more, and let himself out 
 by the little postern-gate leading to the bridge. How well 
 he remembered that afternoon when Hippolyta broupht 
 him through it for the first time, and he followed like her 
 dog, or some poor thing she cherished ! Gone, gone ! She 
 was dead, or worse than dead, to him. 
 
 He wandered on the edge of the moor, stumbling over 
 the great stones, but, by some instinct, never going beyond
 
 chap, xxxin THE VALLEY OF PERPETUAL DREAM 229 
 
 the sound of the waterfall, which made a strange mono- 
 tonous music in the night, like a sobbing ghost, he said to 
 himself. When some hours were past Andres found him, 
 and persuaded him to go in, speaking to the proud English 
 gentleman with soothing words as to a child. He showed 
 him the stranger's room. ' My first night at Falside, under 
 her father's roof,' murmured Glanville, as he looked round 
 him. 'This is the coming home, and the end of the 
 honeymoon. Hippolyta is dead, and I am miserable.' 
 He crept into bed and fell asleep. Next morning, when 
 he woke, the fever was upon him, but he would take no 
 heed of it. He came downstairs. Colonel Valence was 
 gone, — to London, said the note which he had written and 
 left for Glanville. He might be compelled to seek his 
 daughter on the Continent. He would let the artist know 
 if he heard anything. 
 
 A fire was blazing on the hearth, looking clear as in 
 frosty weather. Dolores, when she had laid the table for 
 breakfast, lingered until Rupert sat down, and then with 
 the tenderness of the kind old creature she was, induced 
 him to eat. He made a hasty meal, and at its conclusion 
 was setting out from the cottage, when she asked him at 
 what hour he would come back. He echoed the words 
 wonderingly. 'Come back ?' he said, 'never.' She insisted, 
 and begged him to say in what direction he was going. In 
 the same absent way he replied, 'To Trelingham.' Upon 
 hearing that she called Andres, and between them they 
 made Glanville stay until the pony-chaise could be got 
 ready. He waited by the garden wall ; he would not 
 enter the house, nor even look towards it, a second time. 
 He seemed to have no interest in himself, no purpose save 
 that of reaching Trelingham at the earliest. When Andres 
 appeared with the carriage he mounted silently, drew his 
 ulster about him, and sat upright, gazing straight on before 
 him, but speaking not a syllable, and seeming not to remark 
 the way they went. His thoughts, meanwhile, were busy 
 enough with it, going over the dreams, the vanished illusions 
 of that night on which he had been driven along these very 
 paths, in the dark, but with Hippolyta's remembrance to 
 light up all within. Now the darkness had entered his
 
 230 THE NF. W A NTIGONR PART IT1 
 
 soul. He did not dare to whisper the name which, barely 
 thought of, pierced him like a sword. He wanted to 
 
 away from it, to see no more of Falside, to be only the 
 artist whose work was to be done at Trelingham. Plans 
 for the future he had none. ' I shall he stronger,' he said, 
 'when I am in the Great Hall painting.' He tried to 
 think of the frescoes, but the exertion sickened him. It 
 seemed to him that he was neither living nor dead. He 
 was stunned and yet suffering. 
 
 The well-known trees rose up to greet him as they 
 came in view of Trelingham Chase. The winter-landscape, 
 though bare in places, and taking in the wild moor with its 
 belt of dark-blue sea, was soothing and gentle. The great 
 house stretched its wings over the silent terrace, where no 
 figure was to be seen. They passed the lodge, drove 
 slowly up the winding walk by which Hippolyta had always 
 come when she visited Lady May Davenant, and arrived at 
 the chief entrance. The butler, who was at hand, observed 
 Glanville's extraordinary pallor, but, with his usual discre- 
 tion, said nothing except that Mr. Mardol had come the 
 evening before, and was at the chalet. Rupert sent him 
 a message, shook Andres by the hand, and let him go. It 
 was a relief to see the pony-chaise depart ; it had belonged 
 to her. While he was taking off his wraps, Ivor, who had 
 been walking near the house, came in and ran up, catching 
 him by both hands, and, by a look, inquiring what news 
 there might be. The artist bit his lip nervously and 
 turned away. ' She is not there,' he whispered. That 
 was all. They understood one another, and said no 
 more. 
 
 It was a bad sign that Rupert would neither eat nor lie 
 down. Capable, like all great artists, of working for many 
 hours on end, he was also, like them, subject to fits of 
 weariness during which he slept the day through. But 
 now he was fatigued, and he wrought on. He made the 
 Great Hall his abode, leaving it only to retire late in the 
 evening to his own room, where he would throw himself on 
 the bed, sometimes without undressing, and lie, not know- 
 ing how his thoughts went, in a state of semi-consciousness 
 that left him more tired than the day before. His work,
 
 chap, xxxiii THE VALLEY OF PERPETUAL DREAM 231 
 
 however, showed no trace of fatigue. Ivor looked on with 
 grave misgivings, astonished that he would not unburden 
 his heart, seeing the fever on his brow, but powerless to 
 influence him. Rupert, silent for hours, kept his friend in 
 the Great Hall, and seemed disquieted if he went away; 
 which led to Ivor's giving up the chalet and sleeping in his 
 old room at the Court, next to Glanville's. He received, a 
 few days after his arrival, a most gracious letter from Lord 
 Trelingham, who, with his daughter and the Countess Lute- 
 nieff, was staying in Paris at the house of a Legitimist 
 noble, M. de Flamas. In his own epistle Ivor had said 
 that Rupert had wanted him immediately, and he had 
 ventured to anticipate the Earl's permission to spend 
 the necessary time at Trelingham. The Earl, in reply, 
 hoped that Mr. Glanville was in his usual health, regretting 
 that he had not heard from him for more than a month. 
 Rupert, in fact, could not have said when he last wrote to 
 Lord Trelingham. He had forgotten the name of Lady 
 May. 
 
 And so he continued to paint the Morte d'Arthur, 
 working from his own designs as though they had been 
 another's, not creating but remembering, and with the 
 refrain of his sad thoughts for an accompaniment. One 
 evening as he was coming down the ladder from his high 
 scaffold a fit of giddiness seized him, and but for his 
 friend, who caught him as he slipped, the accident might 
 have proved serious. He walked occasionally on the 
 terrace ; but he would never visit any point from which 
 the Hermitage was visible. When the letters came he 
 inspected them eagerly. There was nothing from Colonel 
 Valence. Bernstein wrote several times, and Rupert did 
 not answer. At last, when he had been working some ten 
 days with despairing eagerness, he laid his brush down 
 and said to Ivor, ' My brain does not seem right. I think 
 it means fever. Take care of me when it comes, and let 
 no one enter my room.' 
 
 Next day he was unable to rise. He slept a little, woke 
 with a throbbing brow, and hardly knew who it was that sat 
 by his bedside. Ivor sent for the physician that had at- 
 tended Tom Davenant. When he came the patient was
 
 THE NEJi ANTIGOA pak ra 
 
 wandering in his mind, talking much but unintelligiblj in a 
 . tunc, and stretching out his hands every moment for 
 ter. The attack, which had been delayed by Rupert's 
 
 energy fol so many days, now came in full force. Hi 
 reason, his life were in danger. There could be no thought 
 of moving him. Ivor telegraphed to Lord Trelingham, 
 and the same evening received an answer from Lady May 
 announcing that they were coming home, and recommend- 
 ing the utmost care of Rupert. Though it was an abrupt 
 termination to a visit that the Earl had long resolved to 
 pay and was now enjoying, the good man, who liked Glan- 
 ville exceedingly, at once complied with his daughu 
 suggestion ; and they crossed the Channel twenty-four 
 hours after the telegram had acquainted them with Rupert's 
 situation. The Countess, not so much interested as in- 
 quisitive, and just then at a loss what to do, accompanied 
 them. 
 
 I shall say little of Lady May's feelings. They are easy 
 to imagine ; they would take long to describe. How had 
 she lived since her father's illness had compelled her to 
 quit Trelingham and Rupert Glanville? As we all do 
 when despair of some pleasant prospect has fallen upon 
 us, — from day to day, without hope, letting the hours creep 
 on, and finding existence like sand in the mouth. Rupert 
 had never so much as addressed a line to her, though occa- 
 sions were not wanting. He had sent the usual unmeaning 
 messages through Lord Trelingham ; but, writing at length 
 on subjects connected with painting, and diverging now 
 and then to social topics, he did not wear his heart upon 
 his sleeve. To guess at his inner life was impossible. He 
 seemed happy; the tone in which he indited these pleasant 
 nothings was a sign of it. Had the Earl's health been less 
 uncertain, less dependent on clear skies and medicinal 
 waters, she would have urged him to return home, to take 
 up his residence in town, at any rate, (hiring the season, 
 where they must from time to time have had a visit from 
 Glanville. But she was tired of devising schemes which 
 brought her no nearer the goal. She lived a proud solitary 
 life, making the most of her music as the channel of 
 notions she must otherwise conceal, and conscious every
 
 chap, xxxin THE VALLEY OF PERPETUAL DREAM 233 
 
 day tiiat she was walking in a vain shadow. Of such an 
 existence there is nothing to tell, except how long it lasted. 
 For while there were endless changes of feeling, they bore 
 no harvest. 
 
 And now Glanville was down with brain fever, how 
 brought on she could not imagine. Who was to nurse him 
 while it lasted ? Any misfortune that left him helpless in 
 her hands was welcome. They must hasten back, and 
 keep him at Trelingham. The journey was accomplished 
 slowly, because of the Earl ; but it could last only a short 
 time at the outside. Lady May kept down her trouble. 
 Karina, always watching, saw nothing to lay hold of. And 
 soon they were all once more at home. 
 
 The meeting between Lady May and Ivor was on both 
 sides full of emotion. But the lady cared only for Rupert, 
 — and his friend, at such a time, could not indulge in the 
 self-torment of unrequited love. The patient's delirium had 
 increased ; he recognised no one, and he talked incessantly 
 of the dreadful sights he had looked upon during his night- 
 wanderings in London. Ivor thought himself bound by 
 his injunction to let none pass the threshold of the sick- 
 room, save the doctor and the nurse. He did not desire 
 that Rupert's secret should get abroad; and his former 
 suspicion that Lady May had some thought of marrying 
 the artist, made him doubly unwilling that her presence 
 should trouble him. But he had to deal with a determined 
 woman. She satisfied Lord Trelingham by getting the 
 physician to assure him that there was no risk of infec- 
 tion; she submitted to the jealous surveillance exercised 
 by Mardol over every one that came near his friend ; and 
 she insisted on her right as hostess and a good Samaritan 
 to see that all was as it should be about the invalid. She 
 went and came, but Glanville did not look her way. Ivor 
 gave him his medicine, contrived, with the nurse's aid, to 
 pour liquid nourishment down his throat ; and never left 
 him day or night. 
 
 It was an extraordinary thing that, in all his raving, one 
 name never crossed the patient's lips. It seemed to be 
 erased from the folds of his brain, or to have sunk into the 
 dim recesses whence fever could not pluck it forth. None
 
 THE NEW ANTIGOh paw m 
 
 but Ivor could have told how he came to be ill. II had 
 overworked himself and undergone exposure to cold; he 
 must have been sickening when he left Loudon. That was 
 
 all Ivor would say. And the name of Hippolyta was i 
 pronounced. Rupert, living over again the scenes which 
 had followed her disappearance, recurred continually to the 
 vision of the gray haired woman whose form he had beheld 
 in the dead-house — wherever it was, for he did not know. 
 And by and by another took its place. All day long he mur- 
 mured the name of Annie Dauris ; he described the wild 
 look in her eyes with which she had started up in her bed 
 at the hospital on seeing him. When the Jew acquainted 
 him with her death he had made no remark; his own 
 trouble absorbed his fancy. But now he did not speak 01 
 Hippolyta. The unknown girl of seventeen, with her fait 
 hair and pallid eyes, seemed to be staring at him, terrify- 
 ing him with the thoughts of muddy death, recounting the 
 horrors of the wicked river flowing to the sea. A stranger 
 would have guessed some story from his words, and guessed 
 all wrong. But Ivor took care that Lady May should not 
 overhear them. 
 
 For weeks Rupert hung between life and death. His 
 friend, on some pretext or other, twice drove to Toxenden, 
 — the only occasions on which he quitted his bedside, 
 — and walking by roundabout ways arrived at Falside. 
 There was no news of Hippolyta. Colonel Valence had 
 gone abroad. Ivor was thankful to have missed him. 
 
 Such an one lives, says the Greek poet, that would be 
 glad to die ; and Rupert Glanville's story was not ended. 
 Could he have chosen he would never have come back to 
 a sense of misery. But neither of his life nor his death 
 was he master. When the fever had brought him to the 
 brink of the grave it left him. He awoke to a dull feeling 
 of pain ; he looked round, saw Ivor, and called him. The 
 loving fellow wept tears of gratitude. Rupert stretched a 
 white hand out of the bedclothes and asked, as men do on 
 recovering from a swoon, ' How long have I been here ? ' 
 He was told to keep still and to refrain from talking. He 
 slept once more. Next day when he woke there was no
 
 chap, xxxnr THE VALLEY OF PERTETUAL DREAM 235 
 
 pain, but extreme weakness, and in that state he lay for a 
 long time. Lady May came frequently, as often as she 
 dared. He showed no sign of displeasure ; he hardly 
 noticed. Later on, when he was convalescent, he saw that 
 she looked worn and thin. ' Have you had a fever, too ? ' 
 he asked, with the naive manner which comes back at that 
 stage, a reminiscence of childhood. She smiled rather 
 sadly, and answered that it was gone. Lord Trelingham's 
 presence gave him evident pleasure ; but he did not talk 
 much. He would fix his eyes on Lady May as long as she 
 stayed in the room ; and when she disappeared, he gazed 
 after her. He did not ask who she was, but Ivor some- 
 times thought his memory must be affected ; for he seemed 
 not to recall her name, and when he spoke, it was either 
 of their schooldays or of the unfinished frescoes which he 
 was anxious to go on with. Had he forgotten Hippolyta ? 
 His friend, dreading a relapse, did not venture to come near 
 the subject. But one day, before he could prevent him- 
 self, the name slipped out. Rupert gave no sign. His 
 countenance did not change. He answered the question 
 that had been put to him, but it was about the Hermitage, 
 and he passed over the once-loved name as though it had 
 been some foreign term, or he had not heard it. 
 
 During his long illness Ivor, who opened all the letters 
 that came, read several from Mr. Bernstein, the last of 
 which declared that he looked on Mrs. Malcolm's recovery 
 as impossible, and declined to prosecute the search any 
 longer. He enclosed a formidable account. Ivor went to 
 Lord Trelingham, borrowed the money (for Rupert was still 
 delirious), and sent it by return of post to Mr. Bernstein. 
 Now he did not know what to do with the receipt. Money 
 of his own would be shortly due, enough to repay Lord 
 Trelingham, though leaving himself poor enough for the 
 next twelve months. But if Rupert had forgotten, why 
 recall this frightful business ? He thrust the Jew's epistles 
 into the fire ; he locked away the receipt among his own 
 papers ; and the artist, who put no questions, did not hear 
 from the private inquiry office again. 
 
 It was midsummer, and one of the pleasantest days of 
 the year, when Rupert came down, recovered in health,
 
 THE .'. STIGONE PA*T hi 
 
 but somewhat changed, it would appear, in disposition, li 
 was no longer melancholy or fantastic, neither was there 
 the same brightness about him. He seemed grateful to 
 every one for a kind word. He sat and walked a great 
 deal with Ivor in the course of the next few days ; then 
 he would stay longer in the drawing-room, and Lady May 
 observed, with the most exquisite delight, that he seemed 
 to depend on her for his comfort, and asked her often to 
 improvise on the piano, while he sat and listened. The 
 Countess had gone away at an early stage of his illness ; 
 she could not endure invalids. She said the thought of 
 one in the house made her unwell. Tom I >avenant, when 
 he knew that Ivor was back again at Trelingham, wrote to 
 him often, and in the most affectionate terms ; but he was 
 still smarting under his disappointment, and paid them no 
 visit. So that Rupert and Lady May were almost as much 
 alone as when they spent their mornings in the picture- 
 gallery. 
 
 Ivor, looking on with kinder and sadder eyes than the 
 Countess had done, — now nearly two years ago, — considered 
 how these things might end. He spoke to Rupert casually 
 of Falside. There was no tremor in return. He. went so 
 far, in his experiment, as to remark that Colonel Valence 
 must be from home, and the artist replied, ' He went after 
 meeting me in the churchyard.' Could it be possible that 
 the episode of his affection for Hippolyta, with all its inci- 
 dents, was blotted from his memory ? Full of the idea, and 
 ready to encourage it in Rupert's interest, Ivor did a bold 
 thing. When Mr. Bernstein wrote to resign his commission, 
 he added that Mrs. Malcolm's portrait had been returned 
 to Mr. Glanville's house in Belgravia. Not long after, an 
 epistle from his solicitor, which Ivor opened, apprised him 
 of the place where Rupert and Hippolyta had lived during 
 their brief union. The man of business required instruc- 
 tions as to Forrest House. Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm, it 
 appeared, had left suddenly ; the servants' wages were un- 
 paid, and but for Mrs. Lceming, who had been sent there 
 originally by the solicitor, the red brick mansion must have 
 been for several months at the mercy of any one that chose 
 to come in. Ivor, in reply, informed the solicitor oi
 
 CHAr. xxxni THE VALLEY OF PERPETUAL DREAM 237 
 
 Rupert's dangerous condition, sent money to pay the 
 servants, and recommended that the house should be let 
 as soon as possible. This was done, and there remained 
 only the question of Hippolyta's portrait. Ivor now took 
 the opportunity, while Lady May and the artist were so 
 much together, of running up to London ; called in at 
 Clarence Gardens, opened the parcels he found there, and 
 carried away the dangerous picture to Grafton Place. He 
 consulted a distinguished physician, and after giving him 
 the history of Glanville's brain fever, the events which had 
 led to it, and the apparent loss of memory which it had 
 caused, asked him what advice he could offer. Among 
 other things he inquired, ' Would it be well for Rupert to 
 marry?' 
 
 ' Yes/ answered the physician, ' but not to live in the 
 neighbourhood of his disaster. Let him marry and go 
 abroad, practise his profession, and be kept from everything 
 which would remind him of the lost Hippolyta.' 
 
 From that moment Ivor resolved that the marriage 
 should take place, cost what it might to himself or to any 
 one else. He felt a choking sensation in his throat ; it was 
 surrendering his dearest illusions. But let them go, he said, 
 provided Rupert were safe. 
 
 On his return he found matters unchanged, the lady 
 devoted to the gentleman, and the gentleman strangely 
 dependent on the lady. He took Rupert aside one bright 
 afternoon, as they were walking on the terrace, when 
 the air was full of sweetness, the moor glorious under 
 floating clouds, the sea flashing upon the horizon. There 
 was a party of lawn-tennis at Trelingham, and the laughing 
 voices of young people and the sound of their playing 
 came up where the friends paused. ' Rupert,' said Ivor, 
 'why don't you marry Lady May?' He waited with 
 intense anxiety for the answer, but it was not long. ' I 
 never thought of it,' replied his friend, in a calm voice; 
 ' do you fancy she would accept me ? ' — ' Go and 
 ask her,' said the chivalrous young man; 'she is 
 walking at the other end of the terrace.' Glanville 
 raised his eyes. She was alone, pacing up and down 
 thoughtfully. He quitted Ivor, went slowly along, looking
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE Ykxt in 
 
 neither to the right nor to the left, until he approached 
 within a yard of her. She Stopped and turned. ' Lady 
 May,' he said, holding his hat in his hand, ' Ivor thinks 
 you would many me, it' I asked you. Is it true?' I lei 
 heart gave a great leap. She put out her hand. ' Why 
 did you not ask me before?' she said. And they walked 
 hack along the terrace together. Ivor \\. hing them 
 
 and saw what had passed. 'God bless them,' he murmured 
 in a half-groan as he turned away. But they were by his 
 side. ' It is true, Ivor,' said his friend, with a subdued 
 tenderness that had something marvellously strange in it to 
 one who knew his fiery temperament. 'Lady May says 
 he will marry me. 'Will you come to our wedding?' 
 The promise was given. Rupert continuing, said, ' I must 
 have done with the frescoes, however. And, Lad)- May,' — 
 she trembled as he addressed her, — 'when we are married 
 we will leave Trelingham, The air is not good for me.' 
 She was surprised ; but Ivor thought, ' What good genius 
 inspired him to say that at once?' It was a formal stipu- 
 lation, so to speak. The lady cared nothing for Trelingham 
 if Rupert were away ; and with him she would have roamed 
 the world. 
 
 Her father was visible in the library. She proposed that 
 they should go to him without delay. The artist, appa- 
 rently having no will but hers, consented ; and as he looked 
 up from his desk the Earl, to his astonishment, beheld his 
 daughter leading Rupert towards him. It was bewildering, 
 but Lady May laughed as she told him. ' Karina knew my 
 secret long ago,' she said ; ' this gentleman has kept his till 
 to-day.' Rupert, with a look of great clearness in eyes and 
 countenance, interposed, ' I meant to ask you when I 
 finished the Madonna of the Seraphim ; but I went away.' 
 'Ah, yes,' she answ-ered, smiling a rebuke at him, 'you 
 went away. But you never shall n^ain.' Lord Trelingham 
 was still confused. 'Are you sure that you can make Mr. 
 Glanville happy?' he said to his daughter; 'in a marriage 
 like this so much depends on the wife.' — ' I am sure that I 
 love him,' she answered, and Rupert thanked her with his 
 eyes. 'Very well,' said the Earl, 'you are your own mistress, 
 my dear. You know I never wished you to marry your
 
 chap, xxxiii THE VALLEY OF PERPETUAL DREAM 239 
 
 cousin, even when I thought you liked him.' — 'Oh,' she 
 said laughingly, ' because of the horoscope. But are you 
 quite certain it was Tom's and not mine ? Mistakes will 
 happen, I suppose, even in astrology. But we believe in 
 happy stars, don't we, Rupert ? ' It was the first time she 
 had called him by his name, and her eyes sparkled. 
 1 What was that about Tom Davenant's horoscope ? ' he 
 inquired, as they left the library. ' It is all nonsense,' she 
 said ; ' something about his being drowned. I will tell you 
 another time, not now ; the day is too beautiful for sad 
 things.' They heard the tennis-players coming from their 
 game, laughing merrily. 
 
 ' What a light there is on the waters ! ' murmured Rupert, 
 as they stood once more on the terrace, with the sea in 
 front of them. May put her hand in his, and they con- 
 tinued gazing in silence, side by side.
 
 ( [APTER XXXIV 
 
 HYMEN, O HYMEN/EEl 
 
 > 
 
 The announcement which Madame de Lutenieff had 
 mockingly foretold — of a marriage between the well-known 
 artist and the daughter of a great peer — was delayed until 
 Rupert had fulfilled his task and the frescoes were com- 
 plete. They made a magnificent show, but he entreated 
 that their formal exhibition to the world might not take 
 place until Lady May and himself had quitted Trelingham. 
 He could not bear to be congratulated. He knew that 
 the work was equal to anything achieved in England of 
 late years ; and he thought it would speak for itself to 
 those who had eyes in their heads. It was part of his 
 strangeness that he never referred to the memorable- 
 evening of the ball at which, for the first and last time, he 
 had danced with Hippolyta. Some allusion was necessarily 
 made to the tableaux vivanis, but from him it drew no 
 response. Had he forgotten, or was he acting a part? 
 Ivor, staying by express invitation from the Earl, who per- 
 ceived that Glanville derived much benefit from his 
 company, was convinced that the fever had passed a sponge 
 not only over Hippolyta's name, but over the scei. 
 wherein she had appeared. He dreaded accidental refer- 
 ences to her, and sought occasion one day to whisper in 
 the ear of the Earl's daughter that if she desired Rupert's 
 continuance in the health he was enjoying, she must be 
 careful not to mention Falside, or any one connected with 
 it. In surprise she asked the reason. He thought it best 
 to reply, with seeming frankness, that Glanville's attack of 
 fever was due to an accident he had sustained near the
 
 chap, xxxiv HYMEN, HYMENALE ! 241 
 
 cottage ; that during his delirium the least allusion to 
 place or people made him much worse ; and that she 
 might notice for herself how completely he kept silence 
 about them since he had recovered. Lady May thanked 
 him. She remembered now that the name of Colonel 
 Valence or his daughter had not been heard from Rupert's 
 lips during the past months. Ivor begged her to warn 
 Lord Trelingham. She did so, and the tacit consent was 
 renewed which for years had banished the name of Valence 
 from conversation at the Court. 
 
 There was considerable stir in the great world when 
 their engagement became known. It had then existed 
 nearly six months, and the marriage was to take place 
 before Lent. This was a stipulation of Lord Trelingham's, 
 to which his daughter willingly acceded, as likewise to the 
 arrangement whereby all the glory of it was to overshadow 
 his favourite church, St. Ethelrleda's, in Duke's Lane. 
 The ecclesiastical ceremonies would be elaborate, and some 
 of them, it was thought, illegal ; but on these points the 
 Earl admitted of no compromise. Rupert assented 
 languidly. He could have wished to be married on the 
 Continent ; but if that might not be, any where was better 
 than Trelingham. The settlements involved less delay 
 than usual. Lady May's interest in the Earl's entailed 
 property was slight ; and her personal fortune, though 
 smaller than it would have been in more skilful hands than 
 her father's, was perfectly safe, and included neither land 
 nor houses. Rupert was, if anything, the wealthier of the 
 two. His solicitor drew up a lucid inventory of his goods 
 and belongings ; among them was Forrest House, now let 
 at a handsome figure to a tenant who held it on a seven 
 years' lease. Lady May observed the name ; she was 
 acquainted with the neighbourhood, and asked Rupert 
 what sort of place Forrest House might be. He answered 
 in very few words, telling her it had belonged to his grand- 
 aunt, and he had not seen it since spending his holidays 
 there when a boy. ' It must be worth a visit,' she said. 
 ' No,' he replied absently. The conversation drifted to 
 something else. 
 
 It was a brilliant wedding, and St. Ethelfleda's was 
 
 VOL. II. R
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE vkvt m 
 
 thro [vor, invited to act as Rupert's best man, 
 
 declined, alleging that he should feel absurdly out <>t pku 
 and he contented himself with being a spectator. Tho 
 
 was no lack of 'best men ' among the artist's acquaintance, 
 including that particular one of his confrhxs who had first 
 given Lady May an account of him. The bridesmaids 
 were, what they are always said to be on such occasions, 
 charming j the ceremonies as elaborate as they could be 
 made, the crowd of carriages great, the wedding-march 
 thrilling, the wedding-breakfast artistically splendid. Rupert, 
 as more than one of his friends observed, was grave and 
 -till. 'He is subdued before marriage,' said a cynic ; ' well, 
 as lief sune as syne ; all men are subdued alter it.' In 
 returning thanks for the way they had drunk Lady May 
 ( rlanville's health — she blushed at the new name — he was 
 felicitous, as they expected, but not so bright as many had 
 known him to be. The ceremony was over, the scene 
 vanished. Lady May and her husband, accompanied by 
 the Earl, whom they insisted on taking with them, went by 
 easy stages to Florence, and travelled during the next half- 
 year up and down Italy. Tom Davenant, before their 
 engagement was published, had found a shooting companion 
 and was now in the Rocky Mountains. The Earl wrote to 
 him at San Francisco, where he was in course of time to 
 spend a few weeks. And Ivor Mardol returned to his 
 engravings in Grafton Place. He had broken with his 
 society ; he was watched, suspected, but otherwise let alone. 
 
 In the old stories a year and a day was the fated period 
 when happiness or misfortune came to an end. Will happi- 
 ness last so long? Lady May would have returned to that 
 inquiry a triumphant answer in the affirmative on the 
 morning that she and her husband bade farewell to Florence, 
 after a sojourn which had continued, with pleasant interrup- 
 tions, some eighteen months. With her it was still the 
 honeymoon. There had been flecks of cloud in her un- 
 troubled sky, but they did not linger ; they melted quickly 
 into the blue, leaving her the most contented wife in 
 Christendom. Her father's delicate health was a trial, 
 which he lightened for the married pair by a cheerful
 
 chap, xxxiv HYMEN, HYMENME / 243 
 
 countenance and a resignation corresponding to his inward 
 hopes. Tom Davenant, won by the Earl's solicitations, — 
 he could not bear to see the young man wandering over the 
 face of the earth, — had come back from America, and was 
 now on his way to meet them at Nice. They proposed to 
 spend a few weeks there and in the neighbourhood, explor- 
 ing, as the season grew milder, those dead cities along the 
 coast which neither Rupert nor Lady May had seen. After- 
 wards they would extend their travels, according as the 
 Earl could bear it, into Spain, as far as Valencia. They 
 did not know exactly how their course would lie. The 
 charm of travelling, said Glanville, is to have no plans ; 
 there is nothing like the unforeseen. Perhaps Cousin Tom 
 would accompany them. 
 
 The inspired artist had been quiescent in our friend 
 since his wedding-day. He studied pictures, and sharpened 
 his powers of criticism ; but he painted very seldom, sketch- 
 ing a scene or a head that took his fancy, working for two 
 or three hours, and then throwing down his pencil with an 
 air of fatigue. This was one of the flecks of cloud that 
 rose in the heaven of his wife's content. He would be 
 absorbed, too, in his thoughts, and not speak for a whole 
 morning ; sometimes his sleep was broken, he had bad 
 dreams, and could not always remember where they had 
 been staying a few days earlier. But his love was not to 
 be doubted. Though he never went into the raptures 
 which his eager disposition should have demanded, he 
 was grateful and protecting, full of quiet tenderness, and 
 never separated from her during the twenty -four hours. 
 They did not go much into society or receive many friends; 
 but apart from Lady May, Rupert had no amusement. 
 Once at the reception of a Roman princess, to which 
 Rupert had taken her chiefly to see the marbles, which were 
 famous, they found themselves, in the crowded rooms, face 
 to face with the Duke of Adullam. He had known Lady 
 May in his time of innocence, and he at once accosted 
 Glanville. The artist gave him an inquiring look, and said 
 with embarrassment, ' Pardon me, sir. I seem to recollect 
 your face, but I cannot tell where it was we met.' The Duke, 
 who, as I have remarked, was admirably quick in divining 

 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE past m 
 
 other men's thoughts, supposed that Rupert was feignii 
 
 He smiled, and murmured under his breath, 'This is need 
 - ; ' then raisin- his voii e. said pleasantly, ' We shall meet 
 iin,' and passed on. 'Who is it?' inquired the artist of 
 Lady May. 'The Duke of Adullam,' she answered, wonder- 
 ing in her own mind where they could have known one 
 another. ' I must have met him somewhere in society,' said 
 her husband. It was the only time they met abroad. 
 
 May Glanville was jealous of her husband's tame, and, 
 while they were at Nice expecting Tom I )avenant, she 
 began to urge him, somewhat vehemently, to resume his 
 painting. He replied, ' I have no inspiration. The spirit 
 has gone out of me. I could not design a fresh drawing to 
 save my life.' — ' Why not finish what you have com- 
 menced?' she said; 'there are portfolios of drawings in our 
 room. Shall I send for them ? ' He was willing, but not 
 interested. The drawings were brought down, and Lady 
 May began to turn them over. 'This seems nearly per- 
 fect,' she said, holding the largest of them out to him. He 
 took it in silence. It was a water-colour. ' When did I 
 paint that?' he muttered to himself. ' May, is not this the 
 cascade at Falside?' He seemed to be searching in his 
 memory. ' No one could mistake it,' she answered ; ' don't 
 you remember going over several times from Trelingham 
 to sketch there?' — 'No,' he said, shaking his head; 'I 
 often think I must have forgotten what I did that year ; 
 it is all so dim.' His wife, mindful of Ivor's warning, and 
 terrified at the change in his expression, took the sketch 
 and hid it away. He would not paint that morning, and 
 they went down to the sea. After dinner he asked to look 
 at the drawing again, but it could not be found. His mind 
 seemed busy with it while he slept, and he awoke several 
 times in the night with sobs choking him. Lady May was 
 in consternation. She never urged him to paint again. 
 
 Tom Davenant's arrival gave them pleasanter occupa- 
 tion. He was still the wild huntsman, nor had he lost 
 that boyish innocence which made his talk, though neither 
 witty nor profound, so engaging. A life of adventure could 
 not take away the ruddy and white of his countenance ; 
 the feminine beauty and the open beaming eyes had in
 
 chap, xxxiv HYMEN, HYMENjEE / 245 
 
 nothing altered. But his bearing was more manly ; he 
 dwelt a little on the social aspect of landed property, and 
 said he should take Ivor Mardol's advice what to do about 
 his tenants when he got back to Foxholme. He was 
 reserved and courteous with Lady May, spent most of his 
 time with the Earl, and seemed struck with the alteration 
 in Glanville, whom he had never set eyes on since the 
 coming of age. ' Brain fever must be a peculiar thing,' he 
 remarked ; ' I should not have known Glanville.' 
 
 He readily consented to accompany them on their tour. 
 You could get riding and shooting in Spain of an un- 
 commonly good sort ; and the fishing, a man told him in 
 America, was superb, if you knew where to look for it. 
 They must be careful of the season, that was all. And he 
 helped Glanville to draw out what they called a fever time- 
 table, showing when the air was deadly to foreigners in the 
 various provinces. Lord Trelingham, though not a rapid, 
 was a good traveller. Rupert did not care how long the 
 journeys took. His sole desire was not to return to Eng- 
 land. He would have liked Ivor to join them ; but Ivor 
 was now working hard to keep himself alive and had sold 
 his genius to a newspaper. He did not meddle with 
 Socialism, nor had he entered a lodge since the fatal night 
 in Denzil Lane. 
 
 They were still at Nice, when Rupert one afternoon, 
 being too fatigued to go out on the beach, stayed in to 
 write a letter or two, and was resting by the open window. 
 It was a lovely winter's day, the sea tranquil, and the lights 
 subdued and pensive, while the air came in warm gusts 
 through the casement, which was completely framed in 
 leaves. Glanville felt very weak ; his mind, too, was dis- 
 tracted, he could not tell why. The letter he was writing 
 would not get itself finished. He let his pen drop, took 
 up a paper-knife, and began to make imaginary draw- 
 ings on the desk. While he was playing idly with it, 
 and the confused memories of the last three years were 
 passing through his brain, a thought struck him, and he 
 looked attentively at the desk, almost as though it were a 
 living thing which could tell him what he wanted. 'Why 
 do I carry this always with me?' he asked himself; 'I
 
 THE A VTIGONB pabt mi 
 
 know there must be a rea on. 1 >id it belong to any 
 one? 1 He could not recollect J'.ut he turned it to 
 and fro. opened the compartments, unlocked some s- 
 drawers, and poured out their content-; on the table. They 
 made a miscellaneous heap. ' Looking for letters,' he said 
 musingly ; 'who was it that turned over a greal pile of cor- 
 respondence, looking for letters? I was standing by. And 
 there was only a candle burning. At night it was, surely. 
 I wish I could remember.' He passed his hand through 
 the papers ; it struck, against a bundle of them, which he 
 drew out — a small packet tied carefully with riband. He 
 undid it, and a number of letters fell on the table At the 
 sight of that handwriting, which he did not know, which he 
 could not assign to the writer, a fit of trembling came over 
 him. He sat down, and for some time would not look 
 again. Then with an effort he turned to the signature. 
 There was none, all the letters were unsigned. But there 
 was a heading to each of them, and it breathed the tenderest 
 affection ; and as he passed from one to the other, aston- 
 ished, overcome, pierced through and through, the flood- 
 gates of memory burst open. Tears gushed from his eyes ; 
 he laid his head, weeping, on the desk, and murmured in 
 agony, ' Hippolyta.' 
 
 Little by little it came back, the sweet, dreadful, for- 
 gotten past. Holding her letters in his hand, putting them 
 to his bosom like the anodyne that would still his beating 
 heart, reading them in snatches and breaking off blinded 
 with tears, he spent the next hour and the next piecing 
 together his shattered life and endeavouring to make out his 
 own story. Hippolyta was lost and he was married to Lady 
 May. That was the sum. Fate had been too strong for 
 them. Three years — he could not reckon, even now, 
 whether it was three years or how long it was — since the 
 only woman he loved had forsaken him, and he was the 
 husband of another ! A cold sweat broke out on his fore- 
 head. He felt like a dying man. ' What if the fever should 
 return, and I forget again ! ' he said, shuddering from head 
 to foot. How strange to have forgotten Hippolyta ! but 
 she had been more cruel ; she remembered and was 
 gone away. Or could she be dead ? Her father thought
 
 chap, xxxiv HYMEN, O HYMENsEE ! 247 
 
 ■ 
 
 so ; it was the last word he had spoken that night at 
 Falside. 
 
 The sound of footsteps was heard on the gravel. May 
 and her cousin, who had attended Lord Trelingham in his 
 walk, were coming in. Rupert thrust back the letters into 
 their hiding-place, and brushed past his wife at the door. 
 
 ' Where are you going, dear ? ' she said, trying to detain 
 him. 
 
 ' For a walk,' was his answer ; ' I shall not dine. Don't 
 wait for me.' She was utterly astonished. Glanville, taking 
 his hat, ran down the steps and away in the direction of the 
 sea. 
 
 ' Tom.' said Lady May to her cousin, ' something has 
 happened. Rupert is not well. Follow him, please, and 
 keep him in sight till he comes home again.' 
 
 The young man obeyed at once. He did not like the 
 appearance of Rupert's eyes when he passed them. They 
 were wild and dangerous. He moved on quietly, and saw that 
 the artist was taking hasty strides up and down the beach, 
 his head sunk in deep meditation, his arms folded in front 
 of him. To disturb him would have been imprudent ; there 
 was nothing for it but to keep out of sight and watch till 
 darkness came on. When night fell Rupert was still pacing 
 over the sands. Then Tom went up to him, and with gentle 
 decision took him by the arm and led him home. Glanville 
 did not resist ; he went in and shut himself in his room. 
 Lady May found him lying on the bed asleep. She sat 
 there a long time, afraid to wake him ; but when he came 
 to himself again he reprimanded her tenderly for letting 
 him lie, dressed as he was, so many hours. ' Are you 
 better?' she inquired, bending over him. 
 
 1 As well as I ever shall be,' he replied in a tone of utter 
 sadness. And that was all the explanation he would give 
 of the fatal afternoon. 
 
 He left her now frequently and took solitary expeditions 
 on foot, in which he would allow none to join him. Tom 
 Davenant was not fitted to play the spy ; he felt that Rupert, 
 though ill and feverish, was capable of resenting surveillance, 
 which indeed, after the first outbreak, he did not seem to 
 need. Lady May consulted the Earl's physician privately.
 
 r js THE NEW ANTIGi PARI m 
 
 He recommended that as little notice as possible should be 
 taken, but a person set to watch Glanville when he went 
 abroad. It was done, and nothing cam* of it The artist 
 
 merely went by the sea, or sat in a sheltered nook when 
 lie had got some distance from home. He appeared to be 
 reading papers o< i asionally ; he met no one and did himself 
 
 no harm. The surveillani e was given up, and Lady May, 
 on her father's advice, urged their journey to Spain. Per- 
 haps change of air was all Rupert required 
 
 lie required much more, but she could not have ima- 
 gined it. 1 Hiring the next months there went on a desperate 
 struggle between his restored memory, bringing him daily 
 anguish, and the weakened reason which the brain fever 
 had left him. To unburden himself of his secret might 
 have been deliverance, but he could not speak, least of all 
 to Lady May. He said, 'I do not love her,' when he was 
 away by the sea and Hippolyta's letters, with their naive 
 and intoxicating tenderness, were spread out before him. 
 But he came home, and the letters were hidden again, and 
 he felt pity for the deluded wife who had been faithful 
 in everything. He knew the romance of the picture which 
 had first made her acquainted with his name. She told 
 him one day at Fiesole ; he did not remember Hippo- 
 lyta then, and he was grateful that this high-hearted Lady 
 May had understood and cared for him. So now he pitied, 
 he almost loved her ; but it was not the great warm sunshine 
 of love ; it was a dreamy pale reflection, leaving him chill 
 and her dissatisfied. For she could not tell what had come 
 over Rupert Was there an earlier affection? They came 
 across Madame de Lutenieff in their travels. She was 
 the same as ever, but she remarked a change in them. She 
 had always been a little sceptical of the artist's devotion to 
 her cousin, though never, since the day when she refused Tom 
 Davenant, of Lady May's attachment to him. With her old 
 malicious lightness she sped a random arrow, as they were 
 sitting at the late breakfast in the hotel at Burgos, where 
 they were all staying. 'Have you heard of Miss Valence, 
 lately?' she said to Glanville, looking across at him. 
 
 He rose hastily, and thundering out, ' Never mention 
 that name in my hearing, you witch,' left the room.
 
 chap, xxxiv HYMEN, O HYMEN ALE / 249 
 
 She was mortally offended, and said to Lady May, ' I 
 knew it was not all fancy. Take care they never meet, or 
 you will suffer the consequences.' 
 
 May, with equal anger, declared that it was a vile 
 calumny. Rupert had been thrown from his horse near 
 Falside, she went on, and the concussion of the brain which 
 ensued had almost proved fatal ; that was why he could not 
 endure the associations of the place. Karina did not be- 
 lieve the story. She declined to pardon Rupert ; and 
 though it cost her a pang to leave Tom Davenant, her 
 passion for whom was more absorbing than ever, she bade 
 them good-bye next day. 
 
 Not sorry that she was gone, the others continued to travel 
 southwards. They saw the curious old Spanish life that 
 still lingers on the Mediterranean shore. They visited many 
 a gloomy or graceful cathedral. They spent as many days 
 as its depressing climate would allow in the golden air of 
 Valencia, and were fascinated with the limpid skies, exhilar- 
 ating atmosphere, and gorgeous painted sunsets of Malaga. 
 Thence they returned through some of the wildest and 
 most picturesque country they had ever beheld, — green 
 valleys, steep and rocky paths, and luxuriant vegetation, 
 where the dark-green of the orange groves was mingled with 
 the cane-brake, — by Velez and Alhama to the ' Last Sigh of 
 the Moor,' and entering late, while the sun glittered on the 
 snowy range ahead of them, beheld the enchanted Vega and 
 Granada. It was three days' riding such as Tom Davenant 
 had not enjoyed in his life ; for he delighted in landscape, 
 though he never spoke of it. The third day had been 
 allowed for the sake of his cousin and her two invalids. 
 Rupert, still fighting with madness, saw the beautiful things 
 of their pilgrimage as in a dream. But the Sierra Nevada, 
 with its glittering snows, made him lift his eyes to it. ' Oh, 
 that I had wings like a dove,' he murmured in the sweet 
 familiar words, 'and I would fly and be at rest' They had 
 come through Barcelona, but he had prevailed on them not 
 to explore what sights it possessed. He could not bear any- 
 thing that reminded him of Hippolyta ; the remembrance 
 that she was born in this land of the sun made it melancholy 
 to him. But he would have been sorry to leave it were the
 
 250 THE NEW ANTIGO past in 
 
 moment of departure at hand Which, then, of our travellt 
 was self-controlled enough to find due pleasure in the walks 
 
 by Genii and i )arro, in the endless unfolding dream of 
 Alhambra and Alameda, with their thousand reminiscences 
 from a i nd gone time ? Not Rupert. The green Vega, 
 
 the rosy-tinted snows, the silence as of et- rial mourn! i( foi 
 a past that could never be restored, the pathos, the desolati* 
 — these spoke to his heart, soothing it a 11' de. They went 
 on to Cordova, built by the Moslems in their ages of faith 
 and high fortuni when their sword carved out empire and 
 their chisel smoothed the marble blocks into symmetry, 
 making of them sanctuaries wherein stood the golden-fretted 
 inscription, 'There is no conqueror but Allah.' The artist- 
 soul began to stir in Glanville. He felt a desire to sket< h 
 these Oriental-looking houses, to visit the great mosque 
 under changing lights, to steal its colour from the Sierra for 
 his canvas. But a very slight excursion with Tom Davenant 
 in the vicinity — Tom pursuing the sport which abounds 
 here, and Rupert loitering to fill his sketch-book — con- 
 vinced him that he must lay aside the pencil again and fight 
 his ghostly enemy with other weapons. He was too weak 
 to paint. 
 
 The spring was not much advanced when they came to 
 Seville, which they proposed to make their resting-place 
 till the first heats should compel them to go on. The bright 
 city, beloved of Moor and Christian, pleased them more 
 than all they had seen. Situate in the midst of a watered 
 garden, sheltered to north and south by a double parapet 
 of hills, lit up with a clear sun which makes the air trans- 
 parent like glass and brings out all delicate and fervent 
 colour, with a gay and smiling population moving in the 
 shade of the narrow, winding streets, or basking in the warm 
 sunshine, it might well have seemed a Paradise for the con- 
 valescent spirit, that could be cheered and strengthened 
 only by surrendering itself to gentle influences. The nights 
 were fresh ; the air exhilarated like wine. For Rupert, the 
 physician said, if he would not expose himself to the levante 
 — the wind from the African deserts — there was no climate 
 more suited. His prostration of spirits would cease; work 
 would again be possible. Lady May devoutly hoped they
 
 chap, xxxiv HYMEN, HYMEN JEE I 251 
 
 should witness a change in him for the better ere they set 
 out travelling again. The pictures, the glories of Murillo, 
 the Herreras, and Zurbaran that made Seville a treasury, 
 ought to rouse his enthusiasm, his emulation. Surely he 
 would not renounce his splendid calling? And she quoted 
 many of his sayings in the gallery at Trelingham, — how art 
 itself, pursued in a spirit of truth, demanded and drew forth 
 a heroism equal to the highest. He listened, he assented, 
 but he was cold. 
 
 Yet there came refreshment to his weary spirit, though 
 the star of hope had set never to rise again. He was glad 
 to have lapsed, as it were, out of the busy modern life into 
 a realm where all that was living belonged to the past, like 
 a vision made palpable to the sense, but remaining a vision 
 still. The memories of those London nights did not vex 
 him so keenly. He strolled about alone, crossed the river 
 frequently to explore Triana, the gipsy suburb, and distract 
 himself with the strange costumes, dilapidated, picturesque 
 lanes, and odd-looking bits of colour which seemed quainter 
 and more out of the world the more he studied them. His 
 health improved. But with returning strength came a 
 feeling of estrangement from Lady May that, conceal it as 
 he might, would make its presence known by imperceptible 
 channels. She was alarmed, indignant, at her wit's end. 
 Could Rupert, so long after their marriage, be going back 
 to the days when he cared nothing for her, when she dared 
 not meet his eye ? The thought was not to be endured. 
 They had never indulged in lovers' quarrels ; but they were 
 sometimes near quarrelling now, and the atmosphere was 
 charged with thunder. May Glanville was jealous. Of 
 whom or what ? Of a dead love, a memory, a regret ? 
 Suppose, after all, he had once cared for Hippolyta Valence, 
 what did it signify ? All men had such things in their lives. 
 Was he not a devoted husband ? ' Not as in those first 
 happy months,' she answered with a sigh. 
 
 Tom Davenant was sorry that they had not stayed at 
 Cordova, the country round which, with its pine forests and 
 wild-wooded hollows, he preferred to the environs of Seville. 
 But coming in after a long day's rambling, he upbraided 
 his friends at dinner for not having paid a visit which, he
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE past til 
 
 supposed, they would have undertaken at th< I oppor- 
 
 tunity. ' In what direction ?' Lady May inquired. ' \\ 
 that picture in the gallery at Trelingham brought from a 
 place, a ("incut or church, in these parts?' he asked in 
 turn. ' From the convent of San Lucar,' replied his cousin, 
 'and the nearest town was Sepiilveda.' — 'Quite so,' said 
 Tom ; ' I heard you mention the name often enough ; and I 
 fixed it in my mind by calling it Sepulchre, which it sounds 
 like.' — ' It is the name of a poet,' interposed Rupert, 'a 
 native of Cordova, I think, whose ballads are sometimes 
 pretty.' — ' Well, I got within sight of it to-day,' said Tom, 
 ' and I thought it looked as gloomy as any place I ever saw. 
 But the country all about is fine. Why don't you make an 
 expedition to the convent ? You could get there by driving 
 in three days at the outside.' 
 
 ' It would be an agreeable diversion,' said the Earl. 'Do 
 you suppose we could put up at Sepiilveda?' 
 
 ' I will tell you the best way,' answered Tom. ' I came 
 round on Sepiilveda — what a name ! — by cross-roads, and 
 I saw the convent, standing out very clear on one side of 
 the valley, and a large white house, which I took to be a sort 
 of paseo, if it was not an inn, on the other. Let us look in 
 the guide-book. An inn at that spot would be exactly what 
 you want. You could sleep the night there, go over your 
 convent next morning, and come back when you pleased.' 
 
 The guide-book when produced gave little information. 
 There was an inn where Tom Davenant had seen one, not 
 of the very best, but fairly good. In Sepiilveda there was 
 none to be recommended. Of the convent only this brief 
 notice was given, that it once held the shrine of a local 
 saint, and had shared in the general suppression. After 
 considerable debate it was resolved that they should set out 
 in two days, and Tom should precede them to make all 
 ready. 
 
 At this point in my story I may as well remark that not 
 long before the Duke of Adullam had despatched a peremp- 
 tory message to Ivor Mardol, who was working as usual in 
 his own home in Grafton Place. The laconic epistle forbade 
 delay ; a carriage was waiting which conveyed Ivor to the 
 Duke's residence, and in a few minutes they were seated
 
 chap, xxxiv HYMEN, HYMENsEE ! 253 
 
 with closed doors in his library. The conference lasted 
 some time. When Ivor came out again his face had the 
 strangest expression, and bore traces of violent weeping. 
 He returned home in the carriage that brought him, sent 
 word to his newspaper that they must find some one to take 
 his place and consider his engagement at an end, put some 
 few things together in the greatest agitation, and started for 
 Paris by the night mail. This observed we may return to 
 our friends at Seville. 
 
 They set forth in brilliant weather ; and difficult as are 
 Spanish roads, and ill-tempered as were the Spanish beasts 
 that carried them sullenly along, it was not possible to resist 
 the sweet influence of air and sun, the genial morning, and 
 the prospects, which grew lovelier as they advanced. Rupert, 
 mindful of the purpose they were fulfilling, and the associa- 
 tions which must be vividly present to Lady May and her 
 father, exerted himself to bear a worthy part, and by assidu- 
 ous and delicate attentions all but effaced from his own 
 mind the feeling of estrangement which had ruled there 
 during the past weeks. It was natural to touch on the 
 Madonna of the Seraphim and its wonderful history ; but 
 they diverged thence to speak of a thousand things which 
 were but distantly connected with Madonnas or with paint- 
 ing. The charm of Glanville's conversation, long suppressed 
 by illness, and his anxious inward conflicts, seemed greater 
 than ever. Lord Trelingham listened in a pleasant mood, 
 and his daughter's eyes sparkled with delight. She did not 
 venture to express her feelings, lest Rupert, become self- 
 conscious, should fall back into his tone of reserve ; but he 
 saw that she was happy and it took away the sting of 
 remorse. He knew his conduct for some time had been 
 unjustifiable ; he could not excuse or explain it. However, 
 he would strive against the tempter. During these days he 
 would not think of Hippolyta. While saying so to himself 
 he let fall the conversation ; he was thinking of her already, 
 and the lovely face came to trouble and perplex him. Still, 
 he made the effort ; he found subjects which would lead 
 them away from the Hermitage and Falside. If at even- 
 tide he seemed worn out Lady May did not suspect the 
 reason.
 
 THE NEW ./.. past in 
 
 Their journey during these two days took them by many 
 desert place and wild, where not a tree grew nor a hou 
 was to be seen, and only the lentisk and die i 
 would ilourish. [rri tion failing, much of the oi 
 
 Andalusia has bi a wild ; the country people 
 
 have retired in the train of effeminate dukes and marquises 
 to the towns ; and often when the gates are passed the 
 traveller might fancy himself in the wastes of Afri< :u But 
 overhead was the Steadfast blue sky, and on the edge of 
 the landscape rose that semicircle of lofty heights which 
 Colonel Valence had long ago in his letter com] tared to 
 the drop-scene of a theatre. The snow lay on them in 
 great sparkling fields, which sometimes had the softness of 
 clouds, and changed colour as the sun passed over them. 
 Rupert spoke little this second day, but he did not seem 
 ill at ease. 
 
 A wearisome drag up the side of the wind-swept, long- 
 drawn ascent brought them at close of day to Sepiilveda, 
 which, huddling on the brow and straggling over the sit' 
 of its mountain, appeared dark and grim as they dr< 
 through its unpaved streets and solitary Plaza. ' I am glad 
 we are not staying here,' said Lady May. They came out 
 on the other side as the bells of San Lucar were ringing 
 the Angelus. For a while they paused. The narrow valley 
 with the country beyond lay at their feet, the glory of sunset 
 streaming over it. To their Left, at no great distance, rose the 
 gray-white walls of the convent, its imposing church seeming 
 to stand in front of the other buildings, as though to protect 
 and sanctify them. The windows glittered, and below 
 them, but not far down, the waters of the Guadalete, 
 broadened to a lake, shone like a blazing mirror beneath 
 the rays of the sun, which was now on the verge of the 
 mountains, a fiery, golden ball. The white roads ran by 
 the convent, through garden after garden, vineyard after 
 vineyard ; and near and far the cornfields grew lusty and 
 green, while feathered palm-trees rising close to San Lucar 
 gave an Oriental charm to the landscape, and reminded our 
 pilgrims that they had come to an Arabian land. There 
 was something Moorish and fairylike over it all. They 
 considered the way they were going. On the right Lady
 
 chap, xxxiv HYMEN, HYMENsEE ! 255 
 
 May pointed out to her father, whose eyes were weak, the 
 track which led to their inn — a large white-washed building, 
 with the air of a deserted barracks, standing high over 
 against the convent. For on that side the ravine was 
 steep and much more elevated than San Lucar, serving to 
 screen the house from the north-east wind. Small white 
 cottages, or rather huts, were visible, looking like tiny sailing- 
 boats, among the vineyards ; and on the river side a fisher- 
 man here and there was drying his nets. Otherwise not a 
 human being was anywhere in sight. The stillness, the 
 absence of breathing life, added a mournful charm. ' The 
 landscape has fallen asleep,' said Rupert. 
 
 Very slowly, for their beasts were tired, they made 
 the circuit of the road, now up, now down, until they 
 arrived at La Fonda d'Oro. Tom Davenant met them 
 on the way. He had made everything as comfortable as 
 might be. The host, a travelled and well-educated 
 Andalusian, full of kindness and courtesy, received them 
 with much warmth, addressing them in a few words of very 
 broken English to show that he knew their national habits. 
 He was a Liberal, had lived some months an exile in 
 London, and would probably join in the next pronuncia- 
 mento on behalf of the Republic. But happily he could 
 not talk politics with Lord Trelingham, whose mastery over 
 foreign languages had never been great. The rooms were 
 large and cool, with little furniture and unpapered walls, 
 but the most extensive views over the valley and beyond. 
 There were no other guests. Tom Davenant had caught 
 some trout in the river below, their wine they had brought 
 from Seville, and when dinner was served in the immense 
 dining-room, whose windows seemed to join the sheet of 
 silver water outside, they were feeling more intimate and 
 at home with one another than had been their fortune 
 since Rupert's memory was restored to him. 
 
 They resolved on spending the morrow in going over 
 church and convent. The host, in reply to their inquiries, 
 said they had better cross in the boat. It was shorter than 
 going back to the bridge near Sepulveda. But there was 
 nothing to see, in his opinion. The church had lost its 
 treasures ; the convent, he added between his teeth, had
 
 256 THE NEW NE PAW 111 
 
 been given by the clericals who mm ruled Spain to some 
 fresh order of nuns, he could not say whether black, white, 
 or .may, — tluy were nuns, that was enough, — who had 
 it through the Queen's confessor three or lour years 
 
 llu-y were not the old set, he knew, hut they were nuns. 
 
 I idy May, who followed his Spanish more easily than 
 the others, interpreted to her husband, hoping it would 
 amuse him. The Earl retired, and Tom Davenant went to 
 make friends with the ostlers, including the zagal or boy 
 who had run with the horses from Seville, and to smoke 
 endless puros in true Spanish fashion, to the increase of 
 their good fellowship — for he gave away as many as he 
 smoked. 
 
 Rupert and his wife, when they went upstairs, were 
 drawn to the window by the splendid moonlight which 
 flooded the valley. They stood a long while looking out, 
 in silence. The palms rose dark against the sky ; vine- 
 yards and cornfields had put off their bright green. The 
 lake was a sheet of silver, on which the reeds, trembling as 
 the wind took them, cast wavering shadows. San Lucar, 
 with its many roofs and massive sanctuary, was wrapt in 
 slumber, and the moonbeams glorified it like a pavilion 
 whose curtains were drawn, and its inhabitants spellbound, 
 as in the thousand and one nights of Scheherezade. The 
 stillness was deeper, if possible, than in the day. Leaning 
 her head on Rupert's shoulder, the lady said at last, ' This 
 makes you happy, does it not, my artist?' — 'Happy?' he 
 replied. ' Ah yes, but not for to-morrow. Life's a dream.'
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 
 
 The Andalusian air is pleasant in the early morning, and 
 our travellers were stirring betimes. It was their intention 
 to cross the lake immediately after breakfast, but a slight 
 incident had almost put off their expedition. Lord 
 Trelingham, fatigued with his three days' journey in a 
 rough vehicle, and perhaps feeling the languor which in warm 
 climates assails those who come to the hills from the city, 
 was unequal to the many hours' exploration which might 
 be in store for visitors to the convent. He required a 
 day's rest. To go without him seemed uninviting, for his 
 interest in the sanctuary and his antiquarian knowledge 
 would have lit up the past they were to study, and a true 
 picture of which they desired to take with them from San 
 Lucar. But he would not have them delay on his 
 account. Tom Davenant would bear him company; Rupert 
 and Lady May promised to return for luncheon when they 
 had visited the church, leaving the convent for a later inspec- 
 tion; and thus it was arranged. The Earl saw his daughter 
 and son-in-law embark ; they declined the services of a 
 boatman, Lady May steering and Glanville taking the 
 oars. They carried a sail, which they thought of 
 unfurling on the homeward voyage. A more lovely 
 morning, clear, bright, and breezy, could not have been 
 wished. The waters flashed from the blade and fell away 
 in diamond streamers as they moved along ; the reeds 
 shivered delicately and half-bent into the wavelets which 
 the boat was making ; in a neighbouring cover the music 
 of sweet-throated song-birds was audible, and nearer and 
 
 VOL. II. s
 
 258 THE NEW ANTIGONE i\i:rm 
 
 nearer came the gray old convent, tranquil as in the moon- 
 light, sacred, melancholy, peaceful. 'I will sketch this by 
 and by,' said Rupert 
 
 They touched the gravel, landed, and made their boat 
 fast. Not a soul met them as they went up 'the way of 
 the partridges,' as the Spaniards call a track that can hardly 
 he seen and is wide enough only for a bird's foot. It led 
 through low brushwood, not far, and they found themselves 
 (in the broad, dusty terrace which they had observed the 
 evening before, from Sepiilveda, running like a white thread 
 round the convent. Turning to the left and going forward 
 a few steps they reached the wooden gates which had been 
 
 i ted instead of those battered down, forty years ago, by 
 the wild gipsy and his companions that day they sacked 
 the cloister. No fear of violence seemed to be felt now 
 within those walls. The gates were open, so too were the 
 doors of the church. They passed in and could hardly 
 see at first, the roof was so low and the gloom so intense. 
 
 It was an exceedingly ancient edifice, which had been 
 first Gothic, then Moorish, and then Christian again in 
 the course of its thousand years. Built, as it now stood, 
 chiefly under Moslem influence, it was a confused but not 
 unpicturesque combination of the mosque and the basilica, 
 ending in a chancel of the Early Pointed style whose lancet 
 windows almost touched one another. Thus, on entering, 
 it appeared a forest of low pillars where darkness dwelt, 
 with a large and pure radiance in the sanctuary. There 
 were many side-chapels, now bare of gates and altars, with 
 narrow round-headed windows, hardly admitting the light 
 of day. A lamp, burning feebly, denoted where the shrine 
 of San Lucar once had existed ; but its marbles, precious 
 offerings, and pictures encrusted with gold, were no more 
 to be seen. There was a priest saying mass at the tawdry 
 altar, with only the boy kneeling behind him for a con- 
 gregation. The nave was vast and desolate. Fragments of 
 aided work remained where the hands of the despoilers 
 could not reach them; and the curious motley architecture, 
 stained with the dust of ages, with the smoke of tapers borne 
 in procession, and the burning of a hundred lamps day and 
 night, resembled in its intricacy and mellowness the work
 
 chap, xxxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 259 
 
 of Nature rather than of man. It was all matted together, 
 so to speak ; one style ran into the next, and a sudden turn 
 revealed the old embedded in the new like a fossil. The 
 grandeur, the solemn abandonment, the petrified life, had a 
 vast and penetrating effect which could neither be defined 
 nor resisted. Man had erected this magnificent pile, yet it 
 spoke not so much of man or his works as of the unknown 
 influence that subdues and takes possession of them while 
 the ages flow on. The artist's pride was brought down, 
 his glory annihilated, and another spirit seemed to be 
 brooding over the creation which had once been his. 
 Time, the irresistible ; Change, the magician ; and the 
 world's judgment as men hasten upon other paths, — these 
 had emptied the holy place, and made it a desolation, while 
 lifting it up into the serene air of eternity. 
 
 They spent a long hour in going from chapel to chapel, 
 not always seeing what was before them, nor talking of it, 
 but exchanging, as seldom hitherto, their thoughts on the 
 manifold ideals which have gleamed as out of a cloud 
 upon human -kind, and, shedding momentary light, have 
 vanished again. At intervals they heard the sound of a 
 bell, denoting that mass was going on at the various altars ; 
 they made way more than once for a priest who moved 
 by them across the nave, in vestment and alb, carrying 
 the chalice. They could hear faintly when a great door 
 was opened or shut in the convent itself; and by degrees 
 they came through the forest of pillars to the Trascoro, 
 with its railing of wood instead of the bronze gates that 
 had been torn away, and its white walls on which neither 
 painting nor ornament w r as visible. No Madonna of the 
 Seraphim hung above the high altar ; saints and angels had 
 spread their lustrous wings and were fled. The pictured 
 glass had been struck into fragments by Colonel Valence's 
 soldiery, and was now replaced by the commonest sort, 
 into which a shred or two of colour, still flamboyant, had 
 been introduced, as a reminiscence of that which could 
 never be restored. It was a comfortless chancel, not 
 inviting to pray ; and the light, though pure, seemed too 
 large. 
 
 Naturally they paused a long while in front of the altar.
 
 2 6o THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW m 
 
 ■ Here, 1 said Rupert, •your face was vi sible fur two hundred 
 as in the clouds of heaven. Were one of the old 
 sisters to come alive now and see you, she would fancy 
 the Madonna of the Seraphim had descended from the 
 wall.' As he spoke, and while he went on to explain the 
 
 uliarities of the style, he raised his voice occasionally, 
 for nothing tires so much as a whispered conversation. 
 From time to time he turned to look down the church. 
 At the great door a flood of morning light poured in. 
 
 The nave was still empty; hut kneeling to his left, 
 not far from the altar-rails, in the shadow of clustering 
 columns, was a figure draped in hlack from head to foot, 
 whose attention had hcen caught by the voice of the 
 stranger, and whose face, bordered by a long white veil, 
 was now fixed upon his with overpowering astonishment. He 
 returned the look for a full half minute in complete stupor. 
 Lady May was examining the chancel, and her face was 
 turned from him. 'Good God,' he said, grasping her arm, 
 'who is that?' 
 
 'Who?' said Lady May, turning round. The colour 
 was gone out of his cheeks ; he stood bewildered Ere he 
 could recover, and while Lady May was still uncertain of 
 his meaning, the black-draped figure rose hastily and dis- 
 appeared round the column. They heard swift steps, the 
 sound of an opening door, and its recoil upon its hinges 
 again. 
 
 Glanville without a moment's pause, when he saw the 
 figure retreating, followed it. He ran to the first door in the 
 side aisle, pulled it violently open, and beheld the unknown 
 woman moving fast along the narrow passage in which he was 
 now alone with her. There was a turning, and the steps 
 fled round it ; still Rupert followed. A number of cells 
 lined the passage on both sides, and a large door at the 
 end standing open showed the lake and the distant side of 
 the valley. It was impossible the nun should escape him. 
 She reached the last cell, — it was a guest-room or parlour, 
 — entered it, and stood palpitating with frantic terror as 
 Glanville rushed in, and falling at her feet, clasping her 
 robe, kissing the hands she would fain have withheld from 
 him, cried, like a man out of himself, ' Hippolyta, Hip-
 
 chap, xxxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 261 
 
 polyta, have I found you ? In mercy speak. Tell me I am 
 not mad.' 
 
 ' You are not mad,' said the nun faintly ; ' I am Hip- 
 polyta.' 
 
 It was no other. Lost so long, vanished so suddenly, she 
 was found in a moment, thus. He sank speechless to the 
 ground. He did not swoon. His eyes, like those of a 
 wounded animal, looked up at her. After a minute and more, 
 when he could speak, he said pityingly, breathlessly, ' What 
 has become of your golden hair? It was so beautiful. 
 Why do you hide it under that veil?' He seemed to think 
 of nothing else but this. 
 
 ' I have cut it off,' the nun replied in a low voice. 
 
 When he heard the words, tears came into his eyes. ' I 
 saw a woman in the hospital that they told me had golden 
 hair,' he murmured, ' when I was looking for you the first 
 night ; but they had never seen yours, Hippolyta, or they 
 would not have said so. The woman came back when I 
 was ill, when I had brain fever. She was dead then, I think. 
 Her name was Annie Dauris. Her hair was not like yours, 
 Hippolyta. Why did you cut it off? Are you a nun?' 
 He spoke, hardly knowing what he said, in low uncertain 
 tones. 
 
 ' Oh, must I suffer this again !' cried Hippolyta in agony, 
 her eyes streaming. ' Rupert, Rupert, be a man. I have 
 left you, I am nothing to you. Are you not married?' 
 
 ' Yes,' he answered simply. 'Would you believe it, darling, 
 that I forgot even your name when I was ill ?' He went on, 
 pausing at every two or three words, and shaking with 
 passion, ' I didn't remember that I had seen you till one 
 day, one winter's afternoon, when I found your letters, 
 and it all came back. Why did you leave me ? Was 
 I unkind to you ? I never meant to be. It made me 
 ill for a long while; it made me forget everything. I 
 married — you know who it is, you were friends once — 
 May Davenant.' It was pitiful to hear him — reason seemed 
 to be tottering on its throne ; and the accents w r ere those of 
 a trembling, penitent child, asking pardon for a fault it has 
 committed unwittingly. Hippolyta's distress grew with 
 every word. She implored him to rise. He did so, and
 
 262 THE NEW ANTIGONE iaiiiii 
 
 stood a little way off, facing her. 'Why did you go?' he 
 repeated, beseeching her with a mute ire not to be 
 
 angry. She wrung her hands. 
 
 • |. it was wrong from the beginning,' she ex- 
 
 claimed ; ' because I sinned and made you to sin ; because 
 He spoke to me from the Cross and chided me, and my 
 heart broke. I could not, I could not, Rupert, stay with 
 you when I was so guilty. I went because the sound 
 was in my ears of lost souls, and polluted children, and 
 murdered maidens. I was worse than all ; I had believed 
 in sin, dedicated myself to sin ; how could I face you when 
 the light broke on me and I saw myself — stained, stained? 
 Oh, 1 went. I would have thrown myself into the fire if it 
 might cleanse me.' 
 
 ' You were never stained,' he said, his eyes flaming with 
 wrath and love; 'you were my own Hippolyta. I loved 
 you. Did you love me?' 
 
 1 Ah, Rupert,' she said, weeping. 
 
 He was subdued at the sound of her voice. ' Never 
 mind, never mind,' he went on more composedly, and as 
 beginning to control himself. ' But I would have married 
 you — I told you so at the beginning — when you pleased. It 
 was only to say the word.' 
 
 ' There was no marriage for me,' she answered; ' the past 
 could never be undone. I sinned with Magdalene. I must 
 do penance with Magdalene.' 
 
 ' And you would not marry me ? ' said Rupert, try- 
 ing to understand, but his mind all abroad, unhinged by 
 the shock, and not yet comprehending how the woman 
 he loved could be standing there in the nun's dark 
 raiment. 
 
 Hippolyta answered, ' I had fallen below marriage. My 
 sin spoilt our affection ; it took away its sacredness. It 
 made me unfit to be any man's wife.' 
 
 ' Who taught you it was a sin ? ' he inquired. But his 
 looks were fastened on her face, and he was thinking how 
 the soft brown eyes glowed above the paleness of the 
 cheeks and the crimson lips. Hippolyta had always been 
 pale. The white linen deadened her countenance. Why 
 did she wear it? She had begun to answer the other
 
 chap, xxxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 263 
 
 question which he had forgotten while he was thinking 
 over this. 
 
 ' Look who taught me,' she said, putting a hand on the 
 crucifix she wore at her girdle. 
 
 Rupert glanced towards it, and shuddered. ' I do not 
 like that symbol to be everywhere,' he said pettishly; ' Spain 
 is covered with it. You ought to have stayed in England.' 
 
 ' I made it my book before I left England,' she replied. 
 ' Will you hear my story, Rupert ? It will reconcile you to 
 our separation — if you ever loved me,' she went on hastily, 
 for the dangerous light was in his eyes again. 
 
 ' Must we separate because I love you ? ' he cried. 
 ' Hippolyta, be merciful. I have suffered — so much,' his 
 voice sinking ; ' not pain only and fever, but madness, de- 
 spair, a gnawing at the heart that will not, will not leave me.' 
 
 She broke down at the sight of his grief. Pressing the 
 crucifix to her bosom, as though to gain strength from it, 
 after a while she had so far recovered that she made him 
 listen. Briefly, pathetically, she told her experience in 
 the depths of London, her consternation at the flight of 
 Annie Dauris, her chance hearing of the sermon in St. 
 Cyprian's, and the night that followed. ' How could I be 
 the same to you?' she went on, while he stood in amaze, 
 not taking in her thought, but afraid that she might be 
 obstinate after all. ' How to meet you next morning ? I 
 cast myself on the mercy of God, whom I did not know, 
 who was hidden, yet had sent this message to me. I had 
 but an hour to decide. When the light came, in the gray 
 cheerless dusk, I wrote — oh, they were hard words ; I made 
 them so. I wanted you to despise, not to search for me. 
 I made them hard.' 
 
 ' They almost killed me,' said Rupert ; ' do not be afraid, 
 they were cruel enough. Look at them.' And from his 
 breast he drew the wedding-ring with the scrap ot writing 
 twisted round it. ' I have always carried them since the 
 day at Nice,' he continued. ' They are poison, the antidote 
 to lesser grief.' 
 
 Hippolyta took the ring out of his hand. ' How can 
 you be so harsh to yourself, Rupert ? ' she said gently. 
 ' Let this be the end.'
 
 77/7- NRW AMIGONE PAW III 
 
 'It shall he,' he replied There was silence between 
 them. Hippolyta was about to continue when a knock 
 was heard at the b i door. A lay-sister enter. 
 
 She did not look at the Strange visitor, hut said m Spanish : 
 
 'There are two gentlemen, I Inquiring lor you, 
 
 sister. They say they are from England.' 
 
 'Two strangers, did you say?' inquired Hippolyta, in 
 surprise and with quivering lips. ' Who can they be? One 
 I might have expected.' Then, after a pause, she said to 
 the lay-sister, 'Take them to the other truest-room and say 
 I will come. Ask them to wait a little.' The other departed, 
 leaving the door, according to conventual rule, half-open, 
 as she found it. ' I thought I heard some one,' continued 
 Hippolyta to herself; 'it must have been the lay -sister 
 moving about. Why did she not come in immediately?' 
 
 But she was mistaken. It was not the lay-sister. In 
 this terrible drama there was a third, unseen, but no less 
 affected and overcome than the two that stood fronting one 
 another with the narrow convent cell for their stage, and 
 the lovely prospect shining unregarded before them through 
 the window. When Rupert left the church in pursuit of 
 the flying figure, Lady May, unable to account for his hasty 
 movement, waited, thinking he would return. But on 
 hearing the door shut behind him, she became vaguely 
 alarmed, always dreading, as she did, some access of the 
 delirium which he seemed incapable of shaking off. She 
 followed, therefore, but the door at which she arrived 
 resisted her efforts. It had caught and she spent some 
 time in getting it open, and in entering the long passage 
 leading into the public portion of the convent where 
 strangers might pass through. But she saw no one. 
 Whither had Rupert gone ? While she was wondering 
 she heard the sound of voices, mingled, as she fancied, 
 with sobbing, in a room on the right. She hearkened, 
 holding her breath. Yes, Rupert was there ; he was 
 speaking. She crept along, paused on this side of the 
 door, looked through the long slit between its hinges, and 
 saw her husband at Hippolyta's feet. Neither veil nor 
 habit deluded her for an instant. She saw the counte- 
 nance, she knew the voice ; but she remained perfectly
 
 chap, xxxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 265 
 
 still. Her blood was boiling in her veins, her brain was 
 on fire. ' This, this,' she said to herself, ' is the secret ; 
 this explains all.' She listened as for very life. She heard 
 everything. She saw Rupert's changing expression and 
 Hippolyta's distress. She watched while the ring was taken 
 back. At the same moment she heard a step coming 
 down the cloister. What was to be done ? Fortunately, 
 the great door leading out on the terrace had been flung 
 back against the wall, making a large angle with it, on the 
 other side of which, in the darkness, a person might be 
 hidden. Quick and noiseless she darted past the door of 
 the cell, and was crouching behind the portal when the 
 lay-sister arrived. It was the rustle of her dress in passing 
 which had caught Hippolyta's ear. In her new position 
 she was quite safe; and though unable to look into the 
 cell, she could hear what was spoken. 
 
 Hippolyta continued her narrative, to which Rupert lent 
 a more attentive ear, while Lady May caught and dwelt 
 upon every word of it. There had been much said that to 
 her was incomprehensible. She did not know when or 
 where Hippolyta and Rupert could have been together. 
 Was it for months or weeks ? At Falside or in London ? 
 Impossible to guess from the story. But that signified 
 nothing. Colonel Valence's daughter had fallen; she 
 confessed it ; and Rupert was the man to whom she 
 had sacrificed reputation and virtue. What was this 
 incredible story of leaving him ? She strained her ears to 
 listen. 
 
 ' I wrote those words as an everlasting farewell,' said 
 her poor rival, not aware to whom she was confessing ; 
 ' and I put them in the blotting-book, and crept downstairs 
 and out by the front door. No one saw me. The street 
 was empty. There was only one place in which I could 
 take shelter. I thought they would receive me at the con- 
 vent, if I told them— if I might speak again to the priest 
 whose sermon I had heard. It was but a little way, and I 
 kept in the shadow of the houses ; and then the morning 
 w T as dark, and I came to the convent door without being 
 noticed, and I stood there awhile, not daring to ring. But 
 there was no time to consider. I rang twice and thrice ;
 
 266 THE NEW ANT1 paw hi 
 
 nobody came Oh, it was a terrible moment ; yet I could 
 think of nothing except that perhaps they would not open. 
 Rupert, if the grave had been my only refuge, I had no 
 
 power to go back.' 
 
 'Don't torture me,' he said abruptly \ ' do you think I am 
 adamant ? ' 
 
 1 1 ton't be angry,' she besought him, her tears falling 
 afresh; 'oh, how happy we might have been but for my 
 wickedness ! ' 
 
 • We shall be happy yet,' he muttered, more to himself 
 than to her. 
 
 She gazed at him doubtfully. But he must hear the 
 rest; it "would bring him to the right conclusion. She 
 took up the story again : ' At last,' she said, ' I could hear 
 footsteps as of several passing along, and I rang loudly. 
 This time the door opened. The sisters were coming 
 from an early mass in their own chapel. I stood inside 
 near the door waiting till they had passed. The portress, 
 I could see, was startled at my appearance. I did not 
 know what to say. But I told her that I wanted to see 
 the Mother ; that I was in great trouble ; I persuaded her 
 to take my message. Oh, what a morning it was ! The 
 Mother came ; I went into a private room with her, and 
 she was good and compassionate, and I confessed every- 
 thing. She pitied, she did not despise me, as I thought 
 she would.' 
 
 Glanville seemed to be listening while Hippolyta went 
 on. He let her finish without interrupting. He had 
 something in his mind. Her own agitation was outwardly 
 much greater than his. She spoke of seeing the preacher, 
 and of finding him to be like herself, Spanish, though long 
 resident in London ; she told how she had repeated her 
 confession to him, and asked whether she might remain in 
 the convent, and how consent was given, though not easily, 
 for it was against the rule; and how she stayed there several 
 months and came afterwards to San Lucar. But there 
 were many things about herself which Hippolyta could not 
 have told, for she did not suspect them. The story of her 
 repentance was better known to others. And it was 
 exceedingly strange.
 
 chap, xxxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 267 
 
 At one stroke Hippolyta Valence, from the high-spirited 
 woman she had been, attached with the most passionate 
 intensity to Rupert, whom she regarded as more than a 
 husband, was changed to a humble, conscience -stricken 
 penitent, whose sole thought was expiation of the past. 
 She left Forrest House, as the medieval saints had fled out 
 of the world, her sin burning the road under her feet, dark- 
 ening the sky, overwhelming her with fear and loathing. 
 She said truly that rather than return and face her lover 
 she would have leapt into the grave. From that moment 
 Rupert Glanville was to her simply a dreadful memory, 
 and a name which did not pass her lips. With the new 
 faith, to which she had turned as her sole refuge, she had 
 only an abstract and vague acquaintance which counted for 
 nothing in the life on which she had now determined to 
 enter. She came to it like a little child. The word ex- 
 piation, which had been so frequently on Ivor MardoPs 
 lips, rang in her ears as the only gospel. How was she to 
 realise it ? They put Christian books into her hands, and 
 she found therein a language that expressed the abasement, 
 the contrition, the hope which now made the very essence 
 of her being. But it was not enough. To pray was not 
 to work. She went after a few days to the Spanish preacher 
 again, and said timidly that there must be some place — 
 she had heard of such — where women like herself were 
 admitted. Might she go there, and labour with and for 
 them ? He was astonished and greatly moved. Could he 
 explain to her that the fallen sisterhood was made up chiefly 
 of the ignorant, untaught, rough-mannered women, the out- 
 casts of society, on whom she had been expending pity 
 in the dens of the Ratcliffe Highway ? She would be 
 like a rare exotic among weeds. But she entreated so 
 earnestly, it was hard to say no. The head of the convent, 
 Mother Juliana, was consulted. She answered like Father 
 Laurence, that it was not to be thought of; and Hippo- 
 lyta, meekly submitting, wasted and fell into a dangerous ill- 
 ness, which lasted several months. She could not leave her 
 room even to walk in the convent garden ; and while the 
 search for her continued all over London, she remained in a 
 dying condition not a quarter of a mile from Forrest House.
 
 THE XI II ANTIGONE 
 
 i- \ l: l Mi 
 
 ciousness during that Ion- prostra- 
 tion. When Mother Juliana inquired whether she would 
 allow Rupert to be informed that she was living, her answer 
 
 was at once in the negative Did he know where she was 
 he would not rest until he had brought her hack. And for 
 the like reason she would not write to her father. What 
 more appalling shock for him than to learn that his child, 
 brought up far from Christianity and the creed of repentance, 
 was now of her own free will imprisoned within convent 
 walls ? He had pulled down so many shrines, thrown open 
 cloister after cloister in Southern Spain, apparently that 
 Nemesis might overtake him in its least endurable form. 
 The daughter of an iconoclast become a nun ! Strongly 
 as he believed in the freedom of the individual to choose 
 his way of life, it was not to be thought of that he would 
 acquiesce in Hippolyta's voluntary dedication of herself 
 to asceticism. But she had the tremendous courage of 
 her creed. She would go to the full extent of that text 
 which speaks of renouncing father and mother, house and 
 home, to follow the steps of Christ. She gave up once 
 and for all those whom she loved best ; it was a part of 
 the expiation she had resolved on after sinning so deeply. 
 To fast and do rough work with delicate hands, to give 
 the hours of sleep to prayer and weeping, to entreat as a 
 favour that the most abject offices of the community 
 might be assigned to her, to keep silence, and be alone, 
 and think no more of the interests which had filled her 
 life — all this was nothing compared with the nailing of her 
 love to the Cross, and surrendering her father and Rupert. 
 She drove the nails in with unfaltering stroke, while her 
 heart seemed to bleed its last drops. That she could not 
 kneel in humble service at the feet of her outcast sisters, 
 fretted her only because it seemed a denial of the bitter 
 cup which she had been commanded from the Cross to 
 drain. She sickened under it. In that bitterness she 
 hoped to find strength and courage. 
 
 'No,' said Hippolytaj '1 asked them to let me work 
 in London, but they refused. I wai be a lay-sister 
 
 at the convent, and that, too, they said was unfit for 
 me I had been with them nearly a year when Father
 
 chap, xxxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 269 
 
 Laurence came to me, and proposed I should join the 
 new order of which this is the noviciate. It has been 
 founded to help towards the elevation and conversion of 
 women in the East — a work that can be attempted only 
 by women. It is an active order, not cloistered. I was 
 glad to come, though it has made my penance more 
 dreadful to be at San Lucar, reminded always of the past. 
 But in a few months I shall sail for India. I am professed 
 and acquainted with my new duties.' 
 
 ' Does Colonel Valence know ? ' asked Rupert, always 
 in the same abstracted voice. 
 
 ' He will soon, I think,' she answered cheerfully. It 
 was a good sign that he asked questions, and did not 
 return to what she feared. ' When I knew that I was to 
 leave Europe I sent him a message through his old friend, 
 the Duke of Adullam, telling him where I was and what I 
 thought of doing. There was no danger in that, now you 
 are married,' she concluded, faltering. 
 
 ' None,' said Glanville briefly. His eyes sought the 
 ground ; he was still intent on something which he did not 
 express. After a pause he lifted his head, drew a step 
 nearer, and said in a low tone, 'You have explained all, 
 darling, and there is nothing to forgive. When shall we 
 return to England?' 
 
 She misunderstood him. ' If Lady May is with you,' 
 she replied, ' it might be well for you to go immediately. 
 She ought not to guess at what has passed ; and to meet 
 would be too painful. I do not think I could bear it.' 
 
 ' Who was talking of Lady May ? ' he returned ; ' I 
 meant you and me, Hippolyta. We have met ; I know 
 what you have been doing away from me ; and it is all as 
 it should be. We shall never part again.' 
 
 The listener, so many times torn with anguish during 
 Hippolyta's narrative, was sick unto death. But she must 
 endure a little longer. The nun, the fallen woman, was 
 speaking — oh, how tender she could be ! Yes, she called 
 him Rupert, in spite of her self-chosen penances. 
 
 ' Dear Rupert/ Hippolyta was saying, ' do not be un- 
 manly. Your duty is clear. Mine is not less so. Don't 
 you understand that I have taken a vow ? '
 
 270 7//. . ANTIGONE r in 
 
 • Yes,' he exclaimed ; ' you took one to me in the studio. 
 That goes before any other; it annuls I t, if th< 
 
 were a thousand. You have broken it; but I forgive 
 you, darling, I forgive you.' His voice sank. Had he 
 taken her hand or knelt to her? The listening woman 
 dared DOt move, though she would have given worlds to see 
 with her own eves the degradation into which both of them 
 were falling. 
 
 ' The vow you talk of was a sin ; it left us free to part 
 when we chose,' Hippolyta replied; 'it did not make us 
 man and wife. You are married to another.' 
 
 ' What marriage?' he said with a ring of desperation in 
 his voice ; 'it is no marriage. Did I not tell you that the 
 fever destroyed my memory, that I could not recall your 
 name, or your features, or any scene in which you had 
 taken part? For nearly two years Hippolyta was to me 
 as though she had never existed. It was during that time 
 I married Lady May. How could I have done so had I 
 remembered you ? ' The accents of the speaker were high 
 and piercing. They filled the room with their echo. 
 
 ' He never loved me,' said Lady May in a dull whisper. 
 She left her hiding-place and went slowly and noiselessly 
 out on the terrace, then moved with unequal but hasty 
 steps along the narrow track by which Rupert and herself 
 had come up. It lay out of sight of the cell-window, a 
 high, narrow grating, through which the lake was visible, as 
 I have said, only in the farther distance. 
 
 Glanville, utterly oblivious that he had left Lady May in 
 the church, continued to plead his cause with passionate 
 vehemence, while Hippolyta, though not to be moved, 
 became every moment more wretched. ' Ah,' she said at 
 last, as her tears fell, 'if I sinned, if I was self-willed and 
 cruel when I came to you in the studio, I am suffering for 
 it now. Think, Rupert, think what you are asking. Am I 
 to break the vow I have made ? Are you to forsake your 
 wife ? ' 
 
 ' I have no wife but you,' he cried wildly. He had no 
 sooner uttered the words than they heard a woman's scream 
 from the water, echoed by confused ex< lamations and the 
 rush of feet on the terrace. ' What is it ? ' said Hippolyta,
 
 chap, xxxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 271 
 
 running out, followed by Glanville. A dreadful sight met 
 their gaze. The boat in which Rupert had come was float- 
 ing in the middle of the lake, apparently adrift ; and in the 
 water they saw a form rising to the surface, which, with 
 cries of horror, they both recognised as Lady May. Her 
 face, turned towards them, was distinctly visible. Then it 
 disappeared in the depths. As it did so, a second figure 
 which they had seen running to the lake-side leaped in, 
 and swam rapidly to the place where the body had gone 
 down. Hippolyta and Rupert, out of themselves with 
 anguish, ran headlong through the low underwood and 
 arrived on the bank just as the stranger who had plunged 
 in turned round towards the shore, keeping himself afloat 
 as well as he could while holding the inanimate form of 
 May Glanville. Others came running at the same time, 
 fishermen from the upper stream, men and women from the 
 church and the convent. The disaster had been viewed 
 from all sides ; it could not have been in a more conspi- 
 cuous part of the river or the valley. But assistance had 
 come apparently too late. The young man who had 
 rescued Lady May was seen to pause ere he reached the 
 bank, exhausted ; he gave a faint cry ; and rescued and 
 rescuer sank into the waters again. Several of the fisher- 
 men leaped in bravely, and between them brought the 
 bodies to land, clinging in a close embrace. But there 
 seemed no life in either. It was a moment of awful con- 
 fusion. For hardly were they laid on the sand than an 
 old man who had been standing by motionless, watching 
 all, but unable to stir from his place, rushed suddenly for- 
 ward, and flinging his arms round the young man's body, 
 fainted. Rupert drew near, gave one startled glance, uttered 
 an exclamation, and would have led Hippolyta away. ' No, 
 no,' she said; 'this is my place. Who are they?' — 'Look,' 
 he said in a terrified whisper. She bent over the old man. 
 It was Colonel Valence. He held Ivor Mardol in his 
 arms. 
 
 Then it was that Hippolyta's heroic nature showed itself. 
 She did not fall or faint; but while those around stood 
 frightened and bewildered, she took Rupert by the arm, 
 and said to him, ' Now be a man and help me. The
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE past til 
 
 thunderbolt has fallen.' I tllocking Lady May's arms (Void 
 the neck of the unhappy Ivor, whom she had dragged 
 down with her into the depths, -he and Rupert between 
 them lifted her from the ground and put her gently into the 
 arms of the rough fishermen, who carried their sad burden, 
 lifeless as it still appeared, through the door from which a 
 short while ago she had issued in her madness, to the cell 
 where the fatal conversation had taken place. The nuns 
 came about her. A bed was hastily strewn on the floor, 
 and all possible efforts were made to restore the spirit 
 which had seemingly fled. 
 
 Ivor lay on the sand, his eyes closed and his limbs 
 motionless, but a faint pulsation could be detected when 
 Rupert put his hand to his heart. ' He is not dead,' said 
 he, bursting into tears. Colonel Valence was some time in 
 coming to himself; nor was it without difficulty that his 
 arms could be disentangled from the embrace in which 
 he clasped Ivor Mardol. Till that was done there was 
 no moving them. Hippolyta knelt by her father and put 
 a cordial to his lips. He drew a deep breath, as if awak- 
 ing from a sleep, opened his eyes, looked round, and did 
 not seem to know any one. ' Is my son drowned ? ' he 
 said in a stifled, unnatural tone. 'Ivor is by your side,' 
 whispered Hippolyta. She was too much intent on re- 
 covering him from his swoon to notice what he had said. 
 Colonel Valence rose, took Ivor once more into his arms, 
 and turned towards the house. No one could hinder him. 
 Walking steadily under the corpse-like weight, he went up 
 through the brushwood and did not pause till he reached 
 the terrace, Hippolyta and the rest following. 'Where can 
 I lay him down?' he said, always in the same unnatural 
 voice. Don Ramiro, the nuns' chaplain, who had been a 
 witness of the disaster and was standing by, answered, 'In 
 my room ; let me help you to carry him.' Colonel Valence 
 would have put him aside; but in trying to do so, he 
 staggered and almost fell. The priest silently insisted; and 
 they moved to one of the farther doors, then along a broad 
 passage and up a flight of stone-steps, bearing Ivor as best 
 they could, and still followed by the others. When he 
 was stretched with face downwards on the large writing-
 
 chap, xxxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 273 
 
 table which was standing near the window, a shudder ran 
 through him ; the water poured out of his mouth and 
 nostrils, and he put a hand to his side as if in pain. His 
 clothes were torn and muddy ; there was blood on them. 
 But when Rupert and the priest stripped him, they could 
 find no external injury. His hands had come in contact 
 with some jagged stones at the bottom of the lake and were 
 bleeding. He seemed in great agony. The chaplain ex- 
 pressed his fears that the hurt was internal. They must 
 send immediately to Sepulveda for the only doctor at hand. 
 Rupert prayed him to do so, and one of the men set off on 
 horseback. Colonel Valence had never quitted the room ; 
 he did not speak, or offer to help Don Ramiro. He could 
 have done nothing to the purpose. Silent and motionless, 
 he sat holding Ivor's hand. Hippolyta, as soon as she 
 had seen the young man taken to the chaplain's room, had 
 returned to Lady May, without speaking a word to her 
 father. It would almost seem that they had not recognised 
 one another. 
 
 While they were running to and fro in the convent, dis- 
 tracted by the suddenness of the accident, not knowing 
 which needed the more instant attention, Ivor or Lady 
 May, and vainly conjecturing the cause of the disaster, a 
 second boat was perceived crossing the lake. All the 
 horror of that morning was not yet known to Hippolyta. 
 As she moved about the inanimate form of Lady May, 
 suggesting one appliance after another, and dreading that 
 all might fail, she was accosted by a sister who begged 
 her in God's name to go out and comfort the father of 
 the dying woman, now standing at the door. Hippolyta 
 was overwhelmed. She went out hastily, and found Lord 
 Trelingham and Tom Davenant, the former endeavouring 
 to force his way in, while the latter, with distress painted 
 on his countenance, strove to keep him back. ' She 
 is dead — she is dead, I know,' said the Earl piteously ; 
 ' but let me see her. I implore you to let me see her.' 
 Hippolyta spoke to him. ' She is not dead, and she shall 
 not die,' said Colonel Valence's daughter. Lord Treling- 
 ham seemed to know the voice, but he did not remember 
 to whom it belonged. ' If she is living, I can wait,' he 
 
 VOL. II. T
 
 274 THE NEW ANTIGONE pajit in 
 
 answered simply, and leaned against the door as if meanii 
 
 to Stay there till they suffered him to enter. Tom I >avciiant 
 
 explored with his eyes the countenance of the sifter. 
 
 •Are you Miss Valence?' he said under his breath. 
 'Yes, yes/she replied impatiently. 'But take Lord Trel- 
 ingham away, see, into that other room. Make him sit 
 down till I come again.' 'The Karl moaned. 'I saw it 
 from the hotel,' he said feebly; 'she slipped from the prow 
 of the boat into the water. It was an accident, was it not? 
 Tell me it was an accident. Tell me she is not dead. 
 But oh, it was so strange to sec her fall over the edge of 
 the boat and no one near. Where was Rupert?' 
 
 'Do take him away, dear Mr. I )avenant,' said Hippolyta 
 in great anxiety; 'if his daughter should hear the voice, it 
 may kill her. I will come again the moment she is re- 
 stored.' And Tom, with much gentle persuasion, induced 
 him to pass into the vacant room opposite and to rest there. 
 What the Earl had witnessed was. to a man of his devout 
 religious temperament, more shocking than death. He had 
 seen Lady May throw up her arms wildly, and deliberately 
 put her foot over the side, slipping into the waters while the 
 boat drifted away from her. It was not an accident he 
 saw ; he could not hide from himself the horrible truth. 
 His daughter had attempted suicide. At once he sought 
 for a boat, he called Tom Davenant; the delay was heart- 
 rending, but he controlled his nerves till they had traversed 
 the lake and reached the convent door Hippolyta's words 
 gave him a faint hope. But he wept agonising tears while 
 waiting for the moment when he should look on his child 
 again. Me listened intently; the long minutes grew to an 
 hour, and no sound of her voice had broken the silence. 
 
 Hippolyta had said, 'She shall live;' and if a miracle 
 of devotion, prayer, and loving attention were required 
 to save Lady May, it was not wanting. When Colonel 
 Valence could be safely left with Ivor, and in the care of 
 the chaplain, Rupert, whose fever of the morning was upon 
 him yet, came down to the cell where his wife was lying. 
 Hippolyta noticed his look, was alarmed at the effect it 
 might produce on Lady May, and persuaded him to join 
 Lord Trelingham. The two men met in silence. Of
 
 chap, xsxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 275 
 
 the events which had preceded his daughter's attempt at 
 self-murder the Earl knew nothing, and Rupert had nothing 
 to say. In his brain the scenes which had followed one 
 another with bewildering rapidity were a phantasmagoria, 
 in which he could distinguish neither persons nor motives. 
 He knew that he had found Hippolyta, that Ivor Mardol 
 was not dead. He felt towards Lady May like a stranger, 
 but was dimly aware that she had been his wife, and that 
 he must not leave the place where she lay unconscious. 
 Only that thought prevented him from returning to Ivor. 
 He did not feel grief or remorse at what had happened. 
 His brain was incapable of reflection ; his heart was sated 
 with emotion and could take in no more. 
 
 They were sitting thus, without a word, when Lord 
 Trelingham started up. He seemed to hear the sound of 
 his daughter's voice in the next room, and ran to the door. 
 Tom Davenant drew him back, saying, ' Wait for Miss 
 Valence ; she said she would come.' 
 
 'Where is Miss Valence?' inquired the Earl absently; 
 ' I have not seen her.' 
 
 ' It was she that spoke to us,' answered Tom, ' the 
 sister. She will come. Be patient.' After some time he 
 heard the door of the guest-room opening. Hippolyta 
 was coming out. 
 
 Lord Trelingham's ear had not deceived him. Thanks 
 to the repeated efforts of Hippolyta and the nuns, Lady 
 May had given signs of returning life. She was of a death- 
 like paleness, and her limbs were at first rigid as those 
 of a corpse. But there still was life in her wounded 
 heart ; and little by little it came back with the colour 
 on her lips and with the trembling in hands and feet. 
 Her eyelids unclosed, and the first object on which her 
 glance fell was the last she had distinctly beheld, Hippo- 
 lyta Valence, in the dark weeds of a nun, her face framed 
 about with white linen, and her eyes full of light. Lady 
 May turned from her. ' Oh, the horrible vision ! ' she 
 said. Hippolyta moved on one side, and the eyes of 
 the drowned woman opened again. ' Is it gone ?' she 
 asked in fearful accents ; ' I thought it might be there still 
 and haunt me for ever. They say hell is made of such
 
 THE NEW ANTIGONE l in 
 
 visions; they come in lire, and will not depart Merciful 
 God, grant me another hell than that fire I will 
 
 endure, I will not complain. 1 have d« it. Only 
 
 do not let the vision come hack.' It was the sharpest 
 stroke Hippolyta had suffered, even on that day of suffer- 
 ing. Ma)' looked straight before her, quite still, as though 
 she feared to bring the vision again by turning to the right 
 or the left. And the penitent, heart-broken Hippolyta knelt 
 in the shadow of the wall, and murmured with broken 
 voice, ' Lady May, forgive me. As you hope to be for- 
 given, do not speak those frightful words again.' 
 
 'Are you still there?' replied the other, putting her 
 hands, which she could hardly lift, to her eyes. ' Are we 
 both in hell — you for being a harlot, and I for killing my- 
 self? I should be happy if I thought the fire had got 
 hold of you. I hate you, Hippolyta Valence. I ought to 
 have killed you first.' 
 
 That was the voice Lord Trelingham had heard, his 
 daughter cursing the woman that, as she said, had stolen 
 Rupert's love. Well for the unhappy father that the walls 
 were thick and Tom Davenant held him when he would 
 have made his way to her. Hippolyta dared not stay in 
 the cell. Such agitation would cost Lady May her life. 
 She was not far from the door. She glided out and came 
 to the old man. ' Your daughter has recovered from her 
 swoon, but she is wandering,' said the nun, taking no heed 
 of Rupert. 'If you would sit by her bedside it might 
 calm her.' Lord Trelingham pressed her hand gratefully 
 and replied, 'You are Lady May's saviour.' — 'Ah no,' said 
 Hippolyta, her glance sinking; 1 ! have saved nobody.' 
 Rupert drew near. 'Will you always malign yourself?' 
 he cried sharply. They were the first words he had spoken 
 in the Earl's hearing. He did not offer to accompany 
 Lord Trelingham. When he was gone to his daughter, 
 Tom Davenant, looking compassionately on the artist, said 
 to him, 'Is there anything I can do for you, Glanville?' 
 'Try to save Ivor,' was the reply, which bewildered Dave- 
 nant, who had seen nothing, and did not know who had 
 rescued his cousin. He thought Glanville must be out 
 of his mind. He sought an explanation from Hippolyta,
 
 chap, xxxv THE CRY FROM OFF THE WATERS 277 
 
 who could hardly speak for crying. But when he learnt 
 that Ivor was in the chaplain's room, and perhaps fatally 
 injured, for so Rupert told him, he entreated Miss Valence 
 to show him the way, and all three were standing at Don 
 Ramiro's door as the physician arrived from Sepulveda. 
 They were forbidden to enter, and a dreary pause ensued 
 till the medical examination was concluded. It left no 
 hope. The injuries were internal, and of the most serious 
 character ; they could not be dealt with, and the utmost 
 now to be expected was that the patient would lose con- 
 sciousness ere the agony became unendurable. Not know- 
 ing in what relations those present stood to Ivor, the 
 physician, a brief sententious speaker, uttered his verdict 
 aloud, prescribed a few simple lenitives, and a gradually 
 increasing dose of morphia which he had brought with 
 him ; and was proceeding to visit Lady May. The tall 
 military-looking man who had insisted on being present at 
 the examination, but did not utter a syllable throughout, 
 rose when the doctor ended, and said to him in very pure 
 Spanish, ' How long will my boy live ? I am his father.' 
 The doctor uttered an angry exclamation. ' Why did you 
 not tell me, then? am I an executioner?' he cried. 'The 
 young man may live seven or eight days. But it is uncertain,' 
 and his voice dropped, — ' the days may shrink to hours.' 
 Colonel Valence sat down and took Ivor's hand again. It 
 was resting on the coverlet, for he had now been trans- 
 ferred to the chaplain's bed.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 THE FURIES APPEASED 
 
 The case of Lady May proved less desperate. She had 
 thrown herself into the deepest part of the lake, and would 
 have been washed down by the current of the Guadaletc — 
 which was there running at a great speed — had not Ivor 
 Mardol seized her as she rose the second time and carried 
 her within a few yards of the shore. Thus she had escaped 
 unhurt, while he, striking, as he last went down, on the 
 sunken rocks, had received his deathblow. When the 
 doctor came Lady May was sitting upright with her arms 
 round her father's neck, weeping and imploring his for- 
 giveness. She told him it was a sudden frenzy for which 
 she could not account that tempted her to stand on the 
 edge of the boat when it drifted. The name of Hippolyta 
 she kept in her bosom, nor did she inquire for Rupert. 
 The doctor at once insisted on her lying down. He pre- 
 scribed rest for several days and light nourishment. ' Who 
 brought me out?' she asked. The doctor did not know 
 his name ; and would not of course mention the danger- 
 ous state in which her preserver lay. Thus the evening 
 closed in. None of the strangers returned to the Fonda 
 d'Oro. Accommodation was found for them in the dis- 
 mantled wing at San Lucar. But there was little sleep 
 that night for any. Ivor, kept awake by intense pain, but 
 scarcely conscious, refused to take the narcotic. He did 
 not want to die yet ; such was his constant cry. There 
 was so much to be done. He must have time. 
 
 And by the mercy of Heaven time was given. The 
 pain grew less towards morning. He slept without
 
 chap, xxxvi THE FURIES APPEASED 279 
 
 morphia, and passed a comparatively easy day. In the 
 afternoon he sent for Hippolyta, who, fatigued with the 
 horrible scenes through which she had gone, had been 
 ordered by the Mother Superior to take a few hours' rest 
 in the morning. She no sooner came into the room 
 than he held out his arms, 'My sister, my sister !' he cried 
 in a feeble voice but with exceeding joy on his counte- 
 nance. ' I am every one's sister,' she replied, smiling 
 at the poor invalid. 'Are you in less pain now?' He 
 laughed as she spoke. ' You are not every one's sister as 
 you are mine,' he answered ; and trying to turn towards 
 Colonel Valence, but sinking down as he found the 
 pain catching him, ' Tell her, father,' he went on with 
 a gasp ; ' she does not know. Why didn't you tell her 
 yesterday?' 
 
 The Colonel had passed the night sleepless, like Hippo- 
 lyta — he at the bedside of Ivor Mardol, she in a chair at 
 some distance. But though he saw her move about him, 
 and even called her by name, and kissed her on the cheek, 
 he had spoken hardly at all ; neither did he explain his 
 words to the physician. And she, intent on so many 
 things, could not realise their meaning. It was like a 
 sudden flash, therefore, when her father, looking at the 
 young man rather than at his long- lost Hippolyta, said 
 calmly, 'This is your brother, my dear. He is the son 
 of my first wife, Alice Davenant' He drew her to him, 
 and joined his children's hands. 
 
 There are meetings, recognitions, which refuse to be 
 described. There is a joy in the depths of sadness greater 
 than mortal can depict, though many have felt it. I shall 
 not attempt to speak of the hours that succeeded, as, little 
 by little, brother and sister came to understand that they 
 were indeed what Colonel Valence told them. It was a 
 feast for angels. In the melancholy convent, with an un- 
 happy Rupert lying prostrate in his room, and Lady May 
 coming back to the recollection of yesterday, with its 
 poignant anguish and irremediable sin, nay, while the wings 
 of death were hovering over them, Ivor and Hippolyta 
 sat entranced, and knew that nothing could dim their 
 joy. The new-found brother told, in feeble accents, and
 
 »8o THE HEW .1X7/ txxt m 
 
 pausing at the end of all . uv sentence, the story 
 
 of his birth, and the reasons that had moved a father who, 
 
 albeit in a stern way, loved his children, to put a veil of 
 mystery between himself and his only son. Ivor would not 
 allow Colonel Valence to take the word out of his mouth ; 
 an excessive gladness, mingled with reverence for his father, 
 impelled him to repeat the strange story, as one child 
 may delight to tell another the fairy-tale it has hear. I. 
 Hippolyta listened with a sadder feeling. She was not Bur- 
 prised ; but she was grieved at the remembrance of those 
 many years during which she had not known a brother's 
 love. She looked at her father wonderingly. If it was a 
 rebuke, he did not take notice of it. He had no thought 
 for any one but Ivor. And he sat, in the bent attitude of 
 fatigue or sorrow, while they talked in low tones at his side, 
 Ivor resting as well as he could, and Hippolyta holding her 
 brother's hand. 
 
 Three children, it appeared, were born of the marriage 
 with Lady Alice. Two were daughters, who died while 
 they were quite young in London, where their parents 
 had for the most part resided during the ten or eleven years 
 of their wedded life. Lady Alice, who had always been of 
 a delicate constitution, never quite recovered from the 
 trouble of her last two years at Trelingham. She was abso- 
 lutely submissive to Colonel Valence ; she did not speak 
 of her brother, and would have accompanied her husband 
 on his Spanish expeditions, had he not insisted that she 
 should stay in London and watch over the children. 
 Twice he returned, and twice he was called on to follow the 
 beloved remains of a daughter to the grave. He was not 
 a man to bend under the storms of fate ; he bore up, and 
 he suffered acutely. His old daring spirit was unchanged, 
 but every year beheld the growth of a sadder and a more 
 saturnine humour in Colonel Valence. To his wife he was 
 a perfect husband ; to his associates a proud, resolute, un- 
 happy man. At last the stroke fell which cut his life in 
 twain. Lady Alice gave birth to a son, and died the same 
 day. With failing breath she implored her husband, whose 
 darkening brow and fierce intensity of grief struck her in 
 the midst of her agony, not to visit on the child his mother's
 
 chap, xxxvi THE FURIES APPEASED 281 
 
 loss. And then she calmly passed away, having attained 
 and enjoyed the one happiness on which she had set her 
 heart. But the bereaved husband could not endure to 
 look on Ivor. He turned his face when the nurse brought 
 the poor wailing thing, and would have put it into his 
 arms. Only Lady Alice's condition had kept him from 
 returning to Spain, where the prospects of the democratic 
 party were gloomy, and the presence of the bolder spirits 
 was urgently needed. Long determined that no child of 
 his should touch Lady Alice's fortune, or take a place in the 
 succession to Trelingham, he saw that it was time to carry out 
 a resolution which should endure into future years. Lord 
 Trelingham was not yet married ; his cousin, Mr. Davenant, 
 who came next in the entail, was a middle-aged man about 
 town, of easy fortune, and easier morals. He had not 
 married, did not intend to marry, and viewed with the 
 equanimity of selfishness the extinction which threatened 
 both the elder and the younger lines of the ancient house 
 to which he belonged. Colonel Valence had kept an eye 
 on these things. It seemed by no means improbable 
 that Lady Alice's surviving child would come into the 
 Trelingham estate; and if he did so, and were a man 
 of ability or character, he would not find it impossible 
 to get the title of Trelingham revived in his favour. That 
 must not be, said the Colonel, and he shaped his action 
 accordingly. 
 
 He had long known and admired the stern integrity of 
 Mr. Mardol. At one time their principles had been almost 
 the same ; and though they never met without discussing 
 the question of ' physical force,' they remained on terms of 
 friendship, and, I might say, of affection. At this juncture, 
 then, Colonel Valence entrusted Ivor to the keeping of the 
 old philosopher and his wife. He did not say whose child 
 it was, or what motives made such a step necessary. Nor 
 did they ask. Mr. Mardol consented on two conditions. 
 One was that Ivor should be told, when capable of under- 
 standing it, that he was not their child ; the other, that he 
 should be educated strictly on the lines of the humanitarian 
 philosophy. We have seen that both were fulfilled. 
 Colonel Valence believed that a little knowledge of life
 
 2S2 THE NEW ANTIGONE iaktiii 
 
 would lead his son to sufficiently stem principles, ami he 
 trusted no one like Mr. MardoL 
 
 lie went abroad, and was absent from England many 
 years. During the interval Lord Trelingham had married, 
 
 but the only ls^ue was a daughter, Lady May. Mr. 
 Davenant, too, had been caught by a clever woman, and 
 surrendered his bachelor independence. He had one son, 
 a child of two years old. Thus the danger of the succession 
 seemed to have been averted from Ivor. But Lady Alice's 
 fortune still awaited him, and there was no security that he 
 would not, on Colonel Valence's decease, be taken up by his 
 mother's people, and lost to the cause of democracy. The 
 Colonel, therefore, persisted in his old plan of bringing up 
 Ivor Valence as Ivor Mardol,and training him to the habits of 
 life and thought which befitted an engraver's son. He could 
 now bear to look on the boy; he loved him after a silent 
 fashion of his own. but he was resolved, cost what it mi,L;ht, 
 to keep the vow he had spoken in the picture-gallery at 
 Trelingham Court. No child of his should touch any part 
 of that inheritance, great or small. He might have acknow- 
 ledged Ivor at an earlier date, if the young man had not 
 shown such tenacity in adhering to the peaceful principles 
 of Mr. Mardol. But while he did so, the mystery continued. 
 Rather than endanger it, Colonel Valence, on learning the 
 presence of Ivor's friend, the artist, at Trelingham, had at 
 once quitted Falside ; and he stayed away as long as Ivor 
 dwelt in the Hermitage. From Hippolyta he kept the 
 secret as carefully as from all the world. He allowed him- 
 self the pleasure of making her copy his epistles to her 
 brother in a cypher of which she had not the key ; and to 
 the same motive we must attribute the commission he gave 
 her, which led to her visiting the chalet, and making the 
 acquaintance of Rupert Glanville. All this Ivor could 
 not know, or repeat if he had known. But he told 
 Hippolyta of his early dreams, his longing for home and a 
 sister's affection, his grief lest she should have gone astray 
 on leaving Rupert, his estrangement from Colonel Valence 
 after the meeting in Denzil Lane. 'And you,' he said, the 
 smile coming into his eyes, — 'it was you that ended it ; you 
 that brought father and me together. 'When you wrote to
 
 chap, xxxvi THE FURIES APPEASED 283 
 
 the Duke of Adullam, — oh, I know him, he has been a kind 
 friend to me, — and said what you had done, and that you 
 desired to see your father before leaving this house, the 
 Duke sent for me. He was aware that a difference had 
 arisen between me and Mr. Felton, as I called him. It 
 does not matter now. By and by I will come back to that, 
 when I am dying,' — his smile was ineffable, — 'but, you 
 know, the Duke thought it was time I should learn every- 
 thing. Do you remember meeting him?' 
 
 ' Once, years ago, when I was quite a child ; but he 
 took no notice of me.' 
 
 ' He was acquainted with your history, nevertheless, and 
 had been told more of it by Rupert than I knew. And he 
 went over it all from the beginning. He sent me the same 
 evening to Paris, to Mr. Felton. And I found him, and 
 how surprised he was, and glad too, when he saw that the 
 secret had come out ! He did not wish me to be a Dave- 
 nant or to be tempted by the glories of Trelingham. That 
 was why he had denied himself, and, in a manner, disowned 
 me, poor boy ! As if I cared for Trelingham ! ' 
 
 He was obliged to stop. The pain returned ; but he 
 still kept the vivacious happy look that lightened his plain 
 features and made them beautiful. The Colonel had heard 
 every word, smiling a little, a very little, but not interrupting. 
 His eyes now met Hippolyta's. She went over to him and 
 kissed him. ' Father,' she said, ' why did you keep such a 
 pleasant thing from me as the knowledge that I had a 
 brother all those years ? Had I known it I should have 
 been saved. But do not trouble now. The lost can 
 be saved as well as those that never went astray. I am 
 not miserable; oh no, I wish others were as happy.' Her 
 thoughts turned to Rupert and Lady May, and she ended 
 with a sigh. Then, recovering herself, she persuaded her 
 brother to take some of the morphia prescribed. It soothed 
 the pain ; it did not make him sleep. He would have con- 
 tinued talking, but she put her finger on her lip, and sat 
 near him, and they were again in the sweet heaven where 
 all that we love is restored. He turned his head on the 
 pillow, and looking at her, said, ' I do not think I shall die 
 to-night. But watch, and if I seem to be losing conscious-
 
 THE NEW ANTIGOh r in 
 
 , tell me, and send for the others. I should lil 
 Rupert He was in the room last night when I could not 
 speak. Is ?' he stopped. 
 
 'Dear,' she said, 'you must not hurt yourself. When 
 the good God wills, He will take you. I know you arc not 
 afraid. That is right. We shall not he lost to one 
 
 another.' 
 
 'Oh, I am not afraid,' was the simple answer; ' I believe 
 in God. My God is light and goodness. How should I 
 fear ? But,' he went on, making an effort, ' I wanted to ask 
 — something. Is May — is Rupert's wife with him?' 
 
 Hippolyta looked at him in complete surprise. Did he 
 not know whom he had rescued? She was afraid to reply. 
 How to question him without giving him a shock ? It was 
 a most unexpected difficulty. 
 
 'You are a long while answering, sister?' he said, 
 smiling. He liked to call her sister. She must speak. 
 
 ' Would it hurt you to talk about yesterday ? ' she began. 
 
 ' In what way ? ' he inquired. 
 
 'About — about the accident,' she said hesitatingly. 
 • 1 know you and father were the two visitors that arrived, 
 but how came you to be on the terrace?' 
 
 'Simply enough. You were a long time coming, father 
 was impatient to see you, and so was I, you may be sure. 
 And our combined impatience made sitting in a bare room 
 impossible. We went out and walked up and down. Then 
 I saw some one in a boat, a woman, rowing across the lake, 
 and she stopped all at once, put down the oars, stood up, 
 — she gave a wild scream which seemed to go up into the 
 sky, and the next minute she was in the water. I ran 
 down as fast as I could and jumped in. I remember 
 nothing else except the weight round my neck as I sank.' 
 
 ' But you rescued her ; you saved her life,' said Hip- 
 polyta. His eyes were very pleasant to see. 'And don't 
 you know who it was ? ' she went on, with a meaning look 
 which he somehow failed to make out. 
 
 'No; how should I?' He caught the look now, stopped, 
 grasped Hippolyta's hand tighter, and said, with a most in- 
 nocent confusion, blushing like a girl, ' No, don't tell me 
 it was '
 
 chap, xxxvi THE FURIES APPEASED 285 
 
 1 It was Lady May,' she whispered gently. 
 
 ' Ah, God be praised,' he said. ' And I shall die ! I 
 rescued her and I shall die ! I could not return to the 
 common life after such a thing. Why, it is better than 
 dying in battle, which is but putting your life against 
 another's. Oh, how good God is ! Did I not tell you, 
 Hippolyta, that He is light and goodness.' 
 
 ' Hush,' said his sister, pointing to Colonel Valence. 
 Her heart was torn at the expectation of so near a calamity, 
 but she dreaded even more for her father than herself. She 
 knew what ardent passions were concealed under that im- 
 perturbable appearance of calm. It was lava beneath snow, 
 and in a moment the surface might melt. But Colonel 
 Valence, who sat a silent listener while Ivor gloried in death, 
 now broke in upon their dangerous conversation. ' I did 
 not know it was Lord Trelingham's daughter,' he said, ' and 
 I could wish it had been some one else. Must you be 
 sacrificed for the house of Davenant, alive and dead ? ' he 
 asked bitterly. ' But for them, you would have always had 
 a father, and I should not be losing a son.' He controlled 
 himself with a strong effort. ' Never mind me, Ivor,' he 
 said ; ' I talk at random. Do not look so excited. The 
 danger is great, but we must, we will hope.' 
 
 ' What should I hope for, except to die ? ' said he ; ' but 
 I will not be excited. I will try to sleep ; and to-morrow 
 you are to send for them all.' His head fell on the pillow 
 and he slept, breathing heavily at times and starting with 
 pain, but with an expression of the most perfect happiness 
 on lips and brow. Hippolyta watched him, her own lips 
 moving occasionally in prayer. She thought of Electra 
 in the touching story, who did the like office for a stricken 
 brother. ' But here are no Furies,' she said. 
 
 For him there could be none. Was it so as regarded 
 Rupert and the other poor thing, who had nearly cast away 
 her life and had sacrificed Ivor's ? The next morning 
 brought Hippolyta a task which she would have deemed 
 the most malignant stroke of destiny had she not learned, 
 like her brother, to believe in God. As she came from the 
 early mass, celebrated where San Lucar's shrine had 
 formerly stood, Tom Davenant, waiting in the cloister bare-
 
 a86 THE NEW ANTIGONE r in 
 
 ided, besought a moment's audience. She had conven 
 tual duties to perform, but his speech was urgent, and she 
 had leave to hear him. Taking her out on the terrace, 
 
 id abruptly, 'Miss Valence, I am not in the secret of 
 Thursday's accident, and I do not know who is. But things 
 are in a deplorable way between my < ousin and her husband 
 Mr. Glanville, after spending many hours in his room, sent 
 a message last night requesting permission to see Lady May. 
 That was extraordinary enough from a husband to his wife. 
 But, more extraordinary still, May refused to see him. The 
 message was repeated, and a more peremptory denial re- 
 turned. This morning, not an hour ago, my cousin re- 
 in spite of the doctor's orders, dressed herself, and insist 
 on the Earl's taking her back to the Fonda Lord Trel- 
 
 liam could not but consent, and they at once went over 
 in the very boat from which she fell into the stream. But 
 that is not all. Before going she said in my presence that 
 she had done with Mr. Glanville for ever, and looked upon 
 herself as divorced. What, in Heaven's name, is it all 
 about, and what are we to do? I cannot take such a 
 message as that to Rupert.' 
 
 This was the longest speech Tom had made in his life. 
 To Hippolyta its import was overwhelming. She lost all 
 sense of her situation. It was the suicide over again ; her 
 own sin avenged on Rupert by Lady May. She stared at 
 Tom Davenant without replying. ' I see you are as per- 
 plexed as myself,' said the kind-hearted young man ; ' but 
 you are the only person I can speak to. In these things 
 one woman can influence another, and we men are no use. 
 Go to Lady May, ask her to confide in you. And — I 
 once thought you could persuade Mr. Glanville more easily 
 than most. Try to get matters clear between them. It 
 will kill her father.' 
 
 1 Do nothing,' said Llippolyta, ' till I come back. Where 
 is Mr. Glanville?' and she drew herself together as for a 
 violent effort. 
 
 ' He is in his room,' said Tom ; ' let me show you the 
 way.' He led her along the passages, up several flights of 
 stairs, and into the disused wing. ' It is there,' he said, and 
 made his way back to the terrace, leaving her tremulous
 
 chap, xxxvi THE FURIES APPEASED 2S7 
 
 and undecided before the door. She knocked. Rupert's 
 voice said ' Come in,' and she entered. 
 
 He was sitting at a table, his head bent down, a picture 
 of fatigue and misery. Since the accident, though he had 
 eaten what was set before him, he seemed to have neither 
 slept nor washed. He was haggard and forlorn, — a contrast 
 indeed to the brilliant Rupert Glanville for whom nothing 
 could be too refined, and no living too delicate. Hippolyta 
 looked at him with unspeakable pity. He started on seeing 
 her. ' What ! ' he cried, ' has May sent you to tell me our 
 marriage is broken ? It would be a rare piece of wit,' and 
 he laughed. The sound was like a knife driven into her side. 
 
 'For God's sake, Rupert,' she exclaimed, 'do not give 
 way to the tempter. Pity me. Pity yourself.' 
 
 ' I do,' he said grimly. ' Look, Hippolyta. Last night, 
 after thinking till my head was ready to burst, I resolved 
 that I would be a man, as you said, — I should be pleasing 
 you, at any rate, — and I sent to that wife of mine, to the 
 — the suicide, you know, saying I wanted to see her. I 
 meant to beg her pardon, make peace, and leave you. 
 That was fair, I suppose ? ' 
 
 She could not understand that Rupert, Rupert Glanville, 
 was saying such things. Whither had the man vanished 
 to whom she once gave herself? This was not he. 'Yes, 
 it was fair,' she said, trembling. 
 
 He laughed again, and struck his hand on the table. 
 ' Ay, one would have thought so,' he cried, ' but not she. 
 She sent me back a dog's message, take it or leave it, all 
 the same to her. She said no, I might go where I pleased, 
 but I should not be in the room where Lady May Dave- 
 nant found herself. I was humble ; I sent again. Her 
 answer was contempt. Have I done enough? If you 
 like we will go away together. But you have changed too. 
 You were the first to change. The woman's fashion, not 
 the man's. Ivor is worth a thousand of you. And he 
 must die because of Lady May Davenant. Well, I can 
 follow him.' 
 
 ' Rupert,' she said once more, in the gentlest tones she 
 had ever used towards him, ' look at me.' The subdued 
 tenderness effected more than a torrent of eloquence would
 
 2 S8 THE NEW ANTIGONE PAST III 
 
 have done. He stopped in the midst of 1 1 Is wild words 
 and fixed his (.yes on Hippolyta's grief-stained face. ' Vou 
 arc suffering,' he said more quietly. 
 
 She put her hand to her heart. 'Were it not for reso- 
 lution,' she said, '1 should be dying. Do you believe that 
 a woman can give up all that I have given up and not feel 
 
 it? 1 might rave, like you, if 1 thought only of myself. 
 It is my fault, — mine, I confess it before God and man. 
 The.se deaths, these suicides, these divisions of heart from 
 heart, I did it all, unclean as I am. But help me, Rupert, 
 to make amends. Ivor, my brother Ivor, must die. lic- 
 it so. I surrender him to God. He is innocent. Ik- 
 can afford to die. But you must live. Lady May shall 
 not lose her soul for me. Help me. help me to set these 
 things right. Be patient, it is all I ask. And when Lady- 
 May relents, accept her affection. If you do not, Rupert,' 
 she continued sorrowfully, ' my punishment will be greater 
 than I can bear. It will kill me. Have you no compassion 
 for Hippolyta?' 
 
 She could speak no more. But Rupert was coming to 
 himself, and he began to see the character of the woman 
 who, if she had sinned, was nobly repentant, in the divine- 
 light which shone round it. Rising from his seat with a 
 sudden motion, and passing his hand over his forehead as 
 though to brush away the illusions which had clouded his 
 fancy, he said, taking her hand, — nor did she refuse it, — 
 ' Count on me in life and death. You have brought the 
 true Rupert Glanville from the tomb. I will wait for you.' 
 
 ' No ; come with me,' she said. And they went down to 
 the river side. 
 
 Several boats were lying there, into one of which Hippo- 
 lyta entered, signing to Rupert that he should take the 
 oars. He did so, not reluctantly, for he had now deter- 
 mined that he would obey, at all costs, whatever directions 
 she should give. But a great wonder came upon him 
 when she bade him row towards the Fonda d'Oro. He 
 was not aware of Lady May's departure. Tom Davenant, 
 standing at an upper window, saw them push off from 
 shore; but, mindful of Ilippolyta's command, made no 
 attempt to follow them. Rupert, pulling a silent stroke,
 
 chap, xxxvi THE FURIES APPEASED 289 
 
 thought of the one occasion, and one only, on which he 
 had conveyed Hippolyta over a broad sheet of water like 
 this, after their first meeting in the Hermitage. They had 
 been as voiceless and recollected then, her eyes directed 
 towards the bank, and eager to gain it. When they touched 
 land, at the side of the hotel, he thought it was time to ask 
 the reason of their crossing ; but she did not reply. She 
 left him to fasten the boat ; put a question to the hotel- 
 keeper who had come forth to welcome them, and, on 
 hearing his answer, motioned Rupert to enter the house, 
 which he did in the same state of amazement as before. 
 She pushed a door open. It was the dining-room. ' Stay 
 here,' she said, 'and, above all, keep perfectly quiet until I 
 send to you.' 
 
 'Will it be long?' he inquired. 
 
 She shook her head. ' I cannot say,' was her answer ; 
 ' but wait.' She went noiselessly upstairs. 
 
 Again she was venturing a hazardous experiment. She 
 tapped at Lady May's door. There seemed to be no 
 answer, but without hesitation she opened and went in. 
 The woman she sought was lying on the coarse sofa which 
 the place afforded as a couch, half-asleep, and sprang up at 
 her entrance. When she saw Colonel Valence's daughter, 
 she pointed imperiously to the door. ' How came you in, 
 Miss Valence?' she said in her haughtiest tones; 'you are 
 intruding. Have the goodness to leave me.' 
 
 'When I have done what I came for,' answered her 
 visitor firmly, taking no offence at the rudeness of her 
 reception. 
 
 ' And pray what is that ? The sooner you explain, the 
 sooner will your visit be over.' 
 
 Hippolyta coloured. ' You are very cruel,' she said : 
 ' what have I done to you ? I never wronged you.' 
 
 'What, never wronged me!' exclaimed Lady May; 
 You take my husband's love, you drive me to death, and 
 — it is no wrong ! You desolate a home, you come to 
 gloat over the work of your hands, but still you do not 
 wrong me ! I wrong myself to talk with Mr. Glanville's 
 discarded concubine. Go to him. He may take you 
 back again. It will save you from the streets, which would 
 
 vol. n. u
 
 2 yo THE NEW ANTIGONE PAW in 
 
 be your other alternative. But leave me, Your pretence 
 
 is an insult.' 
 
 Shame burnt in her victim's face, crimson, hectic. Hot 
 tears rained from her eyes, and the heart of Hippolyta 
 seemed almost broken as she sobbed aloud. Rupert's 
 step made itself audible in the room below. He could 
 not help fancying that a quarrel was going on somewhere 
 in the house, though he knew not where ; and it made 
 him uneasy. He began to walk up and down. At the 
 sound Hippolyta stilled her weeping. She was afraid he 
 would come up. It was no time to think of herself. But 
 she understood the character of Lady May, and she replied 
 deliberately, ' If I were a thousand times what you call me, 
 and what I am, you would still be in the wrong, and not I. 
 Was it your husband that I loved or followed ? Did Rupert 
 Glanville love you first ? And when I had once forsaken 
 him, did I, by word or token, acquaint him with my ex- 
 istence till the day he came upon me in the church of San 
 Lucar ? I have sinned against all women, but not against 
 you, Lady May. I ask pardon of the womanhood I have 
 stained and shamed, but not of you. When I feared you 
 were dying, I asked your forgiveness ; the disaster, though 
 not my fault, was yet by my occasion. Now you are 
 saved ; my brother has given his life for yours, and you 
 owe me thanks, not pardon.' 
 
 ' Your brother ! I did not know you had one,' said 
 Lady May, feeling unexpectedly weak where she had 
 thought to be irresistible. It is the way with these proud 
 natures. They must be attacked in front if you would 
 conquer them. May Davenant was accustomed to follow 
 her own will, to think ever}' one weak compared with herself, 
 and to take their compliance for granted. Even Rupert, 
 since their marriage, had been as yielding as the rest. 
 
 But Hippolyta had not studied her rival in vain. She 
 knew that she must strike hard. And she went on, 'Yes, 
 my brother, and your cousin, — Ivor Mardol, as he is called, 
 — but he is the son of Lady Alice, with the blood of 
 Davenant in his veins. He is dying, and you are saved. 
 What will you do for him? Will you be ungrateful and 
 unjust?'
 
 ohap. xxxvi THE FURIES APPEASED 291 
 
 'But what can I do?' replied May, with a strange 
 feeling of perplexity, sitting down on the sofa from which 
 she had risen. There was a soft expression in Hippolyta's 
 looks which troubled her. ' What can I do ?' she repeated. 
 
 ' You can make your husband happy,' said Ivor's sister ; 
 'dear Lady May, try to understand. You have a noble 
 heart ; you have not wronged me or any one. It is only 
 that you think I stand between you and Rupert. But I 
 do not. I have given him up,' her voice trembled, sank, 
 and grew firm again, as she continued, ' Is it not three 
 years since I left him ? A few weeks hence and I shall be 
 sailing for India. What can prevent you from being happy 
 as before. Ivor asks it. I ask it. See, I kneel to you.' 
 
 She was there, kneeling on the ground, an image of 
 humble supplication. May did not know what to say or 
 think. Was this the woman she had insulted ? She was 
 overcome; she had no argument left. Putting her arms 
 round Hippolyta, with a burst of weeping, she whispered 
 faintly, as she bent down her face to the other, ' But he 
 will always love you.' 
 
 ' No, no,' answered the noble creature, making a supreme 
 act of self-renunciation ; 'it is over, and the Hippolyta 
 Valence he cared for is dead and buried. When you leave 
 this place, it will be like a dream. I shall die in the East ; 
 that is in my vow.' 
 
 She rose, but continued longer in the same strain, plead- 
 ing as if for her own soul. The scales fell from May 
 Davenant's eyes; and in the moment that she was humbled 
 she saw light ' We have both sinned,' she said at last, 
 ' but my sin was the greater. Advise me what to do. Shall 
 I send for Rupert ? Perhaps he will not come. Are there 
 any words that will bring him, after the message I sent 
 last night ? ' 
 
 ' He is here,' replied Hippolyta in a soft whisper. 
 
 Lady May flushed with delight. ' Oh, tell him to come,' 
 she cried. 
 
 ' Nay,' said Hippolyta, smiling mournfully, ' it is the 
 wife's duty to seek the husband. He is lord and master. 
 Come, he is downstairs.' She took Lady May by the hand. 
 They descended the stairs with beating hearts, united, yet
 
 292 THE NEW ANTIGONE i-aut m 
 
 how different from one another ! "When they reached the 
 door of the dining-room, Hippolyta opened it, and pushing 
 Lady May gently forward, said, 'Go in, and speak as your 
 heart bids you.' 
 
 She saw the door close, and grasping her crucifix 
 tightly, went down to the boat. Lady May, on entering 
 and seeing Rupert, threw herself into his arms. They held 
 one another fast for a long while without speaking. It 
 seemed as if a cloud had melted and left them face to face 
 and soul to soul. As they stood in that silent embrace, the 
 sound of plashing oars broke upon them. They looked 
 out, still holding one another, and beheld the veiled figure 
 in the boat, which one of the hotel servants was rowing to 
 San Lucar. Hippolyta's face was turned from them and 
 her head bent The great solemn light seemed to move 
 with her. It was almost noon. 
 
 ' She is an angel,' said Rupert devoutly. And he told 
 how she had come to him and brought him to the Fonda 
 d'Oro. 
 
 ' She has saved me as well as you,' answered Lady May. 
 'Is she not the noblest woman on earth?' 
 
 ' She is in heaven,' he murmured. And his wife under- 
 stood now what was meant by the feeling that transcended 
 love, of which she had dreamt long ago in the picture- 
 gallery at Trelingham. The love was her own. The some- 
 thing higher had been given to Hippolyta. 
 
 They spent the evening in quiet, restored to one 
 another. Lord Trelingham, exhausted by all he had gone 
 through, and unable to comprehend his daughter's abrupt 
 changes of disposition, looked on, mildly thankful that hus- 
 band and wife were again as he had seen them before coming 
 to San Lucar. Late at night Tom Davenant came in. He 
 had been informed of the reconciliation by Hippolyta, 
 learning at the same time, to his great amaze, the relation 
 in which they all stood to Ivor. He begged earnestly for 
 admittance to his friend's presence. He could not be 
 refused ; and the meeting was another draught of happi- 
 ness to the agonised patient, whose sufferings increased 
 from hour to hour, but whose joy could not be diminished. 
 Tom sat by him till the clock struck ten. He then be- 

 
 chap, xxxvi THE FURIES APPEASED 293 
 
 thought himself of the party at the Fonda d'Oro, who would 
 be waiting for intelligence from the sick chamber; and he 
 rowed across in the moonlight. By that time Lord Trel- 
 ingham had learnt nearly all that they could tell him of 
 Ivor's life and parentage. It was an utter surprise, but an 
 equal pleasure. He was ready to love the young man, for 
 whom he had conceived a high esteem at Trelingham ; and 
 his daughter's preserver could not be too near or too dear 
 to him. The news which Tom brought of his sufferings 
 threw a gloom over their lately-restored happiness. He 
 left them, for he would not stay from Ivor a moment more 
 than he could help. Lady May began to dread the Nemesis 
 of her ill deeds which seemed to threaten ; her nerves 
 were shattered by continual emotion ; she passed a feverish 
 night, and could not rise next morning. 
 
 It was Sunday. A cloudless tranquil sky overhead, the 
 water rippling on the lake, the church bells sounding from 
 Sepulveda and San Lucar, the gardens and the cornfields 
 rejoicing together, made a world in which sorrow might 
 seem to have no place. Rupert tended Lady May with the 
 exceeding gentleness he knew how to use ; Lord Treling- 
 ham came and went, said little, but was happy. Several 
 times they cast anxious glances towards the convent. What 
 was going on within its walls ? But the afternoon passed, 
 and they had no tidings. Was their friend better ? Why 
 did not Tom Davenant come ? Rupert and May knew 
 well, though they could not whisper it, that Hippolyta 
 would come no more. 
 
 As the lovely sunset was flushing the waters and irradi- 
 ating height and hollow, they saw a boat traversing the 
 stream. When it touched, a messenger sprang out and ran 
 up to them where they sat in the verandah. They must 
 come at once. Ivor Mardol was dying.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 NOT DEATH BUT LOVE 
 
 He looked up as they entered, knew them, and smiled, 
 but could not speak. For many hours the pain had been 
 intense ; and though drenched with narcotics, he lay wide 
 awake and conscious. Now he was lying supported with 
 pillows on the low bed, his head resting in Colonel 
 Valence's arms. It gave him a little relief to stay in this 
 position. His father neither moved nor spoke, though on 
 seeing Lord Trelingham a mist came over his eyes, and his 
 lips quivered. Hippolyta, who was seated on the other 
 side of the bed, came round and took the Earl's hand ; 
 she seemed not to observe the two that accompanied him. 
 But when Lady May took the hand that was disengaged 
 and pressed it warmly, she smiled without raising her eyes. 
 Tom Davenant stood at the foot of the bed. He had a 
 tired expression, not having slept the previous night and 
 being more affected than he was aware at the sight of 
 Ivor's sufferings. The chaplain, Don Ramiro, was likewise 
 in the room, but they scarcely observed his presence, and 
 he did not come forward. 
 
 'Give me something to drink,' said Ivor, 'not a sleep- 
 ing-draught' Hippolyta moistened his lips. 'Now let 
 me sit up,' he went on, clenching his fingers like a man 
 who is intent on some difficult task. The pillows were re- 
 arranged. It was slow work, for the least movement caused 
 him exquisite agony. ' I wish I had more time,' he said, 
 and he smiled a little, fixing his gaze, which was bright and 
 clear, on Colonel Valence. 'Father,' he continued, 'will 
 you not tell them who I am ? Do they all know ?'
 
 chap, xxxvn NOT DEATH BUT LOVE 295 
 
 'Too late, too late,' said his father; and then, turning to 
 the Earl, ' Davenant, this is Alice's child. You know. 
 He is the last, the youngest. His two sisters died when 
 they were children, before he was born. Alice, — she is 
 dead too. They are all gone, and Ivor did not know I 
 was his father. I would never tell him. I did not want 
 him to be a Davenant, to go back to his mother's people 
 and their ways. But all is at an end.' 
 
 Lord Trelingham put forth a trembling hand. ' Can we 
 be friends, Valence ?' he said ; ' it is forty-four years since 
 we met. And Alice would wish us to forgive one another, 
 for her child's sake.' 
 
 Colonel Valence touched the hand held out to him. 
 ' Forty -four years!' he repeated, 'and Alice died when 
 Ivor was born. He is not thirty-four. It is young to die, 
 isn't it, my boy?' turning to his son. 
 
 ' But I have lived,' was the contented answer. ' And I 
 have all that I love around me. What more do I want ? — 
 Ah, there is one thing.' A shade of sadness came over his 
 countenance. 
 
 ' What is it ?' said Colonel Valence, stooping to kiss him. 
 ' I will do it. Only speak.' 
 
 The dying eyes, still bright, glanced towards Rupert. 
 ' Do you remember,' said Ivor, trying not to seem over- 
 agitated, 'the night you and I met my father in Denzil 
 Lane?' 
 
 Rupert looked at him in surprise. ' Yes, Ivor,' he said ; 
 'what of it?' 
 
 ' I want father — to promise me — to be on my side, not 
 on the other.' The words were slow in coming. Colonel 
 Valence was silent. ' Promise me,' pleaded his son; ' I shall 
 not die happy unless you promise.' The others, except 
 Rupert, thought he was wandering. 
 
 'Ivor,' said the old man, with an evident struggle to 
 keep down his feelings, ' do you want me to renounce the 
 Revolution?' 
 
 ' Oh no, it is not the Revolution I want you to renounce,' 
 answered his son ; ' only the counterfeit — the violence, the 
 shedding blood for blood.' His voice failed him. Again 
 Hippolyta moistened his lips ; she stroked his cheek and
 
 2o6 THE NEW ANTIGONE part in 
 
 smiled at him. The • med to give him coura 
 
 • You know, lather,' he said, his strength returning as it 
 sometimes will at the last, and his accents growing clear, 
 'when 1 was a boy you gave me to Mr. Mardol; and he 
 taught me to have a feeling for even- one, high as well as 
 low. He believed in the victory of right — and you did 
 once.' 
 
 ' It was when Alice lived,' murmured his father, ' not 
 after I lost her. Forty years ago — when I was young* I 
 than you — I believed that all would come right ; that the 
 world was made right. But my life is a ruin.' 
 
 1 No, no,' cried Ivor ; ' the old creed was the true one, 
 when you believed in life and love. See, father, here is 
 iove. There will be life too. These are shadows. Some- 
 where there is the reality. Have I not overcome death ?' 
 His face glowed, and he saw Lady May looking at him. 
 
 • Stand on my side, father. Trust in the good that comes 
 out of suffering, of martyrdom, if you will. But do not 
 deny the hope in which you had me brought up ; do 
 not harden your heart. It was always loving, I know. 
 Hippolyta knows.' 
 
 ' Listen to Ivor, father,' she said tremulously. 
 
 He looked long at them both. ' I will,' he said, and 
 the tears ran down his cheeks. 
 
 ' Now let me die,' said Ivor, sinking back. ' I did not 
 think death could be so sweet. Rupert, good-bye. Tom, 
 my dear fellow, Rupert will be your friend instead of me. 
 
 I was very fond of you. And Lady May ' She was 
 
 weeping silently. He closed his eyes and lay still. They 
 waited for the coming of death, voiceless, recollected, as 
 when a great storm is gathering in the distance. Not a leaf 
 stirred at the window ; the sunset light was streaming in. 
 But there remained something else. He called Rupert 
 faintly. 'When you go home,' he said, 'search in my 
 desk. You will find' — how slowly the words drop from 
 dying lips! — 'find pages I have written — a diary. There 
 is a secret in them. Read, but do not tell any one.' Rupert 
 whispered assent. Another pause. ' May was my cousin,' 
 his voice murmured more faintly, and a smile lit up the 
 darkling eyes. 'May — Hippolyta — remember ' The
 
 chap, xxxvii NOT DEATH BUT LOVE 297 
 
 voice failed altogether. He was gone. A great calm lay 
 on the dead face. 
 
 t • • • • 
 
 They buried him outside the convent walls, in a sheltered 
 nook by the stream. It was unconsecrated ground, and 
 there was no burial service. ' Was your brother a Christian ? ' 
 inquired Don Ramiro, when Hippolyta told him a little 
 of their story, and asked what should be done. ' He was 
 never baptized,' she said. ' Then he cannot lie in conse- 
 crated soil,' replied the priest. 'Never mind,' she said 
 absently. He thought she was grieving over it, and he 
 added with the kindness which was a part of him — for he 
 was a feeling man — 'But you need not distress yourself 
 so much ; all the land is consecrated ; wherever he lies will 
 be holy ground ; it is la tierra de Maria Santisima, this 
 Andalusia of ours.' She smiled and said nothing. She 
 had no trouble on that account. 
 
 Another grave may be seen near Ivor's, which was dug 
 only a few weeks after he had been laid to rest It is that 
 of Lord Trelingham. The shock of that terrible moment 
 when he beheld his daughter flinging herself into the lake, 
 proved more than his enfeebled frame could bear. One 
 morning when he was called he did not answer. They 
 entered his room ; he was dead. The heart had stopped 
 beating many hours, and his limbs were cold. 
 
 On the day of the funeral, when the clergyman sum- 
 moned from Seville had read over the Earl of Trelingham 
 that solemn service, musical and heart-subduing, which the 
 Liturgy of the English Church has consecrated to the dead, 
 Hippolyta sent for May and Rupert. They came in their 
 deep mourning, which vied in colour with the religious habit 
 she wore. Standing in the guest-room she said to them, 
 ' You are leaving San Lucar, and I am setting out for India. 
 We shall never meet again, until they come back to us ' — 
 she pointed towards the sheltered nook where the nightin- 
 gales were singing, and the scattered rays of sunlight making 
 their way in among the leaves. ' Never again,' she said. ' I 
 have only one thing to ask. Rupert, you remember Annie 
 Dauris.' He assented silently, and she continued, 'Annie 
 Dauris was taken, and I am left ; but God's mercies are
 
 2-;8 THi \NTIGONE paix in 
 
 infinite. What I had to say was this. Take care of her 
 father and the children when you go home. Their mother 
 died while I was at the convent. For my sake be good to 
 Willie and Charlie; they are loving boys. Charlie has a 
 talent for drawing. Let him be with you in the studio. 
 That is all.' She held out her hands to both of them, gave 
 them one last look of farewell, and went out of the room. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 The new Earl of Trelingham does not live at the Court. 
 It is shown to visitors, and the frescoes of the Great Hall 
 have won universal admiration, and will handdown the artist's 
 name to a late posterity. But since their return to England 
 Tom Davenant is much with Rupert and his cousin. I 
 fancy he will sooner or later accept the devotion of the 
 Countess Lutenieff, and that Karina's one sincere and 
 enduring affection will meet with its reward. 
 
 Lady May is an artist's wife, and seems to have forgotten 
 that she was once an Earl's daughter. She is happy. 
 Rupert's genius, chastened and glorified, promises to achieve 
 greater things than ever ; but he has deep thoughts which 
 he does not share with any one. 
 
 Colonel Valence, reconciled to Lord Trelingham, re- 
 turned after his death to Falside, and lives there a lonely 
 man, but not altogether unhappy. He spends many hours 
 near Lady Alice's tomb in the gray old churchyard by the 
 sea, and they bring him strange thoughts. Faith ? Ah no, 
 he does not believe yet in divine realities, but in his ears 
 the Percy motto, Esperance, seems often ringing. Hippolyta 
 writes to him from the Far East, where she is fulfilling her 
 vow. 
 
 Looking in at Rupert's studio one afternoon, the Duke 
 of Adullam found him absorbed in Ivor's diary, with the 
 picture of Hippolyta lying before him. Charlie Dauris, 
 seated at the farther end of the room, was drawing and did 
 not look up or attend to the conversation which ensued. 
 The Duke recognised Ivor's handwriting. He asked about 
 the portrait, and Rupert, who remembered the familiar 
 interchange of thought which had passed between them on 
 a certain evening, told him how both portrait and diary had 
 been discovered in a desk at Grafton Place. 'Ah,' replied
 
 chap, xxxvn NOT DEATH BUT LOVE 299 
 
 the Duke, with a peculiar expression of countenance, ' it is 
 a pitiable story. You have lost the noblest friend, the most 
 enchanting mistress, that ever a man had. Will you not 
 join us now ? You know what I mean ; the doors of the 
 smoking-room are open. A more melancholy experience 
 than yours it is impossible to conceive.' 
 
 Rupert smiled gravely and shook his head. ' There is 
 no sadness in the story,' he replied, ' as you imagine. It 
 is something higher and better than sadness. I seem to 
 apprehend its meaning, — not all, but so much that it leaves 
 the stars shining in heaven. May and I never speak of 
 Ivor or Hippolyta, but their memory is to us a religion. 
 How should we have known true affection but for them ? 
 Till that day at San Lucar she cared for me in the 
 passionate way that brings neither happiness nor calm. 
 And I hardly cared for her at all ; my love had on it 
 the shadow of a felt bereavement, and was faint, phan- 
 tasmal rather than a living thing. Now the stars look down 
 out of their serene heaven, the flowers bloom at our feet. 
 Call on Lady May, and watch the delight she has in our 
 first child. See,' he went on, pointing across the studio, 
 ' there is the boy's portrait, with his mother's eyes and 
 smile.' 
 
 It was a lovely sketch, the cherub in the dawn of exist- 
 ence, glowing with infantine joy ; fair-haired, dark-eyed, 
 rosy. He seemed to look out on the future as if it were a 
 sunlit prospect, with hope and laughter on his murmuring 
 lips. 
 
 'Ah !' said the Duke, while he fixed his searching gaze on 
 the picture ; ' you are right. Do not come to us. Your 
 spirit has deepened, it has been touched to the finest issues. 
 I see that the memory of the past, the fire you have both 
 come through, has made for you a new life and a true mar- 
 riage. Your Hippolyta, your Ivor, have saved you from 
 losing the one thing that men like my friends — that I — 
 have lost for ever. But that one thing, I suspect, is the 
 secret of existence, let the world change as it will.' 
 
 ' And what is it ?' inquired the artist. 
 
 'Can you doubt?' said the Duke of Adullam, his proud 
 lips trembling a little and a slight blush overspreading his
 
 3 oo THE NEW ANTIGONE r.\ui in 
 
 features ; ' you that find it in the stars of heaven and the 
 Bowers that spring up from the earth? What can it be, 
 but love?' 
 
 A tender light came into Rupert's eyes. The sound of 
 a carriage was heard outside, and voices at the door. 
 
 'Who is it?' said the Duke. 
 
 It was Lady May, leading her child by the hand. They 
 had come to pay a visit to his lather's studio. 
 
 
 THE END 
 
 PrinUdby R. & R. Clark, Edinbut^h 
 
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